Guy Debord and the Situationist International Texts and Documents

by McDonough, Tom

• ISBN13: 9780262633000
• ISBN10: 0262633000
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-02-27
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

This volume is a revised and expanded version of a special issue of the journal October(Winter 1997) that was devoted to the work of the Situationist International (SI). The first section of the issue contained previously unpublished critical texts, and the second section contained translations of primary texts that had previously been unavailable in English. The emphasis was on the SI's profound engagement with the art and cultural politics of their time (1957-1972), with a strong argument for their primarily political and activist stance by two former members of the group, T. J. Clark and Donald Nicholson-Smith. Guy Debord and the Situationist Internationalsupplements both sections. It reprints important, hard to find essays by Giorgio Agamben, Libero Andreotti, Jonathan Crary, Thomas Y. Levin, Greil Marcus, and Tom McDonough and doubles the number of translations of primary texts, which now encompass a broader and more representative range of the SI's writings on culture and language. In a field still dominated by hagiography, the critical texts were selected for their willingness to confront critically the history and legacy of the SI. They examine the group within the broader framework of the historical and neo-avant-gardes and, beyond that, the postwar world in general. The translations trace the SI's reflections on the legacy of the avant-garde in art and architecture, particularly on the linguistic and spatial significance of montage aesthetics. Many of the translated works are by Guy Debord (1932-1994), the impresario of the SI, especially known for his book The Society of the Spectacle.

Author Biography

Tom McDonough is Assistant Professor of Art History at Binghamton University, New York.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Ideology and the Situationist Utopia	p. ix
The Long Walk of the Situationist International	p. 1
Selected Situationist Texts
The Great Sleep and Its Clients (1955)	p. 21
One Step Back (1957)	p. 25
Report on the Construction of Situations and on the Terms of Organization and Action of the International Situationist Tendency (1957)	p. 29
One More Try If You Want to Be Situationists (The SI in and against Decomposition) (1957)	p. 51
Theses on Cultural Revolution (1958)	p. 61
Contribution to the Debate "Is Surrealism Dead or Alive?" (1958)	p. 67
In Praise of Pinot-Gallizio (1958)	p. 69
Constant: Extracts from Letters to the Situationist International (1958)	p. 75
Editorial Notes: Absence and Its Costumers (1958)	p. 79
Editorial Notes: The Meaning of Decay in Art (1959)	p. 85
Constant: A Different City for a Different Life (1959)	p. 95
Editorial Notes: Critique of Urbanism (1961)	p. 103
Editorial Notes: Once Again, on Decomposition (1961)	p. 115
Comments against Urbanism (1961)	p. 119
Editorial Notes: Priority Communication (1962)	p. 129
Editorial Notes: The Avant-Garde of Presence (1963)	p. 137
Editorial Notes: All the King's Men (1963)	p. 153
The Situationists and the New Forms of Action in Politics or Art (1963)	p. 159
Perspectives for a Generation (1966)	p. 167
Captive Words (Preface to a Situationist Dictionary) (1966)	p. 173
The Situationists and the New Forms of Action against Politics and Art (1967)	p. 181
The Practice of Theory: Cinema and Revolution (1969)	p. 187
Asger Jorn's Avant-Garde Archives	p. 189
Architecture and Play	p. 213
Situationist Space	p. 241
Lefebvre on the Situationists: An Interview	p. 267
Angels of Purity	p. 285
Difference and Repetition: On Guy Debord's Films	p. 313
Dismantling the Spectacle: The Cinema of Guy Debord	p. 321
Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory	p. 455
Why Art Can't Kill the Situationist International	p. 467
Letter and Response	p. 489
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