Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship - autonomous ...
Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship - autonomous ...
Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship - autonomous ...
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
notes to pages 98– 100<br />
respectively, <strong>and</strong> became a model for <strong>the</strong>ir idea <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> artist. See Kristine<br />
Stiles, ‘Jean- Jacques Lebel’s Phoenix <strong>and</strong> Ash’, in Jean- Jacques Lebel:<br />
Works from 1960– 1965, London: Mayor Gallery, 2003, pp. 3– 15.<br />
79 Lebel, interview with <strong>the</strong> author, Paris, 22 July 2010; see also Lebel, Le<br />
Happening, Paris: Les Lettres Nouvelles- Denoel, 1966, p. 22, note 1.<br />
80 Déchirex was <strong>the</strong> culmination <strong>of</strong> a week <strong>of</strong> events in <strong>the</strong> Second Festival<br />
<strong>of</strong> Free Expression, 17– 25 May 1965. It included nudity, live sex, spaghetti,<br />
a motorbike, <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> destruction <strong>of</strong> a Citroën car. Déchirex attracted<br />
considerable press coverage, both in France <strong>and</strong> internationally (including<br />
Time magazine), after <strong>the</strong> cultural organiser at <strong>the</strong> American Center<br />
was fi red <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> new director announced that Happenings would no<br />
longer be held at <strong>the</strong> venue. Fifty minutes <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> fi fty- fi ve- minute fi lm<br />
documentation <strong>of</strong> Déchirex were censored.<br />
81 This account is based on <strong>the</strong> one found in Lebel <strong>and</strong> Michaël (eds.),<br />
Happenings de Jean- Jacques Lebel, pp. 176– 86. Alyce Mahon also reports<br />
that <strong>the</strong> audience were <strong>of</strong>fered sugar cubes laced with LSD. See Mahon,<br />
‘Outrage aux Bonnes Moeurs: Jean- Jacques Lebel <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> Marquis de<br />
Sade’, in Jean- Jacques Lebel: Bilder, Skulpturen, Installationen, p. 106.<br />
82 Alyce Mahon argues that ‘<strong>the</strong> obscenity <strong>of</strong> this act was pr<strong>of</strong>ound’. One <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>the</strong> reasons that Cynthia had wanted to perform in <strong>the</strong> Happening was<br />
that she was not allowed to exhibit herself even in Pigalle. Ironically, <strong>the</strong><br />
event was halted by a bro<strong>the</strong>l owner, Madame Martini, who called <strong>the</strong><br />
police to complain about an ‘outrage aux bonnes moeurs’. See Mahon,<br />
‘Outrage aux Bonnes Moeurs’, p. 107.<br />
83 Reported in Lebel <strong>and</strong> Michaël (eds.), Happenings de Jean- Jacques Lebel,<br />
p. 185. It is important to note that Lebel’s fa<strong>the</strong>r was <strong>the</strong> fi rst biographer<br />
<strong>of</strong> Duchamp, <strong>and</strong> that Jean- Jacques grew up in New York surrounded by<br />
<strong>the</strong> Surrealist group in exile from Paris. He went to school with André<br />
Breton’s daughter Aube, was friends with Ernst, Duchamp <strong>and</strong> Benjamin<br />
Péret, <strong>and</strong> at <strong>the</strong> age <strong>of</strong> twenty- two exhibited in <strong>the</strong> Surrealist group’s<br />
late exhibition ‘Eros’ at <strong>the</strong> Galerie Daniel Cordier, Paris (1959).<br />
84 Susan Sontag, ‘Happenings: An <strong>Art</strong> <strong>of</strong> Radical Juxtaposition’, in Against<br />
Interpretation, London: Vintage Books, 2001, p. 265.<br />
85 See note 27 in Chapter 4.<br />
86 Jean- Paul Sartre in Le Nouvel Observateur, 18 January 1967. Quoted in<br />
Lebel <strong>and</strong> Michaël (eds.), Happenings de Jean- Jacques Lebel, p. 147, note<br />
32.<br />
87 Carolee Schneemann, in Nelcya Delanoë, Le Raspail Vert: L’American<br />
Center à Paris 1934– 1994, Paris: Seghers, 1994, p. 122, my translation.<br />
Schneemann notes that Man Ray, Max Ernst <strong>and</strong> Eugène Ionesco were in<br />
<strong>the</strong> audience.<br />
88 For a description <strong>and</strong> analysis <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> work, see Allan Kaprow, ‘A Happening<br />
in Paris’, in Jean- Jacques Lebel et. al, New Writers IV: Plays <strong>and</strong><br />
Happenings, London: Calder <strong>and</strong> Boyars, 1967, pp. 92– 100.<br />
310