Jean-Jacques Lebel's Digital Beat Generation Exhibition Opens Across Four European Institutions
Jean-Jacques Lebel, an artist and curator, has curated an exhibition dedicated to the Beat Generation, highlighting Allen Ginsberg. This exhibition is being launched concurrently at three locations: Centre Pompidou-Metz, Le Fresnoy in Rennes, and ZKM Karlsruhe. The digital showcase features eight screens displaying films, photographs, and manuscripts, including a four-hour interview with Ginsberg from 1990. Over 23 years, Lebel has shared this material, which has gained renewed attention due to interest in the Beats. ZKM has digitized 200 hours of visual content. The exhibition showcases rare manuscripts and films, such as the On the Road scroll. Lebel also points out the connections between the Beats and Paris, and he is currently exhibiting solo at Mamco Geneva and has two shows in Brussels.
Key facts
- Exhibition opens simultaneously at Centre Pompidou-Metz, Le Fresnoy, a venue in Rennes, and ZKM Karlsruhe.
- Entirely digitized: no physical works, eight screens plus sound-only space.
- Core is a 4-hour interview with Allen Ginsberg filmed in Paris in 1990 by Alain Jaubert and Alain Fleischer.
- Lebel spent 23 years trying to circulate the interview material.
- Laurent Le Bon proposed the four-venue format.
- ZKM digitized 200 hours of visual material.
- Includes rare films: Pull My Daisy (1959) by Robert Frank and Al Leslie.
- Features Burroughs and Brion Gysin at the Beat Hotel with the Dream Machine.
- Manuscript section includes the On the Road scroll.
- Ginsberg's photographs of friends are shown.
- Beat Hotel at 9 rue Gît-le-Cœur, Paris, housed Ginsberg, Burroughs, Corso, Gysin 1957-1959.
- Encounters in Paris with Michaux, Luca, Péret, Duchamp, Céline, Genet, Heidsieck, Guattari.
- Ginsberg began Kaddish at Le Select, wrote poem at Apollinaire's grave.
- Lebel draws parallel between Dada (WWI) and Beat Generation (Holocaust, Hiroshima).
- Exhibition uses term 'montrage' instead of 'exposition'.
- Lebel has solo show at Mamco Geneva: Soulèvements II, 1951-2013, through Sept 15.
- Two shows at Sandra Delvaux Fine Art Studio, Brussels: Colonial Horror and Impressions d'Afrique, through July 20.
Entities
Artists
- Allen Ginsberg
- Jean-Jacques Lebel
- William Burroughs
- Jack Kerouac
- Gregory Corso
- Brion Gysin
- Alain Jaubert
- Alain Fleischer
- Robert Frank
- Al Leslie
- Henri Michaux
- Gherasim Luca
- Benjamin Péret
- Marcel Duchamp
- Louis-Ferdinand Céline
- Jean Genet
- Bernard Heidsieck
- Félix Guattari
- Arthur Rimbaud
- Guillaume Apollinaire
- Gilles Deleuze
- Robert Lapoujade
- Maurice Nadeau
- Léa Bismuth
- Jean Seberg
- Guy Harloff
- Samuel Beckett
- James Joyce
- Henry Miller
Institutions
- Centre Pompidou-Metz
- Le Fresnoy
- ZKM Karlsruhe
- Mamco Geneva
- Sandra Delvaux Fine Art Studio
- Beat Hotel
- Columbia University
- Polyphonix festivals
Locations
- Metz
- France
- Le Fresnoy
- Rennes
- Karlsruhe
- Germany
- Paris
- New York
- Tanger
- Geneva
- Switzerland
- Brussels
- Belgium
- 9 rue Gît-le-Cœur
- Quartier latin
- Montparnasse
- Le Select
- Père-Lachaise
- United States
Sources
- artpress —