---

Olmo, Walter. Rapporto informativo su : Comme non si comprende l’arte musicale. Morte e trasfigurazione dell’Estetica. n.p. [Alba?]: n.p. [self-published], n.d. [1957]. 10 single-sided,stapled sheets; 33 x 22 cm; black ink on white stock.

Mimeographed report produced by Walter Olmo, a member of the the SI from its creation in Cosio in July 1957 until his exclusion in January 1958. It was presented to the Experimental Laboratory for an Imaginist Bauhaus in Alba, and deals with death and aesthetic transfiguration in music. This is one of a very small number of documents by SI members on the topic of music.

Rare. Not in Raspaud & Voyer or other bibliographies. We cannot locate a copy on OCLC, but we do find one on MACBA’s website.

In light of this scarcity, and so that scholars and enthusiasts may readily access its content, we have thus chosen to showcase the full document below.

[Internationale Situationniste] Laboratoirio Situazionisti di Alba / Gruppo S.p.u.r. Difendiamo la libertà. Alba: Laboratorio Situazionista di Alba, November 1959. 1 p. leaflet (single-sided); 15 x 24 cm.; black ink on thin white stock.

“Tract by Pinot Gallizio, Eisch, Fischer, Nele, Prem, Sturm and Zimmer advocating public execration of the Spanish painter Cuixard, who, in order to increase his chances of securing the Grand Prize for painting at São Paulo, did not shrink from denouncing the communism of his compatriots Saura and Tapiés, at the risk of putting them ‘in grave danger with political organizations in their country.'” (Situationist International Online, http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/chronology/1959.html)

Reproduced (alongside a French translation) by Gerard Berreby in Textes et Documents Situationnistes 1957-1960” (Paris: Allia, 2004). Raspaud & Voyer 109-110.

Scarce in the trade, with two copies found on OCLC (Yale, the Getty Museum)

[Sanguinetti, Gianfranco]. Giovannelli, Gianni (pseud). Le Secret c’est de tout dire! Paris: Allia, 1989. 141 p.; 14 x 22 cm.; off-white wrappers with text in black and grey. First published in Italian as Il Segreto e dirlo (Verone: Scriberus Club, 1983). Trans. Monique Baccelli.

“This book is the fictional autobiography of Salvatore Messana, a clever; determined and financially successful enemy of salaried work, bosses and bureaucrats. Written by Gianna Giovannelli, it was first published in Italian in 1983 & translated into French in 1989” (AK Press).

Gianna Giovannelli is believed to be a pseudonym for Gianfranco Sanguinetti. In a letter to Charles Vincent from 25 February 1991, Guy Debord writes: “Did you know of this recent book by Gianfranco? There are a few nice things in it” (Correspondance Vol. VII, p. 262). As Bill Brown notes in the introduction to his English translation of the text (under the title Never Work: The Autobiography of Salvatore Messana): “Note that the identification of ‘Giovannelli’ as a pseudonynm used by Sanguinetti – which is something that Gianfranco himself has denied – is repeated by the index included in the very last volume of Guy Debord’s Correspondance, published by Librairie Artheme Fayard in 2010. Under “Giovannelli, Giovanni” it says ‘see Sanguinetti, Gianfranco'” (Brown, p. v)

Scarce in the trade with 8 copies on OCLC.

Renoir, Alexis (pseud?). Papillons de Paris: quinze papillons autocollants a decouper. Paris: Rendre la honte plus honteuse, Mars 2016. Edition of 50 (ours no. 39). 15 self-adhesive stickers (various formats) printed on 9 thick pages (21 x 30 cm.), loosely laid inside a black enveloppe  (23 x 32 cm.).Also includes an explanatory statement, printed on a single semi-transparent sheet of paper.

As the author indicates, these stickers were posted across Paris (as well as distributed through the internet) in late 2015 and early 2016. The self-proclaimed objective was to publicly denounce Jean-Marie Apostolides’ biography of Guy Debord, released by Flammarion in 2015 under the title Debord, le naufrageur. Apostolides’ biography was indeed divise – lauded by some, it was severely denounced by others. As usual, this blog takes a strictly bibliographical stance and the choice to present this document does not reflect any ideological positioning.

A Professor of French emeritus at Stanford University, J-M Apostolides is also the author of Les Tombeaux de Guy Debord, précédé de “Guy-Ernest en jeune libertin. Paris:Exils, 1999 ; Paris: Flammarion, 2006. He has edited or co-edited numerous works on “minor” figures of the Internationale Situationniste, such as Ivan Chtcheglov or Patrick Straram.

While many of the stickers rely on puns and detournements (and are thus difficult to translate), we have attempted to transcribe the meaning of the first half below:

1) Marc Dachy is dead, Apostolides is alive…It’s a double tragedy for honest thinking

2) If you read Jean-Marie Apostolides out loud for ten minutes, you will get a bad breath

3) She had Apostolides from behind

4) Mr. Jean-Marie Apostolides is an old fart

5) Against Jean-Marie Apostolides’ stupidity, the Gods themselves struggle helplessly

6) Mr. Jean-Marie Apostolides is a pig

7) Shige Gonzalvez, Jean-Marie Apostolides. These are public men: they have left the shadows to be dragged into the mud

 

Debord, Guy. La Société du Spectacle. Paris: Buchet-Chastel, 1967. First edition, first printing (4eme trimestre 1967). 176 p.; 20.5 x 14 cm; White cover with text in black. Pierre Ansart’s working copy. The text is heavily underlined and annotated throughout, with several indications of Debord’s philosophical sources (e.g., pp. 58 & 149: “Hegel”).

Below are translated excerpts from the Wikipedia entry on Pierre Ansart: Born in 1922, Pierre Ansart is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Paris and one of the world’s leading scholars on (pre-)anarchist thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. After a dissertation on “Marx and Anarchism” (1967), Ansart becomes an Assistant Professor at University of Paris – Sorbonne and then at the University of Paris – Denis Diderot. His research centers around ideologies like Marxism, Proudhonism and Anarchism, particularly in their emotional and affective dimension. He has written extensively on Proudhon, Saint-Simon, Freud, Marx, Balandier, Weber.

Provenance: Pierre Ansart, through the trade.

 

Dear readers and subscribers,

My apologies for the current lack of posts/updates. Due to unforeseen personal circumstances, the blog is on a temporary hiatus. I expect to resume posting in the next few weeks, so stay tuned for new and exciting items, including some not listed in the current bibliographies.

Cheers

Situationnisteblog

[Internationale Situationniste] PLANKTON The Quarterly Bulletin of the Plankton Society / Driemaandelijks tijdschrift van de Vereniging ter Bestudering van het Plankton / Revue trimestrielle de la Societe d’Etudes du Plancton, Vol. XXVIII, no.3, Aout-Septembre 1969 [wrappers]. Internationale Situationniste – Revue de la Section Francaise de l’I.S., Numero 12 [title page].  Paris: Internationale Situationniste, September 1989. 120 p.; ill.; 24.5 x 16 cm; beige/off-white wrappers with text printed in black.

Twelth and last issue of Internationale Situationniste, which was characterized by its length (at 120 pages, vs. 34-83 pages for earlier issues) and had a larger print run (10,000 according to Rapaud & Voyer). This was also one of only two issues (the other being no.10) to have some copies bound in fictitious, beige/off-white wrappers – in this case those of an apocryphal Plankton Society – instead of the typical glossy, SI-branded wrappers.

Shall we read into this substitution a clever form of detournement? Was this a way for the S.I. to mock its own “flashy” wrappers? Evidence points to a much more pragmatic reasons: such precautions were taken to facilitate clandestine distribution in Eastern Europe, where the S.I.’s subversive political writings may have elicited an undue amount of interest from the authorities. Specifically, the article “Reforme et contre-reforme dans le pouvoir bureaucratique” (translated by Ken Knabb at “Reform and Counterreform in the Bureaucratic Bloc) – an account of the USSR’s brutal intervention in Czechoslovakia – would likely have proven problematic.

We locate a single OCLC copy at the International Institute for Social History (IISG) in Amsterdam.

NOTE: The owner states that, in this case, some copies would cross into Francoist Spain via networks of Spanish anarchist militants (from the C.N.T./F.A.I.) exiled in Northern (French) Catalonia.

Series of six posters produced by the Conseil pour le Maintien des Occupations (CMDO) during the May 68 riots in Paris. “The Council for the Maintenance of Occupation (CMDO) was formed on the evening of May 17 [1968] by those supporters of the first Occupation Committee of the Sorbonne who had left with it and who proposed to uphold for the rest of the crisis the program of council democracy which was inseparable from a qualitative expansion of the occupation movement…The CMDO was more or less constantly made up of about ten situationists and Enrages (among them Debord, Khayati, Riesel and Vaneigem) and as many workers, high school students or ‘students’, and other councilists without specific social functions” (Rene Vienet, Enrages and Situationists in the Occupation movement, p.95-96).  On June 15 [1968], the CMDO dissolved itself, with “some of [its members] among them, who recognized in the Situationist International the extension of their own activity, continued to work together in that organization.” (ibid, pp. 104-105)

The posters’ message can be translated as follows: “Down with the Spectacle-Commodity Society”; “Abolition of Class Society”; “Occupation of Factories”; “End of Universities”; “Power to Workers Councils”; and “What Can the Revolutionary Movement Do Now? Everything. What Does It Become in the Hands of the Parties and the Unions? Nothing. What Does the Movement Want? The Realization of a Classless Society through the Power of the Workers Councils.”

For more on the CMDO, see Vienet, Rene. Enrages and Situationists in the Occupation Movement. New York / London: Autonomedia / Rebel Press, 1992. This is the translation from the French original (Paris: Gallimard, 1968). In particular, see chapter 6 (“The Council for the Maintenance of Occupations” and councilist tendencies), pp. 95-106.

OCLC locates three institutions with holdings (BnF, Yale, Michigan)

Interesting tidbit: five of the six posters (all large ones) once greeted visitors to Yale’s Beinecke library. See below (from a documentary on the Voynich Manuscript, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awGN5NApDy4, 4’47)

Individual items below:

Conseil pour le Maintien des Occupations [CMDO]. A Bas la Societe Spectaculaire-Marchande! n.p. [Paris, France]: n.p. [CMDO], n.d. [May 1968]. 36.5 x 49.5 cm.; offset-printed in black and white inks

Conseil pour le Maintien des Occupations [CMDO]. Abolition de la Societe de Classe n.p. [Paris, France]: n.p. [CMDO], n.d. [May 1968]. 36.5 x 49.5 cm.; offset-printed in black and white inks

Conseil pour le Maintien des Occupations [CMDO]. Fin de l’Universite. n.p. [Paris, France]: n.p. [CMDO], n.d. [May 1968]. 36.5 x 49.5 cm.; offset-printed in black and white inks

Conseil pour le Maintien des Occupations [CMDO]. Le Pouvoir aux Conseils de Travailleurs. n.p. [Paris, France]: n.p. [CMDO], n.d. [May 1968]. 36.5 x 49.5 cm.; offset-printed in black and white inks

Conseil pour le Maintien des Occupations [CMDO]. Occupations des Usines. n.p. [Paris, France]: n.p. [CMDO], n.d. [May 1968]. 36.5 x 49.5 cm.; offset-printed in black and white inks

Conseil pour le Maintien des Occupations [CMDO]. Que Peut le Mouvement Revolutionnaire Maintenant? . n.p. [Paris, France]: n.p. [CMDO], n.d. [May 1968]. 24.5 x 15 cm.; offset-printed in black and white inks

Original correspondence between Guy Debord and Anita Blanc on the back of 14 signed postcards (ca. 10.5 x 15 cm. in size). Written between 1988 and 1990, all are accounted for in Correspondance, Vol. VII (Paris: Fayard, 2008).

Anita Blanc was one of a handful of employees (and Debord’s day-to-day contact) at Editions Champ Libre / Gerard Lebovici. She was the cousin of Gerard Lebovici, a famed film producer, editor and impresario who doubled as Debord’s patron until his mysterious assassination in 1984.

Anita Blanc and Guy Debord developed a warm relationship, as evidenced by the tone of some of their exchanges. They had a shared passion for cats, which explains the deliberate and consistent choice of postcards representing felines. All in all, Debord wrote to Blanc at least 25 times between July 29, 1988 and February 23, 1990 (see Correspondance, Vol “0”, pp. 352). The back-and-forth ended when Debord had a falling out with Editions Gerard Lebovici a few months after the death of Floriana Lebovici (Gerard Lebovici’s widow) from a devastating cancer on February 19, 1990. Two years later, Editions Lebovici became Editions Ivrea and Debord had jumped ship.

In this correspondence, Debord tackles a number of meaningful matters (such as the translation of his works into English and Spanish) but also some more pedestrian ones (for instance, the make-up of a display case for his new book). A detailed read of each piece is provided below:

01. Debord, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] Signed autograph postcard dated 01/10/[19]88. Accounted for in Correspondance, Vol. VII, p. 42. 

Debord asks Anita Blanc whether Olivier Lutaud [a famed historian and the author of Les Nivelleurs, Cromwell et la Republique, which Debord had read – see Correspondance Vol V, pp. 274, note 3] has sent his translation of a newly discovered text on the English revolution.

02. Debord, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] Signed autograph postcard dated 14/10/[19]88. Accounted for in Correspondance, Vol. VII, p. 43-44.

Debord states that half of his knowledge on the English revolution comes from Lutaud, while the other half comes from Guizot, which he views as a bit outdated [Guizot was the author of  Pourquoi la révolution d’Angleterre a-t-elle réussi ? Discours sur l’histoire de la révolution d’Angleterre in 1850 and Études biographiques sur la révolution d’Angleterre the following year, among others]. He also wonders that he may be the last man in France who cannot read English. He asks about Michele Duval [who had edited Saint-Just’s Oeuvres Completes and Anacharsis Cloots’ Ecrits Revolutionnaires for Champ Libre] and confirms that the third printing [of an unidentified] was exempt of typos.

03. Debord, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] Signed autograph postcard dated [28/10/1988]. Accounted for in Correspondance, Vol. VII, p. 47-48.

Debord wonders about the possibility that he (or other authors published by Gerard Lebovici) may be considered for a literary prize. In this unlikely event, and to avoid any confusion, Debord writes a brief “Memoradum” to Anita Blanc. He explains that Editions Gerard Lebovici are hostile to any literary prize, and that such a position is shared by all of its published authors.

04. Debord, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] Signed autograph postcard dated 03/11[19]88. Accounted for in Correspondance, Vol. VII, p. 48.

Debord gives Anita Blanc some guidance regarding the display case [in which his new book, Commentaires sur la Societe du Spectacle, is to be promoted]. He expresses a desire to see only three of his other works (namely, Considerations  [sur l’assassinat de Gerard Lebovici], [Societe du] Spectacle, and Le Jeu de la Guerre)  placed on the shelf alongside this new title. However, he also wishes to see works by Sexby, Junius, Cravan and Orwell placed on a separate shelf underneath or above. The fact that all four of these authors are English, he muses, is quite timely in light of Mrs Thatcher’s visit to Poland.

05. Debord, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] Signed autograph postcard dated 04/12/[19]88. Accounted for in Correspondance, Vol. VII, p. 53.

Debord is pleased with the display case that was prepared for his books [see postcard dated 3/11/1988]. He asks that a new display case be prepared to showcase [Jean-Francois] Martos’ new book [Histoire de l’Internationale Situationniste, published by Champ Libre in 1989]. He proposes to lend (but not gift) broadsides and original documents [from the Internationale Situationniste] on this occasion.

06. Debord, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] Signed autograph postcard dated 07/01/[19]89. Accounted for in Correspondance, Vol. VII, p. 66.

Debord tells Anita Blanc that he gave Nico[las Lebovici, Gerard Lebovici’s son] the documents for the display case [see postcard dated 04/12/1988].

07. Debord, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] Signed autograph postcard dated 10/03/[19]89. Accounted for in Correspondance, Vol. VII, p. 74. 

Debord acknowledges the receipt of a letter from the University of Montana at Missoula in which he is asked to partake in a conference alongside Baudrillard [Indeed, the conference Jean Baudrillard in the Mountains, or Modern Communication and the Disappearance of Art and Politics  was held from 11-13 May 1989 in Missoula, MT] and congratulates Anita for responding in a rather uncivil manner to said invitation.

08. Debord, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] Signed autograph postcard dated 06/06/[19]89. Accounted for in Correspondance, Vol. VII, p. 92.

Debord asks that Anita Blanc reject a request by Belgian urbanists [to publish excerpts from Debord’s writings] and, more generally, any similar request made by periodicals, anthologies, etc. This “it goes without saying”, should apply to all of his books.

09. Debord, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] Signed autograph postcard dated 29/09/[19]89. Accounted for in Correspondance, Vol. VII, p. 110.

Debord expresses his dismay at the fact that [Jean-Edern] Hallier [editor of the periodical l’Idiot International] reprinted some pages from Panegyrique without his explicit permission. However, he does not wish to dignify the journalist with a response. He also instructs Anita that, should similar requests be made in the future, they ought to be met with a flat-out rejection. See postcard dated 06/06/1989 for a similar ask.

10. Debord, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] Signed autograph postcard dated 15/10/[19]89. Accounted for in Correspondance, Vol. VII, p. 114. 

Debord asks Anita Blanc to respond to Malcolm Imrie [who is then preparing an English translation of La Societe du Spectacle for Verso, though the political treatise will ultimately be published by Zone in 1990] regarding the old pirate Black & Red translation. He also asks that Imrie send a letter detailing challenges with his translation of Commentaires sur la Societe du Spectacle  [Imrie did comply, and Debord’s response can be found in Correspondance Vol. VII, pp. 204-209. Imrie’s translation was ultimately published by Verso in 1990]. Finally, Debord asks that the translation of Panegyrique be be delayed, and that [Jorge] Herraldo not be forgotten [more on this in the next letter].

11. Debord, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] Signed autograph postcard dated 23/10/[19]89. Accounted for in Correspondance, Vol. VII, p. 115.

Debord asks Anita Blanc for a payment of 250,000 Francs on behalf of Editions Gerard Lebovici, partly as an advance on his latest book, Panegyrique. He also inquires about the status of “Societe des jeux strategiques et historiques” [a company he had initially founded with Gerard Lebovici and that would have marketed his board game “Kriegspiel”]. Finally, he expresses satisfaction with Pascal Dumontier’s manuscript [Les Situationnistes et Mai 68, which Champ Libre will ultimately publish in 1990] and says he will write to him [as he does the next day, in an unusually warm letter – see Correspondance, Vol. VII, pp. 117-121].

12. Debord, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] Signed autograph postcard dated 19/[12/1989]. Accounted for in Correspondance, Vol. VII, p. 150.

Debord thanks Anita for sending a check [for 250,000 Francs, see postcard dated 23/10/1989] on December 15. He also asks her to clarify the situation with the “senor editor de ANAGRAMA” [i.e., Jorge Herraldo, head of said Spanish publishing house]. In June 1988, Debord had written a first letter to Herraldo detailing some of the issues he saw with the Spanish translation of Commentaires sur la Societe du Spectacle  (see Correspondance, Vol. VII, p. 92) .

13. Debord, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] Signed autograph postcard dated 27/12/[19]89. Accounted for in Correspondance, Vol. VII, p. 153.

Debord expresses his worries once more regarding the Spanish translation of Commentaires sur la Societe du Spectacle . He now believes Jorge [Herraldo] is playing him for a fool.  The back of the postcard is a metaphor for the duplicitous Spanish publisher…

14. Debord, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] Signed autograph postcard dated 30/01/[19]90. Accounted for in Correspondance, Vol. VII, p. 169.

Debord laments how he is being treated by journalists [in reference to the article “Enquete sur les grands silencieux” published in Globe, February 1990,  in which he is essentially compared to the Guru of a cult] and reminds Anita about additional monies owed to him.

 

 

 

Internationale Situationniste. Debat d’orientation de l’ex-Internationale Situationniste. Paris: Centre de Recherche sur la Question Sociale (CRQS), 1974.

Scarce compilation of 35 internal documents of the SI debating possible strategies in the aftermath of May 1968. The documents were published between 26 August 1969 and 28 January 1971 and are chiefly in French, with two documents in English.

The Debat d’orientation contains a series of written texts, some deeply theoretical in nature, that served as a basis for a series of meetings held by members of the Situationist International in 1969 and 1970. They help understand the growing divides among the remaining members of the organization, and lay the ground for the dissolution of the SI a few years later. As Bill Brown remarks, the debate “was accompanied by a slew of exclusions…and resignations”, with most members of the American and French sections (or whatever was left of them at that point in time)  departing the group, voluntarily or not. In many way, the Debat is an indispensable companion to La Veritable Scission dans l’Internationale Situationniste (Paris: Champ Libre, 1972), which gives Debord and Sanguinetti’s (biased) perspective on the events that led to the “real split” in 1972.

As must be clear by now, these internal documents were not meant for publication. Brown notes that “when such a collection was finally put together by a fan of the situationists named Daniel Denevert and submitted to Editions Champ Libre, Guy Debord declined to help and Champ Libre turned the book down”. It was not until 1974 that Joel Cornuault, an early translator and publisher of Ken Knabb’s works in French, compiled them into an 80-page, primarily type-written mimeographed volume. The thin volume was circulated in small numbers within the Parisian pro/post-situationist milieu of the early to mid-1970s.

Unlike most other texts by the SI, the Debat d’orientation de l’ex-Internationale Situationniste cannot be found in full online. At some point in time, it had been made available by Franck Einstein here, but the link has been dead for a few years (and the original text may not have even been complete to begin with). For now, select letters have been reposted at Debord-encore. Remarkably, however, a complete English language translation – primarily the work of Bill Brown, with contributions by Ken Knabb and a few others – may be found here.

There appears to have been a reprint by Editions du Cercle Carre in 2000 (see here). However, we find no record of this edition on either OCLC or in the trade.

 

We locate 5 OCLC copies at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (BnF), Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, Nanterre’s BDIC, UC-Berkeley, and Michigan.

Ford 32. Gonzalvez 146.