Jean-Jacques Lebel
Encyclopedia
Jean-Jacques Lebel is a French artist, poet, poetry publisher, political activist and scholar born in Paris in 1936. He is known primarily for his work with Happening
s, and as an art theory writer and art curator
. He is the son of Robert Lebel, art critic and friend of Marcel Duchamp
.
, Italy. After a brief period of time with Surrealists, Lebel exhibited in Milan
and Paris
, and then went on to exhibit at various museums and galeries around the world. He has regularly collaborated with artist and writer Arnaud Labelle-Rojoux.
Beginning in 1955, Lebel published a poetry journal called Front Unique and organized various nomadic poetry festivals, such as La Libre Expression (Free Expression) in 1964 and Polyphonix in 1979. In the 1960s, Lebel translated into French and published various work by William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg
, Michael McClure
, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
and Gregory Corso
.
In 1960, Lebel oversaw and partook in the first European Happening
L'enterrement de la Chose in Venice
. For his performance there - called Happening Funeral Ceremony of the Anti-Process - Lebel invited the audience to attend a ceremony in formal dress. In a decorated room within a grand residence, a draped 'cadaver' rested on a plinth which was then ritually stabbed by an 'executioner' while a 'service' was read consisting of extracts from the French décadent writer Joris-Karl Huysmans
and le Marquis de Sade
. Then pall-bearers carried the coffin out into a gondola and the 'body' - which was in fact a mechanical sculpture by Jean Tinguely
- was ceremonially slid into the canal.
Lebel published the first critical essay in French on the Happening movements throughout the world, citing the 1920 Dada-Messe (First International Dada
Fair) as the key precedent of the modern happening in Europe. After this, he produced over 70 Happenings, performances and actions on numerous continents, including Pour conjurer l'esprit de catastrophe (1962), Déchirex (1965) and 120 minutes dédiées au divin marquis (1966). In 1967 he staged in Gassin
at the Festival de la Libre Expression Pablo Picasso
's 1941 surrealist theatrical farce in six acts Le Désir attrapé par la queue (Desire Caught by the Tail).
In 1968, Lebel took part in the activities of Mouvement du 22-mars
, followed by Noir et Rouge, an anarchist group, and the Socialist splinter group Informations et Correspondences Ouvrières. Lebel also followed the philosophical teachings of Giles Deleuze at Faculty de Vincennes at Paris 8 University. 1980 Lebel organized a Performance Festival at the ARC - Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris, amongst others with Harry de Kroon, Julien Blaine, Joel Hubaut and Barbara Heinisch. With François Pain
he produced the 90 minute long Monument à Félix Guattari, le film and in 1994 he installed a large assemblage
entitled Monument à Félix Guattari
in the Forum of the Centre Pompidou.
Since 2001 he has frequently exhibited his Manifestation Itinérante and his digital art
morphing
animation Reliquaire pour un culte de Vénus that is based on the concept of vénusté as put forward by Pierre Klossowski
.
In 2001, he was the guest curator at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
of the erotic work of Pablo Picasso
called Picasso Erotique and appeared on the Charlie Rose
show. The exhibition traveled to the Museu Picasso
in Barcelona and Galerie nationale du jeu de paume
in Paris. A book entitled Picasso Erotique was produced by Prestel Publishing in 2001 as a result of the show. This book contains texts by Lebel, Pablo Picasso, Annie Le Brun, Pascal Quignard
, Patrick Roegiers and Malen Gual.
In 2009 La Maison Rouge
in Paris presented all facets of Lebel's work (artist, exhibition curator, writer, performer, and art festival organizer) in an exhibition entitled Jean-Jacques Lebel, Soulvements. The exhibition was divided into the following themes: Happenings, Insubordination
, Poetry
, Hallucination
, Eros
, Dada
, War
and the Rhizome
- and was illustrated with works of primitive art, works by anonymous artists and others such as Johann Heinrich Füssli, Giuseppe Arcimboldo
, Louise Michel
, Fourier
, Ravachol
, Guillaume Apollinaire
, Marcel Duchamp
, Pablo Picasso
, Otto Dix
, George Grosz
, André Breton
, Francis Picabia
, Antonin Artaud
, Victor Brauner
, Bernard Heidsieck
, Erró
, Antonio Saura
, and Peter Saul
. Some three hundred works in all. The show curator was Jean de Loisy.
Happening
A happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere , are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience...
s, and as an art theory writer and art curator
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
. He is the son of Robert Lebel, art critic and friend of Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
.
Life and work
Lebel had his first exhibition in 1955 at Galleria Numero in FlorenceFlorence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, Italy. After a brief period of time with Surrealists, Lebel exhibited in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and then went on to exhibit at various museums and galeries around the world. He has regularly collaborated with artist and writer Arnaud Labelle-Rojoux.
Beginning in 1955, Lebel published a poetry journal called Front Unique and organized various nomadic poetry festivals, such as La Libre Expression (Free Expression) in 1964 and Polyphonix in 1979. In the 1960s, Lebel translated into French and published various work by William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, Michael McClure
Michael McClure
Michael McClure is an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets who read at the famous San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955 rendered in barely fictionalized terms in Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums...
, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers...
and Gregory Corso
Gregory Corso
Gregory Nunzio Corso was an American poet, youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers...
.
In 1960, Lebel oversaw and partook in the first European Happening
Happening
A happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere , are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience...
L'enterrement de la Chose in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
. For his performance there - called Happening Funeral Ceremony of the Anti-Process - Lebel invited the audience to attend a ceremony in formal dress. In a decorated room within a grand residence, a draped 'cadaver' rested on a plinth which was then ritually stabbed by an 'executioner' while a 'service' was read consisting of extracts from the French décadent writer Joris-Karl Huysmans
Joris-Karl Huysmans
Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans was a French novelist who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans . He is most famous for the novel À rebours...
and le Marquis de Sade
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
. Then pall-bearers carried the coffin out into a gondola and the 'body' - which was in fact a mechanical sculpture by Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...
- was ceremonially slid into the canal.
Lebel published the first critical essay in French on the Happening movements throughout the world, citing the 1920 Dada-Messe (First International Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
Fair) as the key precedent of the modern happening in Europe. After this, he produced over 70 Happenings, performances and actions on numerous continents, including Pour conjurer l'esprit de catastrophe (1962), Déchirex (1965) and 120 minutes dédiées au divin marquis (1966). In 1967 he staged in Gassin
Gassin
Gassin is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.It is located right next to Saint-Tropez. Perched high up on a rock, it is less than from the sea...
at the Festival de la Libre Expression Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
's 1941 surrealist theatrical farce in six acts Le Désir attrapé par la queue (Desire Caught by the Tail).
In 1968, Lebel took part in the activities of Mouvement du 22-mars
Movement of 22 March
The Mouvement du 22 Mars was a French student movement at the University of Nanterre founded on 22 March 1968, which carried out a prolonged occupation of the university's administration building...
, followed by Noir et Rouge, an anarchist group, and the Socialist splinter group Informations et Correspondences Ouvrières. Lebel also followed the philosophical teachings of Giles Deleuze at Faculty de Vincennes at Paris 8 University. 1980 Lebel organized a Performance Festival at the ARC - Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris, amongst others with Harry de Kroon, Julien Blaine, Joel Hubaut and Barbara Heinisch. With François Pain
François Pain
François Pain is a filmmaker based in Paris known for his specializing in films related to experiments in alternative psychiatry.-Life and work:...
he produced the 90 minute long Monument à Félix Guattari, le film and in 1994 he installed a large assemblage
Assemblage (art)
Assemblage is an artistic process. In the visual arts, it consists of making three-dimensional or two-dimensional artistic compositions by putting together found objects...
entitled Monument à Félix Guattari
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy...
in the Forum of the Centre Pompidou.
Since 2001 he has frequently exhibited his Manifestation Itinérante and his digital art
Digital art
Digital art is a general term for a range of artistic works and practices that use digital technology as an essential part of the creative and/or presentation process...
morphing
Morphing
Morphing is a special effect in motion pictures and animations that changes one image into another through a seamless transition. Most often it is used to depict one person turning into another through technological means or as part of a fantasy or surreal sequence. Traditionally such a depiction...
animation Reliquaire pour un culte de Vénus that is based on the concept of vénusté as put forward by Pierre Klossowski
Pierre Klossowski
Pierre Klossowski was a French writer, translator and artist. He was the eldest son of the artists Erich Klossowski and Baladine Klossowska, and his younger brother was the painter Balthus.-Life:...
.
In 2001, he was the guest curator at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is a major museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1860, making it Canada's oldest art institution, it moved to its current location in 1912 thanks to a large donation from businessman James Ross....
of the erotic work of Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
called Picasso Erotique and appeared on the Charlie Rose
Charlie Rose
Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...
show. The exhibition traveled to the Museu Picasso
Museu Picasso
The Museu Picasso in Barcelona, Spain, has one of the most extensive collections of artworks by the 20th century Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. This is one of the most popular and most visited museums in Barcelona. The museum is housed in five adjoining medieval palaces in Barcelona's La Ribera.The...
in Barcelona and Galerie nationale du jeu de paume
Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume
The Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume is a museum of contemporary art in the north-west corner of the Tuileries Gardens in Paris.The building was constructed in 1861 during the reign of Napoleon III...
in Paris. A book entitled Picasso Erotique was produced by Prestel Publishing in 2001 as a result of the show. This book contains texts by Lebel, Pablo Picasso, Annie Le Brun, Pascal Quignard
Pascal Quignard
Pascal Quignard is a French writer born in Verneuil-sur-Avre, Eure. In 2002 his novel Les Ombres errantes won the Prix Goncourt, France's top literary prize. Terrasse à Rome , received the French Academy prize in 2000...
, Patrick Roegiers and Malen Gual.
In 2009 La Maison Rouge
La Maison Rouge
La Maison Rouge is a contemporary art gallery in the Marais district of Paris.-History:Created by Antoine de Galbert, he opens first a gallery in Grenoble, than the Maison Rrouge close from Bastille, in Paris. The construction was the work of Amplitude Agency and of his architect Jean-Yves Clément,...
in Paris presented all facets of Lebel's work (artist, exhibition curator, writer, performer, and art festival organizer) in an exhibition entitled Jean-Jacques Lebel, Soulvements. The exhibition was divided into the following themes: Happenings, Insubordination
Insubordination
Insubordination is the act of willfully disobeying an authority. Refusing to perform an action that is unethical or illegal is not insubordination; neither is refusing to perform an action that is not within the scope of authority of the person issuing the order.Insubordination is typically a...
, Poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, Hallucination
Hallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
, Eros
Eros
Eros , in Greek mythology, was the Greek god of love. His Roman counterpart was Cupid . Some myths make him a primordial god, while in other myths, he is the son of Aphrodite....
, Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
, War
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
and the Rhizome
Rhizome
In botany and dendrology, a rhizome is a characteristically horizontal stem of a plant that is usually found underground, often sending out roots and shoots from its nodes...
- and was illustrated with works of primitive art, works by anonymous artists and others such as Johann Heinrich Füssli, Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Giuseppe Arcimboldo was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of such objects as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books – that is, he painted representations of these objects on the canvas arranged in such a way that the whole collection of...
, Louise Michel
Louise Michel
Louise Michel was a French anarchist, school teacher and medical worker. She often used the pseudonym Clémence and was also known as the red virgin of Montmartre...
, Fourier
Fourier
Fourier most commonly refers to Joseph Fourier , French mathematician and physicist, or the mathematics, physics, and engineering terms named in his honor for his work on the concepts underlying them:In mathematics:...
, Ravachol
Ravachol
François Claudius Koenigstein, known as Ravachol, , was a French anarchist. He was born 14 October 1859 at Saint-Chamond and died guillotined 11 July 1892 at Montbrison.-Biography:...
, Guillaume Apollinaire
Guillaume Apollinaire
Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....
, Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
, Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, Otto Dix
Otto Dix
Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of Weimar society and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz, he is widely considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit.-Early life and...
, George Grosz
George Grosz
Georg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
, André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
, Francis Picabia
Francis Picabia
Francis Picabia was a French painter, poet, and typographist, associated with both the Dada and Surrealist art movements.- Early life :...
, Antonin Artaud
Antonin Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, more well-known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...
, Victor Brauner
Victor Brauner
Victor Brauner was a Romanian Jewish painter of surrealistic images.-Early life:He was born in Piatra Neamţ, the son of a timber manufacturer who subsequently settled in Vienna with his family for a few years. It is there that young Victor attended elementary school...
, Bernard Heidsieck
Bernard Heidsieck
Bernard Heidsieck is a French sound poet.He is the former vice-president of the Banque Française du Commerce Extérieur in Paris and former president of the Commission Poésie at the Centre National du Livre....
, Erró
Erró
Erró is a postmodern artist. He studied art in Norway and in Italy, and has resided in Paris, Thailand and on the island of Formentera for most of his life...
, Antonio Saura
Antonio Saura
Antonio Saura was a Spanish artist and writer, one of the major post-war painters to emerge in Spain in the fifties whose work has marked several generations of artists and whose critical voice is often remembered.-Biography:He began painting and writing in 1947 in Madrid while suffering from...
, and Peter Saul
Peter Saul
PETER SAUL is an American painter. His work has connections with Pop Art, Surrealism,and Expressionism. His early use of pop culture cartoon references in the late 1950s and very early 1960s situates him as one of the few fathers of the Pop Art movement...
. Some three hundred works in all. The show curator was Jean de Loisy.
See also
- Anti-artAnti-artAnti-art is a loosely-used term applied to an array of concepts and attitudes that reject prior definitions of art and question art in general. Anti-art tends to conduct this questioning and rejection from the vantage point of art...
- FluxusFluxusFluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
- Gutai groupGutai groupThe Gutai group was an artistic movement and association of artists founded by Jiro Yoshihara in Japan in 1954...
- Art interventionArt interventionArt intervention is an interaction with a previously existing artwork, audience or venue/space. It has the auspice of conceptual art and is commonly a form of performance art. It is associated with the Viennese Actionists, the Dada movement and Neo-Dadaists...
- HappeningHappeningA happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere , are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience...
- Pop artPop artPop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
- Neo-DadaNeo-DadaNeo-Dada is a label applied primarily to audio and visual art that has similarities in method or intent to earlier Dada artwork. It is the foundation of Fluxus, Pop Art and Nouveau réalisme. Neo-Dada is exemplified by its use of modern materials, popular imagery, and absurdist contrast...
- Performance artPerformance artIn art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...