Situationists,
Pro- and Post-Situs
Founded in July 1957, the Situationist International brought together currents of experimental poetry, avant-garde art, and radical social criticism to explore new techniques of engagement in cultural protest and revolutionary praxis. Although the organization itself remained small and disbanded in 1972, the SI profoundly shaped the interaction of art and politics at crucial moments in the evolution of postwar culture, including the transnational uprisings of 1968 and 1977. Its influence continues to be felt today.
Situationist and related holdings at the Beinecke
Pre-Situ texts and documents relating to the foundation of the Situationist International
Surréalisme révolutionnaire collection, manuscript documents and printed materials from the archive of Noël Arnaud, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, bulk 1947-48
Cobra, no. 1-7, 10, Brussels, 1948-51
Reflex: Orgaan van de Experimentele Groep in Holland, nos. 1-2, Amsterdam, 1948
Finis les pieds plats, Paris, 1952
La nuit du cinéma, Paris, 1952
Jan Elburg and Constant, Het uitzicht van de duif, Amsterdam, 1952
Internationale lettriste, no. 3, Paris, 1953
Asger Jorn/correspondence with Edouard Jaguer, c. 1953-55
Bollettino d'informazioni del Movimento internazionale per una Bauhaus immaginista, nos. 1-2, Milan, 1954-56
Ça commence bien / pour le mouvement surréaliste, Paris, 1954
Et ça finit mal : un communiqué de l'Internationale lettriste, Paris, 1954
Potlatch : bulletin d'information du groupe français de l'Internationale lettriste, nos. 1-29, 2nd ser., no. 1, Paris, 1954-57, 1959
Les Lèvres nues, nos. 1-10/12, Brussels, 1954-60
Manifestate a favore dell'urbanisimo unitaro, Turin, 1956
Manifestez en faveur de l'urbanisme unitaire, Turin, 1956
Perchè il movimento internazionale per una Bauhaus immaginista e' necessario, 1956
La Plate-forme d'Alba, 1956
Toutes ces dames au Salon!, Paris, 1956
Guy Debord, Guide psychogeographique de Paris, Copenhagen, 1956
Guy Debord, The Naked City: Illustration de hypothèse des plagues tournantes en psychogéographique, Copenhagen, 1956
Asger Jorn and Guy Debord, Fin de Copenhague, Copenhagen, 1957
Movimento Nucleare, 1951-1961, 2 vols, Milan, 1962, a dossier of original manifestos, catalogs, and fliers assembled by Milanese gallery owner Arturo Schwarz
Situationist International texts and related documents and material, 1957-1972
I.S. Laboratorio Sperimentale, c. 1957, official rubber stamp of the Situationist International Experimental Laboratory at Alba
Lettre ouverte aux responsables de la Triennale d'art industriel à Milan, Paris, 1957
Guy Debord and Asger Jorn, Mémoires, Copenhagen, 1958
Internationale situationniste, nos. 1-12, Paris, 1958-1969
Nervenruh! keine Experimente!, Munich, 1958
Nouveau théâtre d'opérations dans la culture, Paris, 1958
La société sans classes a trouvé ses artistes, Paris, 1958
Constant, Paris, 1959
Difendiamo la libertà, Alba del Piemonte, 1959
Gruppe Spur : Bilder und Plastiken, Munich, 1959
Michèle Bernstein, Pinot-Gallizio, Paris, 1960
Michèle Bernstein, Tous les chevaux du roi, Paris, 1960
Daniel Blanchard, Préliminaires pour une définition de l'unité du programme révolutionnnaire, Paris, 1960
Guy Debord, Constant : Konstruktionen und Modelle, Essen, 1960
Asger Jorn, Critique de la politique économique, suivie de La lutte finale, Paris, 1960
Asger Jorn, Le long voyage, Paris, 1960
Michèle Bernstein, La nuit, Paris 1961
Critique européenne des Corps Académiques des Universités, Collèges et Instituts de Recherche, Paris, 1962
Michèle Bernstein, et al., Déclaration sur les procès contre l'Internationale situationniste en Allemagne fédérale, Paris, 1962
Nicht hinauslehnen!, Paris, 1962
Theses on the Commune, London, 1962
SPUR, Munich, 1962
Unverbindliche Richtlinien, nos. 1-2, Munich, 1962-63
Aux poubelles de l'histoire, Paris, 1963
Guy Debord, Destruktion af RSG-6 : en kollektiv manifestation af Situationistisk Internationale, Odense, 1963.
Der deutsche Gedanke : Organ der Situationistischen Internationale für Mitteleuropa, no. 1, Brussels, 1963
Guy Debord, Contre le Cinéma, Paris, 1964
Alexander Trocchi, Manifesto situationiste: sigma edition, London, 1964
Adresse aux revolutionnaires d'Algérie et de tous les pays, 1965
The Decline & the Fall of the "Spectacular" Commodity-Economy, 1965
Les luttes de classes en Algérie, Paris, 1965
André Bertrand, Le retour de la colonne Durutti, Strasbourg, 1966
Black Mask, no. 3 (New York, 1966)
Mustapha Khayati, De la misère en milieu étudiant, Strasbourg, 1966
Guy Debord, La société du spectacle, Paris, 1967
Les luttes de classes, Strasbourg, 1967
Mustapha Khayati, De la misère en milieu étudiant, 2nd ed., Paris, 1967.
Mustapha Khayati, Of student poverty, London, 1967
Pourqoui des professeurs ..., Strasbourg, 1967
Pour une critique de l'avant-gardisme, l'unique et sa propriété : suivi de documents relatifs a l'éclatement de l'Internationale situationniste, Strasbourg, 1967
Raoul Vaneigem, Traité de savoir-vivre à l'usage des jeunes générations, Paris, 1967
Address to All Workers, 1968
Adresse à tous les travailleurs, Paris, 1968
Appello a tutti i lavoratori, c. 1968
Considérée en elle même, la "Jeunesse" est un mythe publicitaire ..., Paris, 1968
Guy Debord, Le prolétariat comme sujet et comme représentation, Paris, 1968
Mustapha Khayati, Das Elend der Studenten, c. 1968
King Mob Echo, no. 1 (London, 1968)
King Mob, nos. 2, 3, and 6 (London, 1968-69)
King Mob, The following are a collection of the cartoons ..., London, 1968
Raoul Vaneigem, Banalités de base, Montreal, 1968
René Viénet, Enragés et situationnistes dans le mouvement des occupations, Paris, 1968
Internazionale situazionista : rivista della sezione italiana dell'I.S., Milan, 1969
Situationist international : Review of the American Section of the S.I., no. 1, New York, 1969
Raoul Vaneigem, Some Advice Concerning Generalized Self-Management, London, 1969
Create Situations that Go beyond the Point of No Return, New York, 1970
Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, Detroit, 1970
Internationale situationniste, 1958-69, Amsterdam, c. 1970
Gianfranco Sanguinetti, Gli operai d'Italia e la rivolta di Reggio Calabria, Milan, 1970
Gianfranco Sanguinetti, Les ouvriers italiens et la revolte de Reggio de Calabre, Paris, 1970
Theses on the Commune, New York, 1970
To Nonsubscribers of Radical America, New York, 1970
The Beginning of an Epoch, New York, 1971
The Poor & the Superpoor : Contributions Serving to Rectify the Opinion of the Public Concerning the Revolution in Underdeveloped Countries, New York, 1971
Jean-Pierre Voyer, Reich, mode d'emploi : texte/affiche, Paris, 1971
Jean-Pierre Voyer, Reich, modo d'uso, Naples, 1971
To create at long last a situation which goes beyond the point of no return : 4 situationist texts, London, c. 1971
Jean-Pierre Voyer, The Use of Reich, London, 1972
Guy Debord and Gianfranco Sanguinetti, La véritable scission dans l'Internationale, Paris, 1972
The Situationist Bauhaus and the "Second Situationist International"
Co-Ritus manifest 1961 : 1. Rennässansen är oåterkalleligen slut ..., 1961
Drakabygget, nos. 1-9/11, 1962-1984
Ritus contra depravation, 1962
Vi välkomnar er till den fjärde Co-Ritus koncerten, 1962
De indbydes-- Seven rebels, Silkeborg, 1963
Nash + Thorsen-- maleri, collage, skulptur 1960-63, Copenhagen, 1963
Co-Ritus konst & jazz & poesi, 1964
Jørgen Nash, Jens Thorsen, et al., Konst i norr : Situationisterna, 1964
Jørgen Nash, Jens Thorsen, et al., Manifest ved demonstration for kunsterisk ytringsfrihed, Copenhagen, 1965
Situationister i konsten, 1966
Film/Situationistisk Anticensurfestival, Copenhagen, 1970
Program for Situationisternes Film-, Digt- og Manifest-Matine, Copenhagen, 1970
Ambrosius Fjord and Patric O'Brien, Situationister 1957-70, Drakabygget, 1970-71
Aufruf Das Künstlerproletariat zur Documenta 5, 1972
Abonnér på sensationelt dansk kunst- og literatur tidsskrift, editions Bauhaus situationiste, Copenhagen, 1974
Nash Poesia Visiva : Poesi Utställning, Lund, 1975
Jens Thorsen, Chaos, Copenhagen, 1985
Pro-, Anti- and Post-Situ texts and documents
Unverbindliche Richtlinien, nos. 1-2, Munich, 1962-63
L'Internationale situationniste prend l'offensive, Brussels, 1963, a parody published by Belgian neo-surrealists
Constant, New Babylon: tien lithografieën, Amsterdam, 1963
New Babylon informatief, no.s 1-4 (Amsterdam, 1965-66)
Suburban Press, nos. 1-5 (London, 1970-74)
Jean Garnault, Le strutture elementari della reificazione / I.S., Naples, c. 1973
Riforma e controriforma nel potere burocratico / I.S., Naples, c. 1973
Omphalos : Ramifications of Situationist Theory, London, 1972
Time Recaptured : Self-Management and the Lip Occupation, Berkeley, 1973
Viva la Comune / I.S., Naples, c. 1973
Acratas : sull'autonomia : documento interno del Collettivo autonomo di Verbania, Verbania, 1975.
Mustapha Khayati, Sulla miseria dell'ambiente studentesco, Trento, 1975
Guy Debord, La società dello spettacolo, 1976
Secondo rapporto sulla costruzione di situazioni, Rome, 1977
Related collections
André Bertrand and André Schneider Papers
Patrick Labaste Papers
Jens Jørgen Thorsen Collection
Situationist International
THE SITUATIONIST MOVEMENT can be seen as an artistic avant-garde, as an experimental investigation of possible ways for freely constructing everyday life, and as a contribution to the theoretical and practical development of a new revolutionary contestation.
GUY DEBORD, June 1963
Situationist International
The Situationist International was born at a bar in the tiny Italian mountain village of Cosio d'Arroscia at the end of July 1957. There were just eight people in attendance. Two voted against the motion to found the SI; a third abstained. By April 1961, all but two of the original eight had either quit or been expelled, and just one of them--Guy Debord--was still in the SI when it disbanded eleven years later in April 1972. Yet for all the ensuing division and acrimony, what happened at Cosio d'Arroscia remains significant. Many red threads came together. Leading actors, movements, and strategies that had emerged in the immediate postwar years played a huge role in making this moment possible. And they went on to weave stark patterns in the convergence of art, politics, and counterculture that bore the signature of this encounter long after the SI itself had come apart.
The Situationist International thus occupies a special place in the history of the transnational networks documented in the Postwar Culture Collections at Beinecke.
April 1959. Left to right: Giors Melanotte, Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio, Hans-Peter Zimmer, Maurice Wyckaert, Asger Jorn, Gretel Stadler, Helmut Sturm, Heimrad Prem, Armando, Constant, Guy Debord, Har Oudejans.
Left to right: J.V. Martin, Heimrad Prem, Ansgar Elde, Jacqueline de Jong, Guy Debord, Attilla Kotyani, Raoul Vaneigem, Jorgen Nash, Dieter Kunzelmann, Gretel Stadler.
September 26 to October 1, 1969. On verso: (left to right) Martin, Viénet, Debord, Pavan, Salvadori, Khayati, Riesel, Chevalier. From the Gianfranco Sanguinetti Papers.
April 1959. Left to right: Giors Melanotte, Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio, Hans-Peter Zimmer, Maurice Wyckaert, Asger Jorn, Gretel Stadler, Helmut Sturm, Heimrad Prem, Armando, Constant, Guy Debord, Har Oudejans.
There is no Situationist art, only Situationist uses of art.
SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL
We want nothing with "Situationism," we explicitly reject the word, we refuse the doctrine. We have wanted to define—as much as possible, we have begun to experiment with —a practically situationist activity. In the sense of creating situations or moments, if one can use that word.
Environments and actions, in interaction.
GUY DEBORD
Letter to Raoul Hausmann, March 1963
Video documentary combining exhibition footage of SI exhibitions with film footage of the 1968 Paris student uprising, and graffiti and slogans based on the ideas of Guy Debord; includes commentary by leading art critics Greil Marcus, Thomas Levine, and artists Malcolm McLaren and Jamie Reid. Directed and produced by Branka Bogdanov, 1989.
Resources
"The Game: An interview with Michèle Bernstein, novelist and founding member of the Situationist International," Frieze magazine 157 (September 2013).
Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents, edited by Tom McDonough (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2002) (pdf).
Internationale situationniste, 1958-69, issues 1-12, PDF scans of the original issues on Ubu.
List of members of the Situationist Intenrational, 1957-1972
NOT BORED!, a pro-situationist digital 'zine run by Bill Brown, featuring chronology, texts, correspondence, and images related to Lettrism, Situationist International, New York Psychogeographical Association, and Henri Lefebvre.
October 79 (Winter 1997), Special issue: Guy Debord and the Internationale Situationniste (pdf).
On the Passage of a few People through a Rather Brief Moment in Time: The Situationist International 1956-1972, a documentary blending exhibition footage and interviews as a means of identifying and exploring the international movement.
Situationist Film, archive of SI films and related texts.
"The Situationist International: the Art of Historical Intervention," Miguel Amorós, 2012.
Situationist International Anthology, Bureau of Public Secrets website run by Ken Knabb.
Situationist International Archives, archive of Situationist texts in French and English.
Situationist International Online, extensive archive of situationist texts available in English, with a comprehensive chronology, glossary, and biographies.
Ubuweb, extensive digital educational resource for avant-garde material, including texts but largely film, video, and sound, for artists involved with SI.
Visual Propaganda: Ideology in Art. Situationists