The American sixties were certainly explosive. Contemporary art was changing its destination: the old continent was no longer the promised land. The "cities of angels"exploded with a creativity never seen before: Pollock invented the "dripping" that made the so-called Abstract Expressionism explode, and in contrast Pop Art was born from popular culture, taking inspiration from mass culture. It is undeniable that Warhol, a true master of pop culture and art, was able to see the soul of those fascinating years.

In this context we find a fascinating character: Eve Babitz, a woman who, with her many souls, can be considered abstract and pop. In a memory of her she said about herself "I looked like Brigitte Bardot and I was Igor Stravinsky's goddaughter”, and in fact nothing could describe her better. She was charming and intelligent and became famous at the age of twenty, when she found herself playing chess naked with Marchel Duchamp. The matter with her was quite particular: Eva had a lover who had not invited her to the opening of the French artist's exhibition, because she preferred to bring his wife. Then, out of spite, the young Eve, invited by Julian Wasser, managed to be immortalized with the master Duchamp completely naked during a game of chess. The lover, as soon as he entered the exhibition with his wife, found her ruining his day. The rematch was now assured but the chess match against the maestro was a real disaster: Duchamp shredded her in every match.

“I've always had the fifth of stern; but with the birth control pill it exploded”, she said with a veiled irony. The idea was undeniably brilliant: the prosperous writer had managed to make history with a bizarre photograph that opened up to change, to the women's revolution. It was she who decided to undress and sit at the table, to improvise the match with the artist, it was even her who decided about the black and white shot that changed history, among the many taken by Wasser's steaming camera. Perhaps the American could not have known it at that moment, but she had created a performance from scratch, she had also made art. Eve had become a work of art out of revenge, a great work of art. In fact, the artistic spark never left her: and she is the artist behind the covers of some important rock albums such as "Buffalo Springfield Again", where she was able to tell the American counterculture of those years through figures and colors.

A life lived to the last breath by Babitz. The American dream told and lived in all its nuances. What is striking about her is her "natural" feminism, far from predictable political schemes, and her writing: the protagonists of her books are beautiful girls, aware and emancipated, they decide who to go to bed with and what to drink. And they do it naturally and freely, far away from the false American bigotry of those years. Yet her writing is not at all easy, but carefully studied it involves, hypnotizes, captivates. Love is told in her books with disenchantment, never expecting a happy ending because after all, life must be lived like this, enjoying the moment, looking at the "pictorial lights" of the world and not thinking too much about tomorrow.

Love in her novels is lived in moments, the women fall in love with men and then they abandon them. She wrote: "Choosing a man is like choosing an adjective. They all make me feel modified“, she wrote, "even a word like girl friend gives me this feeling I’ve been cut in half. I’d rather just be a car, not a blue car or a big one, than sit there the rest of my life being stuck with some adjective." In fact, whatever labels you erases you. In her books there is always a search for pleasure, physical and personal, a search for something that perhaps isn't there.

She was a great writer who, for too long, was underestimated by critics and the public. Only today, even in the old continent, she is rediscovered, and has allowed her to become a new heroine for the Millennials as well.

Everyone in her Los Angeles knew and loved her: Jim Morrison, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, Andy Warhol. There was no party where she was not the protagonist. A visceral love with the city in the 60s, the moment of maximum artistic and cultural splendor. Eve talked about LA as if she were a lover, in a sophisticated and sensual language, emphasizing the superficiality, glories and miseries of the Hollywood star system of the time. A city of streets, cars, drugs, alcohol and VIP parties, the it-girl takes us to a parallel world, with her real life stories from the 60s and 70s. Her social life would end by an accident in 1997, when while smoking a cigar she accidentally burned the skirt she was wearing, experiencing severe burns all over her body. She then decided to retire from the public scene to continue her countless projects, and only death stopped her, in December 2021. After all, we all have to grow old, times change and the world also evolves. But Eve, the girl who loved “boys, alcohol and troubles,” in our collective imagination will never die, she will always be there looking for a dreamy and ironic adventure, a new love or an adventure. Because, some lives are works of art themselves.

Eve Babitz: From Duchamp to feminism

© French Fries Magazine