Jean-Jacques Lebel
Jean-Jacques Lebel is a visual artist, writer, editor and event creator. After a turbulent period with the Surrealists, in Venice in 1960 he created L’Enterrement de la Chose, the first European happening. He published the first critical essay in French on the worldwide happenings movement. Since then, he has produced over seventy happenings, performances and actions, alongside his pictorial, poetic and political activities. He worked with Oldenburg, Kaprow, Kudo, Erro, Carolee Schneemann, Yoko Ono, Pommereulle, Nam June Paik, Filliou and others. He translates into French and publishes William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Michael Mc Clure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso. In 1960/61, in Paris, Venice and Milan, he co-organized L’Anti-Procès, a collective demonstration against the Algerian War and torture, and in 1964, he invented the Festival de la Libre Expression at the American Center. In 1968, he took part in the activities of the “March 22nd Movement”, then the anarchist group “Noir et Rouge” and “Informations et Correspondances Ouvrières”. In 1979, he founded the Festival International Polyphonix, bringing together artists, poets, filmmakers and musicians for nomadic, autonomous events featuring direct poetry, concerts, art-action, exhibitions and more.
Monument to Félix Guattari, the film
by François Pain, based on an idea by Jean-Jacques Lebel (1995, 90min)
This film was shot in 1994/95, on the occasion of the exhibition Hors Limites, L’art de la Vie at the Centre Pompidou, in and in front of Jean-Jacques Lebel’s large multimedia machine entitled Monument à Felix Guattari. Actively participating in this collective work were a large number of philosophers, artists, psychiatrists, musicians, poets, friends and collaborators of Guattari. They include Raymond Bellour / Jacqueline Cahen / Daniel Caux / Pascale Criton / Mony Elkaim / Paolo Fabbri / Robert Fleck / Allen Ginsberg / Edouard Glissant / Ilan Halevy / Bernard Heidsieck / Joël Hubaut / Françoise Janicot / Allan Kaprow / Jean- Pierre Klein / Arnaud Labelle-Rojoux / Pierre Levy / Made in Eric / Valérie Marange / Ouzi Deckel / Christine Piot / Serge Pey / Jean-Claude Pollack / Jérôme Rothenberg / Oreste Scalzone / René Scherer / Danielle Sivadon. They evoke schizoanalysis, anti-psychiatry, political and social revolution, the three ecologies, art, philosophy, linguistics, the work of Félix Guattari with Gilles Deleuze… Included in the montage, numerous filmed interventions by Félix Guattari complete this rhizomatic film prefigured by the dream he himself describes in the Monument. Monument à Félix Guattari is J.-J. Lebel’s affectionate, militant, moving and collective tribute to the man who was his close friend, his comrade in arms and his fundamental ally.
