Debord, Guy. Black Box. Les Editions Derriere la Salle de Bain, n.d. [2014]. 1 Box; 20.5 x 9.0 x 4.0 cm.; black and white box with text in black. Laid in: 8 mini-books (each 6 p.; ill.; 7.5 x 7.5 cm.).

Laser-printed on featherweight paper (papier bouffant). The box contains 8 mini books which include excerpts from Guy Debord’s writings. They are richly illustrated with B&W photographs of Debord, with and without other members of the SI.

Les Editions Derriere la Salle de Bain is a small press ran by Marie-Laure Dagois. It publishes the Beat Generation, the Surrealists, the Situationists, and author avant-garde movements

This Black Box is available for 20 Euro at the following link: http://leseditionsderrierelasalledebains.bigcartel.com/product/guy-debord-black-box

Rumney, Ralph. Pourvu que ca dure – Sur le passage de quelques idees a travers le temps. Manosque: Bureau des Inspections Analytiques, June 1999. 14 p.; ill.; 21 x 14.5 cm.; blue wrappers with text in black.

First edition, limited to 100 copies (all stamped). This copy signed by Ralph Rumney “Faut savoir tamponner aussi / A bientot Roger / Ralph”. A second edition, limited to 200 copies and with an explanatory preface by Yves Helias, was published in November 1999.

This brief text by Ralph Rumney was originally to be published in “Le Consul” (Paris: Allia, October 1999). For technical reasons, it was not included in that volume, and is thus issued here in full. In The Map is Not the Territory (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), we learn that “the text arises from conversations with Michel Guet in November 1998, edited with great care so as to be a definitive statement of Ralph’s relation to the ideas of the SI. On the title page, under his name, he declares himself a member of the Comite Psychogeographique de Londres…The pamphlet begins with a set of definitions from Internationale Situationniste no.1 (1958) (p.26-28)

Full text available at http://homme-moderne.org/images/peintr/rrumney/pourvu.html and list of brochures available here: http://homme-moderne.org/images/peintr/rrumney/bipK.gif

Scarce in the trade, with only a single OCLC copy (Centre Pompidou in Paris)

Martin, J.V. [Else Steen Hansen]. Homo Ludens. In Konstrevy 5-6 (pp. 200-203). Stockholm: Ahlen & Akerlunds Forlags, 1963. ca. 64 p. [numbered 162-224]; ill.; 21 x 30 cm.; ill. Black and red wrappers with text in white.

Rare contemporary account of the RSG-6 exhibit (“Homo Ludens” by Else Steen Hansen (pp. 200-203) published in a Swedish avant-garde art magazine. Even more uncommon is the fact that this profusely illustrated review received the closest thing to praise from the members of the Internationale Situationniste. In “les mois les plus longs” (Internationale Situationniste 9, August 1964), those who professed their contempt for all art critics describe Hansen’s review as “un compte rendu intelligent” (see http://mai68.org/textes/IS/i-situationniste.blogspot.com/2007/04/les-mois-les-plus-longs.html)

So how is this possible? Well, the only review the Situationists would endorse is one written by their own. Indeed, Else Steen Hansen is a pseudonym for J.V. Martin, who authored this (understandably positive) review. The full text (along with the illustrations) can be found at http://www.copenhagenfreeuniversity.dk/homolude.html

Bauhaus Situationiste. Drakabygget 1-11. Örkelljunga (Sweden): Bauhaus Situationiste, 1962-1984. 64-98-96-192-192 p.; ill.; 18 x 25 cm. Profusely illustrated covers.

Drakabygget was the organ of the Bauhaus Situationiste  group. Following an internal strife which led to his exclusion (and that of several other members of the Internationale Situationniste, including the entire SPUR  group), Jorgen Nash grew a movement that also came to be known as the Second Situationist International out of Skane, Sweden.  The title of the magazine was directly borrowed from the name of Nash’s farm, which by then had been turned into a kind of artists’ commune. It was subtitled Tidskrift for konst mot atombomber, påvar och politiker (“Magazine for art against atomic bombs, popes and politicians”), with contents just as sulfurous as one may expect. In one of their best-known scandals, Nash with other members of Bauhaus Situationniste allegedly decapitated the statue of the Little Mermaid in the Copenhagen harbor.

Texts in Drakabygget  are primarily written in Swedish, though many have recently been translated (see: Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen and Jakob Jakobsen, “Cosmonauts of the Future: Texts from the Situationist Movement in Scandinavia and Elswhere”, Autonomedia 2015) with some success.

Our copies of issues 6-7-8 and 9-10-11 are both dedication copies, one by Nash and the other by Nash and the other by Zwick and Nash

Full sets are scarce, as issues were published as much as 10+ years apart. About a dozen copies on OCLC, with 5 in North America.

This post is a little different. I would like to pay a tribute to lesser-known members of the SI (i.e., figures beyond Debord and Vaneigem) by sharing some videos that showcases their works and lives:

Ralph Rumney:

Brief video account of the Rumney exhibit at the Centre International de Poesie in Marseille a few years ago. A rare chance to glimpse at some of Rumney’s works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmfQwMdAvbw

Derive Gallizio

A short video tribute to Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio, a most original artist (“l’artiste libre est un amateur professionnel”) and short-lived member of the SI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FphPUHG0NCs

Michele Bernstein – “Tous les Chevaux du Roi”

A fabulous interview of Michele Bernstein who speaks to Pierre Dumayet in 1960. Beautiful, charming, and witty, Bernstein is an oft-overlooked member of the SI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlIc_1cjCdg

Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle [FILM]. n.p. [New York, NY?], Ediciones La Cavalera, n.d. [1990s]. 1 VHS tape (89 min.): sd., b&w, 1/2 in. French with English subtitles.

The film version of the Society of the Spectacle was released in 1973, six years after the eponymous book and a year after the dissolution of the SI. Following Gerard Lebovici’s assassination in 1984, and in response to the press’ accusations that he may have murdered his friend and publisher, Debord took his films out of circulation until after his death. While his films were shown on French television immediately following Debord’s suicide in 1994, it wasn’t until 2005 that they were officially re-released to the public in a DVD box set titled Guy Debord: Oeuvres cinématographiques complètes.

Between 1984 and 2005 – when Debord’s films were difficult to get a hold off – bootleg VHS tapes and DVDs flourished. Keith Sanborn produced the first subtitled version of the French film; Peggy Ahwesh is credited as “project coordinator”

The OCLC entry reads as follows: “This essayistic film is both an adaptation of Debord’s book and a provocative example of a favored situationist tactic, détournement, which is a reuse of existing artistic elements in a new ensemble. Neither an ivory tower “philosophical” discourse nor a helplessly impulsive “protest,” this is a ruthlessly lucid examination of the most fundamental tendencies and contradictions of the society we live in.” (OCLC)

Not found in the trade, with only three OCLC holdings (Michigan, Berkeley SUNY Buffalo)

Vaneigem, Raoul;  Kozakis, Nicolas (Photos). Un moment d’eternite dans le passage du temps. Crisnee (Belgium): Yellow Now, April 2012. n.p. [78 p.]; ill.; 14 x 19 cm.; ill. White cover with text in black. 1 DVD single face (4’33) with B&W images from the book.

Beautiful collaboration project between Raoul Vaneigem and visual artist Nicolas Kozakis. We borrow heavily from Katerina Gregos’ thorough and accurate review:

“The work was shot in Mount Athos, a remote mountain and peninsula in northern Greece, which is home to a number of Greek Orthodox monasteries […] Apart from being a holy place, it is also one of escape and meditation for those who manage to gain access. The video unfolds in an undisclosed location, by the sea. A sad-faced, lone immigrant construction worker goes about the task of building a traditional stone house, at his own pace, stopping now and then to smoke a cigarette and contemplate the magnificent, totally still sea view. His task is facilitated by a few donkeys, ancient labourers which have now become all but obsolete from the modern workforce. Time seems almost to have stood still.

Vaneigem’s existential, poetic text builds on the quiet, contemplative pace of the images, reflecting on the nature of contemporary life, and its obsession with work, productivity and success, at the expense of the true experience of life itself. The text muses on the current impasse and the predatory nature of capitalism, which has reduced life to its « mere shadows», the lonely figure of the worker recalls the myriad of migrants exploited as cheap labour all over the planet. Critical and utopian at once, it argues for the need to reinvent a new, more humane vision of the world, closer to nature”

2 copies on OCLC (BnF, Paris VIII) and scarce in the trade

Anonymous [Khayati, Mustapha]. Les Cahiers de l’Encyclopedie du Monde Actuel 51. Les Marxismes: Ideologies et Revolution. Lausanne: Rencontres, January 1970. 32 p.; ill.; 14 x 20 cm.; ill. B&W wrappers with picture of an aging Marx.

Anonymous [Khayati, Mustapha]. Les Cahiers de l’Encyclopedie du Monde Actuel 107. Le Golfe Persique. Lausanne: Rencontres, October 1970. 32 p.; ill.; 14 x 20 cm.; ill. B&W wrappers with picture of an oil platform.

Texts now firmly attributed to Mustapha Khayati, which includes a brief review and discussion of Marxist and related movements (including two and a half pages on the SI) for the first one, and a brief historical overview of the the middle east and the role of oil for the other.

Gerard Berreby, who spoke to Donald Nicholson-Smith, Mustapha Khayati, and a few others explains the genesis of the Situationists’ participation to the Encyclopedie du Monde Actuel: “The participation of the ‘situationist group’ in the Encyclopedie du Monde Actuel wasn’t official. There were a few subsistence jobs to which some members of the SI devoted themselves. The work consisted in writing “EDMA cards” and, eventually, monthly booklets […] At first, likely around 1966, my wife, Cathy Pozzo di Borgo, and I began to produce, on a freelance basis, this type of card under the supervision of André Fougerousse – Cathy’s stepfather – for publication by Editions Rencontre in Lausanne. Along with Charles-Henri Favrod, Fougerousse had been (in 1962) one of the founders of this editorial project. Later on, we passed on some “card jobs” to our buddies, including Mustapha and Raoul […] The members of the SI – and Raoul first and foremost – continued to make contributions to EDMA more or less until 1974. As such, many of the booklets were written by situationists or ex-situs – even after the dissolution of the movement in 1972″ (Rien n’est fini, tout commence, p. 157. Translation is my own)

Gerard Berreby notes that “Following discussions with Mustapha Khayati, and upon inspecting the various documents involved, it appears as if Mustapha Khayati himself wrote the cards entitled Situationnisme (17 May 1967, card #1775), Guy Debord (23 September 1970, card #3875) and La Société du Spectacle (25 August 1972, card #5076). He also authored booklet #51, Les Marxismes, ideologies et révolution (January 1970).” In recent correspondence with Mustapha Khayati, he further confirms that booklet #174 – Le Golfe Persique (October 1974) is indeed his work as well.

Debord, Guy. 10 Jaar Experimentele Kunst: Jorn en zijn rol in de theoretische inventie. Jorn, Asger. Uit “Pour la Forme”.  Museumjournaal  tijdschrift van het Stedelijk Van Abbe museum te Eindhoven, Rijksmuseum Kröller Müller te Otterlo en het Stedelijk Museum te Amsterdam, series 4, no.4. Otterlo (Netherlands): Stedelijk Museum, October 1958. 22 p. [pp.61-83]; 20 x 29 cm. Ill. wrappers with a Jorn etching.

Rare and important issue of Museumjournaal, the journal of of Stedelijk Museum, devoted to the Internationale Situationniste and more specifically to Asger Jorn’s Pour la Forme. Debord’s article, 10 Jaar Experimentele Kunst: Jorn en zijn rol in de theoretische inventie (which can be translated as 10 years of experimental art: Jorn and his role in theoretical invention) briefly explains Jorn’s trajectory from Cobra to the Imaginist Bauhaus and the origins of Pour la Forme. This is a followed by a Uit “Pour la Forme” (On Pour la Forme), a series of excerpts from Jorn’s book, which had been published in Paris by the SI just a few months earlier. Black and white illustrations of Jorn’s art throughout.

A rare Debord contribution to a more “traditional” art journal, and one of the very first times the Internationale Situationniste is discussed (and for over 20 pages), a year or so after its foundation. The scarce text has been translated into French (Archives Situationnistes: Volume 1: Documents traduits 1958-1970.) and into English (http://www.notbored.org/ten-years.html)

Raspaud & Voyer 108. Gonzalvez 91. Not particularly scarce on OCLC (as many librairies subscribed to this important journal), but difficult to find in the trade.

Debord, Guy. THE NAKED CITY – Illustration de l’hypothèse des plaques tournantes en psychogeographique (sic). Copenhagen: Permild & Rosengreen, n.d. [May 1957]. 1 p. litographed sheet in black and red, 47 x 33 cm.

Original edition of this iconic map that slightly predates the foundation of the Internationale Situationniste in July 1957. Released on the occasion of the Fourth Congress of the Mouvement International pour un Bauhaus Imaginiste (M.I.B.I) as an illustration of the theory of the derive. The title is borrowed from Jules Dassin’s eponymous film noir, released in 1948, which was itself a reference to Weegee’s first book of photographs on New York city (1945).

“One of the first results to come out of the collaboration between Debord and Jorn…Illustrating the notion of psychogeography. Each preserved part of the city had some sort of sentimental value attached to them. The maps also worked as a guide to the forgotten or overlooked parts of Paris, that were yet awaiting to be hit by the forces of capitalism.” (Christian Nolle). “On the Paris’ map edited in May 1957 by the MI.B.I., the arrows represent the links between the different units of ambiance; that is to say, the spontaneous guiding tendencies of a subject that crosses through this milieu without practical considerations (such as work or leisure) that usually guide his behavior” (Quatrieme Experience du M.I.B.I in Documents Relatifs a la Fondation de l’Internationale Situationniste, translation is mine)

The map is reprinted in Pour la Forme (Paris: Internationale Situationniste, 1958; Paris: Allia, 2001), in Documents Relatifs a la Fondation de l’Internationale Situationniste (Paris: Allia, 1985) and in Situacionistas: arte, politica, urbanismo (Barcelona: Museu d’art contemporani de Barcelona/Actar, 1996), among others.

The print run is unknown, but surviving copies in sheets are extremely scarce since most had their margins significantly trimmed to be inserted in Asger Jorn’s Pour la Forme in 1958. We find only two copies on OCLC (Columbia and Yale).