Take that, Charlie Brown!

Une exposition sur la bande dessinée Peanuts à Londres.

Snoopy, Charlie Brown et leur bande, héros du comic-strip Peanuts, ont été les idoles d’un nombre incalculable d’enfants. Créé par Charles M. Schulz dans les années 1950, Peanuts a connu un succès planétaire, donnant lieu à de nombreuses adaptations. Aujourd’hui, la saga continue à inspirer les artistes, comme nous le montre l’exposition Good Grief, Charlie Brown!, visible à la Somerset House, à Londres, jusqu’en mars 2019.

Mel Brimfield is talking to her psychiatrist about a troubling childhood memory. “My father,” she relates, “would insist on eating his cornflakes one at a time on Christmas morning to delay the opening of the presents.” This recollection is contained in a speech bubble, one of many floating around an artwork she created called Mel Brimfield Is Nuts.

2. This intriguing work is the artist’s own response to Peanuts, the ostensibly cute cartoon strip drawn by Charles M Schulz from 1950 until his death in 2000. If there is a dark, complex side to Peanuts, Brimfield gets to the heart of it. Each bubble is uttered by the artist, her face lovingly rendered in Schulz’s style, and they all hover around the psychiatric booth from which the original strip’s appalling bossy-

boots Lucy van Pelt used to dispense advice for five cents a pop. But the booth is empty: all those Brimfields are talking to the wind.

MORE RELEVANT THAN EVER

3. Mel Brimfield Is Nuts is one of the darker artworks in Good Grief, Charlie Brown!, an exhibition celebrating Snoopy and the gang that is about to open at London’s Somerset House. “I’m worried about what people will expect,” says curator Claire Catterall. Any parent bringing their kids for a halfterm treat and a nose around the gift shop will get more than they bargained for. Among the show’s themes are existentialism, feminism, gender fluidity, race, politics, religion, happiness, war and psychiatry.”

4. Alongside original drawings are contemporary works by artists who have a passion for Peanuts, including the 2016 Turner prizewinner Helen Marten. Catterall believes Peanuts is as pertinent today as it was half a century ago. But you could say it is actually even more so. “I keep thinking about Peppermint Patty,” says Brimfield. “Her gender was fluid in a way that resonates now but that probably wasn’t in Schulz’s mind. It isn’t so much that she was a tomboy but little odd touches that Schulz maybe wasn’t aware of – like she wore middle-aged men’s sandals.”

Catterall believes Peanuts is as pertinent today as it was half a century ago.