Jean-Jacques Lebel

In the 1960s, Lebel translated into French and published various work by William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso.

In a decorated room within a grand residence, a draped "cadaver" rested on a plinth which was then ritually stabbed by an "executioner" while a "service" was read consisting of extracts from the French décadent writer Joris-Karl Huysmans and le Marquis de Sade.

Then pall-bearers carried the coffin out into a gondola and the "body" - which was in fact a mechanical sculpture by Jean Tinguely - was ceremonially slid into the canal.

After this, he produced over 70 Happenings, performances and actions on numerous continents, including Pour conjurer l'esprit de catastrophe (1962), Déchirex (1965) and 120 minutes dédiées au divin marquis (1966).

Since 2001 he has frequently exhibited his Manifestation Itinérante and his digital art morphing animation Reliquaire pour un culte de Vénus that is based on the concept of vénusté as put forward by Pierre Klossowski.

This book contains texts by Lebel, Pablo Picasso, Annie Le Brun, Pascal Quignard, Patrick Roegiers and Malen Gual.

The exhibition was divided into the following themes: Happenings, Insubordination, Poetry, Hallucination, Eros, Dada, War and the Rhizome - and was illustrated with works of primitive art, works by anonymous artists and others such as Johann Heinrich Füssli, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Louise Michel, Charles Fourier, Ravachol, Guillaume Apollinaire, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Otto Dix, George Grosz, André Breton, Francis Picabia, Antonin Artaud, Victor Brauner, Bernard Heidsieck, Erró, Antonio Saura, and Peter Saul.