Die Welt Als Labyrinth.  Geneva: MAMCO, 2019. 63 p.; ill.; 48 x 32 cm.; black ink on newspaper stock. Catalog from the exhibition held at the MAMCO Museum in Geneva between February and May 2018.

The publication “Die Welt als Labyrinth” (The world as Labyrinth) relates back to the exhibition dedicated to the Situationist International which took place at MAMCO in the Spring of 2018 and is shaped as a journey through some episodes of this story. This exhibition was the occasion to reflect on the paradox that is raised by any presentation of these last twentieth-century avant-gardes: how to exhibit in a museum people who were systematically opposed to cultural institutions? (Printed Matter)

The illustration on the front cover is an untitled darboard collage from the Situationist exhibition Destruktion af RSG-6 at the gallery Exi, Odense, Denmark in 1963.

The title of the exhibition “refers to an unfulfilled project for a Situationist exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1960, and shows up one of the questions that are raised by any presentation of these avant-garde movements: how to exhibit in a museum people who were systematically opposed to cultural institutions? Going further than a sabotaging of art through an unconventional register of forms and techniques, it was art as distinct social territory, governed by institutions, and determined by the market economy, that was in these movements’ crosshairs.” (MAMCO)

For more information and pictures of the exhibition, see https://www.galleriesnow.net/shows/die-welt-als-labyrinth/. For a video, see https://vimeo.com/288680033

KHAYATI, Mustapha. [De la Misere en Milieu Etudiant] Della Miseria Nell’ambiente Studentesco. Catania: Gruppo Anarchico M. Bakunin di Cosenza, November 1969. 32 p.; ill.; 17 x 23 cm.; ill.. White wrappers with text in black.

Second Italian edition by Luigi Lo Celso, following the Feltrinelli edition in 1967. “During 1969 he came into contact with some members of the Italian Section of the Situationist International. He appropriates the critical thinking of the situationists and begins its dissemination in Cosenza, distributing the first issue of the Italian edition of the magazine. In November of the same year, admist the student struggles that shake Cosenza, he translates and prints Della Miseria under the “Bakunin” Group imprint. This version is accompanied by explanatory notes and two of Celso’s own writing (more details at http://www.bfscollezionidigitali.org/entita/13839-%E2%80%8Blo-celso-luigi/)

This edition is not accounted on either OCLC or in the trade.

[Internationale Situationniste]. L’estremismo coerente dei situazionisti / O extremismo coerente dos situacionistas. Milan: Ed. 912, November 1968. 190 p.; ill.; 16.7 x 11.7 cm.; ill. Purple cover with text in black.

Early collection of Situationist works in translation, published before the Italian section of the S.I. could distribute its own texts.The front cover is illustrated with a portrait of Karl Marx stating (in Italian): “On 28 September 1964, it will be exactly one hundred years since we founded the Situationist International. It’s starting to take shape”. A leaflet was released by the S.I. on that day to commemorate the 100 year founding of the International Workingmen’s Association.

Contents include: A short chronology of the SI movement, translations into Italians of “De La Misere en Milieu Etudiant” (1966), “Adresse aux Revolutionnaires d’Algerie et de tous les Pays” (1965), “Le Declin et la Chute de l’Economie Spectaculaire-Marchande” (1965), “Contributions servant à rectifier l’opinion du public sur la révolution dans les pays sous-développés” (1967), “Le Point d’Explosion de l’Ideologie en Chine” (1967); “Definition Minimum des Organisations Revolutionnaires” (1968), a postface, a short bibliography, and a list of addresses for the S.I. and related groups (Heatwave, Zengakuren, Noir & Rouge…). A few of the above texts are also translated into Portuguese.

Raspaud & Voyer 143; Scheppe & Ohrt 356

PRESTSAETER, Ellef (Ed.). These are Situationist Times! An Inventory of Reproductions, Deformations, Modifications, Derivations, and Transformations. Oslo: Torpedo Press, 2019. 352 p.; ill.; 22 x 28 cm.; heavily illustrated throughout.

Book released as part of These are Situationist Times!, a project of Torpedo Press in close collaboration with Jacqueline de Jong. The project consists of:

• A digitization of all issues of Situationist Times by Monoskop
• A digital interface by The Scandinavian Institute for Computational Vandalism, retracing the magazine’s history through a series of video interviews with Jacqueline de Jong
• A series of exhibitions – Jacqueline De Jong & The Situationist Times: Same Player Shoots Again! – curated by Ellef Prestsæter in collaboration with Torpedo and Jacqueline de Jong. These include
  • Torpedo Books, Oslo, 11 May-2 Sep 2018
  • Konsthall Malmö, 15 Sep 2018-13 Jan 2019
  • Museum Jorn, Silkeborg, Denmark, 31 Aug-1 Dec 2019.
• and finally a book, hereby presented, edited by Ellef Prestsæter. The table of contents can be found here.

The beautifully illustrated volume includes numerous reproductions from the original Situationist Times magazine (#1-6), but the highlight is the last section on the recently rediscovered, unfinished seventh issue: The “Pinball issue” (ca. 1973). Included are a “selection of materials assembled for the Pinball Issue of the Situationist Times, including original photographs by Hans Brinkman, previous unpublished essays by Brinkman and the psychologist Joost Mathijsen, an inventory of pinball machines in Amsterdam, books and flyers, clippings from magazines and newspapers, as well as correspondence with prospective collaborators” (p.259)

The book includes commissioned contributions by Éric Alliez, Ruth Baumeister, Christophe Bourseiller, Larry D. Busbea, Eric C. H. de Bruyn, Matthew Fuller, Rodolphe Gasché, Dennis Göttel, Institute for Computational Vandalism, Jakob Jakobsen, Karen Kurczynski, João Pedro Leão, İz Öztat, Juliette Pollet, Ellef Prestsæter, Margriet Schavemaker, Sean Snyder, McKenzie Wark. Also included are historical texts by
Roland Barthes, Hans Brinkman, Max Bucaille, Friedrich Wolfram Heubach, Jacqueline de Jong, Asger Jorn, Friedrich Kittler, Joost Mathijsen, Piero Simondo, Gianni-Emilio Simonetti, Alexander Trocchi, Paolo Virno, Bernd Jürgen Warneken

Pictures from the Torpedo website, where copies can be ordered here

AUBERT, Danielle. The Detroit Printing Co-Op: the Politics of the Joy of Printing. Los Angeles: Inventory Press, 2019. 240 p.; ill.; 24 x 16 cm.

This exciting history of Fredy Perlman’s legendary press features a chapter on the Detroit Printing Co-Op’s translation and publication of Situationist works, including the first (unauthorized) English-language edition of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle (Detroit: Black & Red, 1970). A worthwhile read for all those interested in the material conditions of production of Situationist (and more generally radical) texts in the United States.

Copies available from Artbook: https://www.artbook.com/9781941753255.html

From the editor:

A timely exploration of political organizing, publishing, design and distribution in 1970s Detroit

In 1969, shortly after moving to Detroit with wife and partner Lorraine Nybakken, Fredy Perlman and a group of kindred spirits purchased a printing press from a Chicago dealer, transported it, in parts, back to Detroit in their cars and the Detroit Printing Co-op was born.

Operating between 1969 and 1980 out of southwest Detroit, the Co-op was the site for the printing of the first English translation of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle and journals like Radical America, produced by the Students for a Democratic Society; books such as The Political Thought of James Forman printed by the League of Revolutionary Black Workers; and the occasional broadsheet, such as Judy Campbell’s stirring indictment, “Open letter from ‘white bitch’ to the black youths who beat up on me and my friend.”

Fredy Perlman was not a printer or a designer by training, but was deeply engaged in the ideas, issues, processes and materiality of printing. While at the Detroit Printing Co-op, he radically rethought the possibilities of print by experimenting with overprinting, collage techniques, different kinds of papers and so on. Behind the calls to action and class consciousness written in his publications, there was an innate sense of the politics of design, experimentation and pride of craft.

Building on research conducted by Danielle Aubert, a Detroit-based designer, educator and coauthor of Thanks for the view, Mr. Mies, The Politics of the Joy of Printing explores the history, output and legacy of the Perlmans and the Co-op in a highly illustrated testament to the power of printing, publishing, design and distribution.

Reviews:

“Danielle Aubert’s history of the Detroit Printing Co-op offers a refreshing example of graphic design as it was practiced in the most alternative of ways—not only outside of the mainstream design profession, but also against the prevailing capitalist economy premised on private ownership. For enthusiasts of graphic design, Fredy Perlman’s unexpected visually inventive designs for politically salient works offer a much needed example of how self-publishing and DIY printing, so in vogue today, can be used to not just make something, but to also say something.” —Andrew Blauvelt, Director, Cranbrook Museum of Art

King Mob. King Mob 1: King Mob Echo. n.p. [London: BCM/King Mob], n.d. [ca. April 1968]. 10 original printer’s plates, various dimensions.

Complete set of original printer’s plates for King Mob Echo 1. Of note, the first plate is the picture from the front page of an early issue of Ben Morea’s Black Mask, showcasing the connection between the two groups

This first issue of King Mob includes a front cover image of a menacing masked man (from Louis Feuillade’s film “Fantomas”) above a Karl Marx quotation (from “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon”). Contents include: “The Return of the Repressed” by radical psychoanalysis scholar Norman O. Brown; “Desolation Row”, an excerpt “free translated from Raoul Vaneigem’s Traite de Savoir Vitre a l’Usages des Jeunes Generations” (1967); “Urban Gorilla Comes East”, the magazine’s only original King Mob statement, co-written by Phil Cohen (also known for his involvement with the London Street Commune and the 144 Piccadilly squat) and Donald Nicholson Smith. Reprinted in King Mob Echo: English Section of the Situationist International (London: Dark Star, 2000), pp. 71-81

Following “Against Cinema: Situationist Cinema and its Legacy” at the ProArts Gallery in Oakland (California, USA) we are happy to announce a Situationist cinema retrospective (“Cinema Situationniste – Integrale Guy Debord“) to be held at the Cinematheque de Toulouse (France) from 3 to 20 December 2019.

The following Lettrist / Situationist films will be featured

• Traité de bave et d’éternité (Isidore Isou. 1950)
• Le film est déjà commencé ? (Maurice Lemaitre. 1951)
• Hurlements en faveur de sade (Guy Debord. 1952)
• Sur le passage de quelques personnes à travers une assez courte unité de temps (Guy Debord. 1959)
• Critique de la séparation (Guy Debord. 1961)
• La Société du spectacle (Guy Debord. 1973)
• La dialectique peut-elle casser des briques ? (Rene Vienet. 1973)
• Réfutation de tous les jugements, tant élogieux qu’hostiles, qui ont été jusqu’ici portés sur le film « La Société du spectacle » (Guy Debord. 1975)
• In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (Guy Debord. 1978)

The following Situationist-inspired films will be featured:

• Les Souffrances d’un œuf meurtri (Roland Lethem. 1967)
• Les Idoles (Marc’O. 1968)
• La Fée sanguinaire (Roland Lethem. 1968)
• Le Sexe enragé (Roland Lethem. 1969)
• Week-end (David McNeil. 1968)
• What Happened to Eva Braun ? (David McNeil. 1969)
• Les Aventures de Bernadette Soubirou (David McNeil. 1973)

Talks by Gerard Berreby, Guy-Claude Marie and Jean-Pierre Kalfon

Full details available here here

Fordern wir das unmoegliche eine austellung uber die Situationistische Internationale. Hamburg: 8. Salon, n.d. [2019]. 10 x 15 cm two-sided postcard.

Postcard announcing the exhibition “Fordern wir das unmoegliche: eine austellung uber die Situationistische Internationale” held at 8. Salon in Hamburg, Germany from 13 October to 2 November 2019.

More at http://8salon.net/hello-world/

Google translation of the press release below

PRESS RELEASE

The history of the Situationist International (1957-1972) has been the subject of several exhibitions since 1989, more or less respectful of the fact that such an endeavor collides with the self-understanding of the Situationists. In the meantime, however, the art market and ownership have deprived the necessary exhibits – whether “works of art”, publications or documents – of their free association. It has become almost impossible to realize such a project unbureaucratically and without great financial commitment. The exhibition in the 8th Salon will nevertheless try to present the subject, on the narrow line between memory and actualization; it will be both documentary, and thus deal with the “closed treasures”, as well as practically playful and open, that is, to show inventions or to formulate “values” that were first created for the exhibition. We show, among other things, the “war game” by Guy Debord in a version designed by Youssef Tabti and a sound collage by Hanna Mittelstaedt and HF Coltello. 

[Internationale Situationniste]. Internationale Situationniste 1958-69. Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 1969. Tri-folded leaflet.; ill.; 32.6 x 19.7 cm.; black ink on white stock.

Promotional leaflet for the reprinting of all 12 issues of Internationale Situationniste by Van Gennep. The thick volume would ultimately be released in 1970 by the Dutch publisher.

The leaflet features two non-attributed comics. The first one features Debord, Hegel and Vaneigem in a dive bar. The other takes place at the Interpol headquarters, where senior police officers (including Paris’ own Grimaud) worry about the spread of Situationist ideas across Europe and the world.

Debord was quite pleased with this production. In a letter to Tony Verlaan, dated 22 July 1969, he writes: “Les dessins du comic sont très beaux. D’un côté, un rassemblement de situs dessinés dans un style qui évoque la gravure populaire du XIXe siècle. En face, un rassemblement de policiers, dans une forme très moderne et dépouillée (un peu le genre de certains comics publicitaires)” (Corr. Vol IV, p.100). In English: “The drawings of the comics are very beautiful. One on side, a gathering of situationists drawn in a style that evokes nineteenth century popular engraving. Opposite, a gathering of police officers, in a very modern, bare-born style (a bit like some advertising comics)”.

Not on OCLC. Scheppe & Ohrt 565.

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