Description

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Combining a broad overview of Jean-Jacques Lebel's coming-of-age among Surrealists and his rupture with the movement, Laurel Jean Fredrickson focuses on two landmark happenings in this book: the first, "Funeral of the Thing of Tinguely" (1960), and the most scandalous, "120 Minutes dedicated to the Divine Marquis" (1966). This study illustrates the development and significance of French happenings in relation to cultural and political changes of the 1960s.

Research in Lebel's archives, and others like the Archives nationale d'outre-mer are indispensable in the telling of this extraordinary historical and theoretical narrative. It illuminates sensitive, often veiled dimensions of postwar French society, from torture during the Algerian War, to government censorship, to the sexual politics of nudity in art. This volume shows how Lebel synthesized the lessons of Dada and surrealism and 1960s experimentalism, electrified by political radicalism, to participate in shaping the erotics and forms of revolution in May 1968.

About the Author

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Laurel Jean Fredrickson is Assistant Professor of Art History at Southern Illinois University, USA. Her research explores the intersections of experimental art and politics in and since the 1960s, happenings and Fluxus, and transnational women artists from former French colonies and protectorates. She earned a PhD in Art History from Duke University, an MA in Art History from the University of Illinois at Chicago, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis, USA. Prior to studying art history, she practiced as an artist, exhibiting nationally and internationally, and taught studio art courses at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Columbia College in Chicago.