United Front

The Front Unique review (1955-1960) first appeared in the form of six large posters covered with texts first appearing in February 1955, on the occasion of a personal exhibition of Jean-Jacques Lebel at Florence. It is the organ of expression of a young artist taking part actively involved in the movement founded in 1924, which he has known intimately since childhood, since his father – Robert Lebel – shared the exile of the surrealists, in New York during World War II. The various deliveries of this review, the in-depth interview with the artist, as well as the numerous rare or unpublished documents that accompany them, allow us to observe how Jean-Jacques Lebel implemented and expanded, during this period and beyond, some of the deep aspirations of the surrealist program developed by his friends André Breton or Benjamin Péret. A political and artistic context emerges through the United Front in full transformation, following the various anti-colonial struggles and the upheavals following the de-Stalinization process. Over the years 50 and 60, the surrealist group is worked by antagonistic forces, between freezing and the aspiration for renewal, which ultimately leads to the exclusion of Jean-Jacques Lebel becoming a major artistic figure, notably through the international diffusion of the happening, and the creation of the Polyphonix festival. This book tells the story of Jean-Jacques Lebel's journey through this powerful laboratory of ideas and experiences of surrealism alongside many other artists, poets or thinkers who have contributed to one of the Front series unique, or to the demonstrations called Anti-Process which are its emanation direct.