ARTIFICIAL HELLS

je participe, tu participes, il participe
The Living Theatre, nudity was a vehicle for sexual liberation and political
consciousness, but if The Living Theatre’s events could be toured
and repeated, Lebel’s tended to be more unstructured, improvisatory
and subject to change, because they were one- off performances. 74 Pour
conjurer l’esprit de catastrophe is an exception in this regard, since it was
remade in a film studio in February 1963 for two Italian film- makers
who wished to make a documentary about Happenings. 75 Taking place
over several hours, and using many of the same performers, the second
version contained similar references to current affairs: the most striking
image was of two nude female performers in a bathtub of blood wearing
Khrushchev and Kennedy masks, a clear allusion to the recent Cuban
Missile Crisis.
It is important to recognise the extent to which Lebel’s work presents
a specific understanding of viewer participation and the role of the artist.
In his tract Le Happening (1966), Lebel draws on a wide range of theorists,
including Freud, Bataille, Marcuse, Sade, Lévi- Strauss, Artaud and
Mauss. 76 As this selection might indicate, Lebel understood the artist’s
role in society to be one of moral transgressor, giving image and voice to
what is conventionally repressed. The artist is not so much a leader or
educator as a conduit for collective hopes and desires, which Lebel has
compared to a group mind or ‘egregore’. For this reason, his approach to
participation differs significantly from that of GRAV, for whom the
artist’s role was a simple question of organisation: producing situations
Jean-Jacques Lebel, 120 Minutes Dedicated to
the Divine Marquis, 1965. Shirley Goldfarb
descending from the balcony.
Jean-Jacques Lebel, 120 Minutes Dedicated to the
Divine Marquis, 1965. Cynthia washing herself.
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