Jean-Jacques Lebel: The Highest of All the Arts is Insurrection
Jonas Mekas: 365 Day Project
July 26−November 9, 2014
ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe
Lorenzstrasse 19
76135 Karlsruhe
Germany
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Jean-Jacques Lebel. The Highest of All the Arts is Insurrection
With his first exhibition in 1955 and his first Happening dating back to 1960, Jean-Jacques Lebel went on to establish his reputation as an international artist by contributing to a far-reaching dynamization of the most vital and refreshing counter-movement of our time—the artistic “Action.”
With his Festival de La libre Expression (from 1964 to 1968), and his Festival International Polyphonix (from 1979 on), in which thousands of artists, poets, philosophers, film-makers and musicians from all artistic directions participated, Lebel was an initiator of numerous artistic and political events. A Surrealist and personal friend of André Breton, he later translated and published the poets of the Beat Generation, such as Ginsberg, Corso, Burroughs, McClure et al., with whom he was intimately connected. As a friend of Marcel Duchamp, Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze, Lebel was an untiring fighter for the liberal ethics and social-subversive mission of all artists worthy of the title.
Curated by Bernhard Serexhe, the retrospective—encompassing around 2,000 square meters of exhibition space—brings together an outstanding selection of Jean-Jacques Lebel’s paintings, drawings and films alongside a complex of eight installations never before exhibited in this particular constellation.
Jonas Mekas. 365 Day Project
On show at the ZKM | Media Museum, the above exhibition coincides with a presentation of the 365 Day Project by Jonas Mekas. Filmmaker and poet Mekas, born in Lithuania in 1922 and resident of New York City since 1949, has been widely held as one of the most influential protagonists of experimental film since the 1960s.
In his “diaristic” films, videos, and installations, he frequently centers on the complex of biographical memory, simultaneously exploring the technological singularities of the various “mnemonic devices” he audaciously uses: classic 16mm film, digital video systems, internet-based video platforms and other forms of non-collective reception beyond the movie theater.
His 365 Day Project (2007), reflecting the course of a year in 365 short films, will be shown for the first time as a large-scale installation comprised of 52 screens at ZKM | Karlsruhe, accompanied by smaller works from 1966 until now. The exhibition is curated by Fabian Offert.
Press contact:
Dominka Szope
T +49 (0) 721/8100 1220 / F +49 (0) 721/8100 1139 / presse [at] zkm.de
