Photos By Gail

While searching the Internet, London-based artist, Mark Leckey (b. 1964) came across an unusual photograph of a papier-mâché model of Felix the Cat surrounded by an array of strange machines. The photo was taken in 1928 at NBC’s Studios in New York, where the then-radio broadcaster was experimenting with the first television transmissions. Surrounding Felix – a cartoon character who first appeared in 1919 – was a primitive array of mechanical scanners that were used in the first attempt at transmitting pictures over the air waves.

Leckey became obsessed with Felix the Cat as a true pioneer of what we now know as the digital age and has devoted a number of works to this figure over the years. Towering over museum-goers when upright, this 31-foot long inflatable version is fit for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. For Leckey, Felix functions as a kind of avatar for the modern world, in which images and information are transmitted at a volume and speed that television broadcasting pioneers could not even imagine. As the artist has suggested: “I liked that it was two dimensional cartoon that became a three-dimensional doll, that then became this electronic entity that got broadcast out into the ether. For me, Felix symbolizes the way in which technology blends the real and virtual world.”

This Inflatable Felix (2014) began his journey installed in the Marciano Art Foundation’s lobby, and has now been transferred to its current resting place, cramped into a corner in the third floor Lodge Galleries.

Photographed at the Marciano Art Foundation in Los Angeles.