Montreal youth illustrator and caricaturist Jacques Goldstyn, better known by his pseudonym Boris, received the Artist for Peace prize (APLP) on Tuesday at the National School of Humor.
Chance or coincidence? The caricature that Jacques Goldstyn published in the daily The Gazette this Tuesday features Ukrainian and Russian rescue workers gathered in Turkey, busy with the same task: saving lives.
“I thought it was very funny to represent Russians and Ukrainians throwing bombs at each other’s heads, but here they are going out of their way to save a grandmother, a little girl or a cat from the rubble… C is so absurd. It’s a bit of a fantasy, but it’s also the reality since around forty countries have been present in Turkey since the earthquake. »
ILLUSTRATION PROVIDED BY JACQUES GOLDSTYN
“Moved” to receive this prize, Jacques Goldstyn is delighted with this award, “which is a form of reward for the drawings that[il fait] “. “I like drawings that 10-year-olds can understand. I often meet young people in classes. I go there at least once a month, and they are turned on, they see human stupidity. »
It’s a pedagogical job, at the same time, I have fun doing that, I have fun. But you must have fallen into it when you were little. It doesn’t work on the remote control, that thing. It’s a sensitivity that you either have or you don’t have.
Jacques Goldstyn
“We have never celebrated a cartoonist or a press cartoonist, wrote the APLP in their press release, and yet, we owe this essential profession of artists the daily truth in politics, nothing less, because it is often its only form tolerated in our media. »
Jacques Goldstyn, influenced by the cartoonists Cabu, Siné or Bosc, defines himself as a pacifist. Moreover, his drawings and caricatures – apart from the newspapers The Gazette, Mauricie Gazette And L’Aut’Journal – are published by several organizations such as Amnesty International, Livres comme l’air and Échec à la guerre.
“For these organizations, I do it on a voluntary basis, so it really comes from the heart,” insists Goldstyn. It recalls the mission of the Échec à la guerre organization, founded in England in 1933 and represented by a white poppy. “There are of course military heroes, who are remembered with the red poppy, but the purpose of this organization is to remember civilians, who died during the war. People think we are against the military, which is not the case. I wear the red and white poppy, but I was seduced by this movement, Échec à la guerre, which denounces, among other things, the arms race. »
Some caricatures of Boris
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ILLUSTRATION PROVIDED BY JACQUES GOLDSTYN
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ILLUSTRATION PROVIDED BY JACQUES GOLDSTYN
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ILLUSTRATION PROVIDED BY JACQUES GOLDSTYN
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ILLUSTRATION PROVIDED BY JACQUES GOLDSTYN
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ILLUSTRATION PROVIDED BY JACQUES GOLDSTYN
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ILLUSTRATION PROVIDED BY JACQUES GOLDSTYN
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ILLUSTRATION PROVIDED BY JACQUES GOLDSTYN
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The fact remains that with the war waged by the Russians in Ukraine, we can rejoice – according to our convictions – at the existing weapons which currently allow the small country to defend itself… “Of course, an attacked country has the right to defend, and you have to fight against the tyrants. Even in a band like Échec à la guerre, there are dissensions, and that’s fine. I am 64 years old, I know that we must not be angelic, but for me, these people who have come from all over the world to help the Turkish population afflicted by the earthquake must guide us. Not Putins or Erdoğans…”
The one who always draws in the youth magazine the hustlersbut who also became known for his youth series van the inventor (Bayard), has always had this sensitivity for the absurdity of armed conflict. Even his album Azadah (La Pastèque), Governor General’s Prize in 2017, told the story of a young girl fleeing her country at war.
The rhetoric of war is easy to set in motion. We rely on people’s ignorance to make it move forward. You have to put grains of sand in this gear to make people think. Cartoons can have this effect, to alert consciences, to convey the message that one is not obliged to wage war on one’s neighbour, to invest such colossal sums in armaments.
Jacques Goldstyn
In addition to his drawings on war – and militarism in general – Jacques Goldstyn likes to dwell on subjects “that will last over time”. It evokes the environment, consumption, the GAFA. “The caricature of a minister, I find that incredibly boring, because two weeks later, we don’t even remember his name. I like subjects that can be considered ten years later. »
The APLP will take the opportunity to pay tribute to all the cartoonists, “the truest of editorialists”. “We will remember Pascal Élie and Berthio with particular emotion and we will pay tribute to the Chapleaus [qui a fait l’objet d’une exposition au musée McCord], André-Philippe Côté, Garnotte, who retired in 2020, Girerd, Godin, Banville, Rabagliati, Lafontaine, Phaneuf, Ygreck and the others. »
Since the awarding of the first Artist for Peace prize in 1989 to Daniel Lavoie, numerous artistic personalities have been rewarded, including Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, Chloé Ste-Marie, Samian, Florent and Stanley Vollant, Les 7 Doigts, Dan Bigras or Clowns Without Borders.