Archives quotidiennes :

Jacques Lizène, 144 tentatives de sourires, M hka, Antwerpen

Jacques Lizène

Jacques Lizène

Jacques Lizène
« 144 tentatives de sourire… mais l’on sait le vécu quotidien de la plupart des individus, Accompagné de 881 tentatives de rire enregistrés sur cassette, tout d’une traite », 1974. 135 photographies NB, tirage argentique, marouflées sur carton, 9 x 73 x 61 cm et cassette audio digitalisée

Jacques Lizène

Jacques Lizène

Jacques Lizène

Jacques Lizène

Jacques Lizène

Jacques Lizène

Jacques Lizène

Jacques Lizène

Jacques Lizène

Subverted Street Photography

In the early 1970s Lizene was also dedicated to another genre: street photography. In a similar approach to the genre of the (self-)portrait, the artist challenged the traditional interpretation of the genre. For example, View along the Bottom of the Walls [Regard au bas des murs] consists of a series of black-and-white photographs- taken in 1971 during the making of a film with the same title, and used in 1973 as part of the series The Perceived and the Not-Perceived- each of them showing the bottoms of facades and the adjoining parts of the footpath. Contrary to the method of traditional street photographers, Lizene explained what photography is not able to capture in the following accompanying note: « Behind any of the details of this urban landscape there is the presence of the tiredness of one or several individuals. And, for some of them (perhaps), a certain sexual wretchedness in their life. » View along the Bottom of the Walls operates as the antithesis of the voyeuristic image of the city and its inhabitants, as seen in the more or less contemporary work of Garry Winogrand, among others. The « empty, » dull images of Lizene function more like a metaphor for the supposed « tiredness » and « sexual wretchedness » of certain individuals than like a reproduction of it. View along the Bottom of the Walls is part of what Lizene called « the art of the suburb (the suburb of art) » [L’art de banlieue (la banlieue de !’art)]. To this category also belongs a series of photographs, entitled Suburb Banality (1973), made by Lizene in collaboration with Jungblut and Lizene’s girlfriend during walks in Ougree, an industrial suburb of Liege and the artist’s hometown. The photos show deserted parking lots, building sites, factories, closed shops, the Cafe des Sports, the grimy entrance of the Sarma department store, the closed gate of the Splendid Cinema, and empty street corners. In an installation conceived for an exhibition at the ICC in 1974, he combined these fragments of an industrial suburban landscape with a grayish, sperm-stained sheet and a photographic self-portrait. The driving idea behind this work is elucidated by the accompanying caption: « Documents brought back from a voyage into the heart of Suburb Civilization (Ougree, an industrial suburb of Liege), by a Minor Master, sad clown of art, artist of mediocrity, representative of the suburb of art, with an object brought back from the heart of Suburb Civilization (traces of solitary masturbation on a sheet). » These and other works that represent « the art of the suburb (the suburb of an) » disclose a depressing banality, a place with no prospects, a harassed world, struggling weakly against its solitary quotidian wretchedness. (Botquin, 2009c: 460) As Jean-Michel Botquin analyses rightly, Lizene tries to pull himself out of this dreadful state of being (that many people share) by laughing loudly-in performances, during interviews, in his writings (« Ha! Ha! Ha! »). (…) However, by executing this at first sight banal action, referring to the tourist who typically wants his portrait to be taken against the background of a cityscape, Lizene actually seems to hold a mirror up to rheir faces. It is as if he shows rhem how to act in their rather depressing environment; « don’t be weighted down with the misery we live in, but point at it and smile, » he seems to say. Lizene’s commitment with « the art of the suburb (the suburb of art), » along with his « method of laughing » to deal with it, is also at the basis of the Liege art- space/collective Le Cirque Divers, of which Lizene was one of the co-founders. According to its manifesto from January 1977, Le Cirque Divers wanted to be « a hurban (human/urban) circus . . . , a scene where everyday gestures are theatricalized, a ring where clowns will be in stitches between Laughter and Death, a mirror reflecting our world in all its beatitude (bete attitude). » [my translation] (Renwart, 2000: 149) In line with Fluxus, one of their main activities was to stage actions from everyday life (e.g. drinking at the bar, going to the hairdresser, visiting prostitutes) in order to provoke from the viewer an awakening, a critical reflection on their routines. In addition, Lizene and Le Cirque Divers would also be included in the exhibition Fluxus, a travelling retrospective of Fluxus with mainly works from the collection of Di Maggio, completed each time with a section « local Fluxus, » which thus appeared in Liege in 1980. During the opening night Ben Vautier, Robert Filliou, Wolf Vostell, and Nam June Paik, among others, gave a Fluxus concert. (Renwart, 2000: 157)

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