Belgian cartoonist Philippe Geluck has announced that his long-awaited museum dedicated to Le Chat will open in Ixelles in early 2028, after abandoning plans for an earlier site at Mont des Arts.
The Musée du Chat et de l'Art Rigolo will be housed in the former Demeuldre-Coché porcelain factory on Chaussée de Wavre, Geluck announced on Monday.
The museum will occupy 2,300 m² of the historic complex and will be financed entirely through private funds.
Its permanent collection will immerse visitors in Geluck's artistic universe, bringing together drawings, sketches, comic strips, paintings and sculptures, alongside archives from his work in radio and television.
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Temporary exhibitions will explore the work of prominent cartoonists, the place of cats throughout history and what the museum describes as "funny art".
The former porcelain factory dates back to the 1830s. It includes an exhibition hall built in 1874 and a shop dating from 1905, while several parts of the complex have been protected since 1997.
Belgian architect Francis Metzger will carry out the site's restoration.
A foundation will manage the museum, funded exclusively through private investment. Proceeds from sales of the monumental sculptures featured in Geluck's touring Le Chat déambule exhibition are among the sources financing the project, while the project seeks additional patrons and partners.
Geluck abandoned his original plans for a museum at Mont des Arts in April. The project had been developed with the Brussels-Capital Region since 2015.
The cartoonist said years of delays and a threefold increase in the share of the budget he would have had to finance between 2015 and 2026 had made the project economically unviable.
