This performing duo made appearances sabotaging book launches, art expositions and even political discussions. The duo called the group "The Mares of the Apocalypse," or "Yeguas del Apocalipsis," a reference to the biblical "Horsemen of the Apocalypse" that appear in the New Testament. In 1987, Lemebel co-founded a group with Francisco Casas, poet, artist and student of literature. Being distant from the Communist Party, he was a close friend of its leader, Gladys Marín, until her death in 2005. At the event, he spoke about his manifesto, ‘Manifest: I Speak for my Difference’ criticizing homophobia in left-wing politics. He entered the meeting in high heels and with makeup on his face depicting a hammer and sickle extending from his mouth to his left eyebrow. In 1986, he disrupted a meeting of Chile's left-wing groups opposed to Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. The disruption and performances of the collective brought Lemebel into the public limelight in Chile.
A year later, he co-founded a performance collective that used the tactics of intervention and disruption of events to raise public consciousness about the struggles of minorities in Chile. In 1986, he published as his first major work, the book Incontables, a compilation of short stories under the feminist publication label, Ergo Sum. Lemebel attended writing workshops to hone his skills and network with other writers, his first writing recognition was in 1982, when he won an award for his short story, Porque el tiempo está cerca.
He subsequently became a high school art teacher but was let go based on the presumption of his homosexuality. He attended an industrial school of carpentry and metal forging at the Industrial de Hombres de La Legua High School and later studied plastic art at University of Chile's Art School. In the late 1980s, he chose to be identified by his mother's surname, Lemebel, as his choice for surname instead of his father's (Mardones), as is the norm in most Latin American countries. Lemebel was born in El Zanjón de la Aguada, a poor neighborhood in Santiago on the banks of Zanjón de la Aguada, an irrigation canal that flows into the Mapocho river to the family of Pedro Mardones Paredes and Violeta Lemebel. He died of laryngeal cancer on 23 January 2015 in Santiago, Chile. He was nominated for Chile's National Literature Prize in 2014. He was openly gay and known for his cutting critique of authoritarianism and for his humorous depiction of Chilean popular culture, from a queer perspective.
Pedro Segundo Mardones Lemebel (21 November 1952 – 23 January 2015) was a Chilean essayist, chronicler, performer and novelist. In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Mardones and the second or maternal family name is Lemebel.
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