[Blake_Stimson,_Gregory_Sholette]_Collectivism_aft(z-lib

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Internationaleries 21Rooskens, Eugene Brands, Lucebert (Lubertus Jacobus Swaanswijk), Lottivan der Gaag (Charlotte van der Gaag), Theo Wolvecamp, and Jan Nieuwenhuysfrom the Netherlands; Shinkichi Tajiro from the United States;Stephen Gilbert and William Gear from Scotland; Karl Otto Goetz fromGermany; and Max Walter Svanberg from Sweden.In a similar vein, the members of the Lettrist International wereactive between 1952 and 1957. LI was a rebellious fraction formed out ofdeparting members of the Lettrist group. 23 Formed around a small, yet veryconsistent number of members working in Paris they were, contrary toRosenberg’s complaint, truly international and included Guy Debord, GillJ. Wolman, Michele Bernstein, Andre-Frank Conord, Jacques Fillon, GillesIvain (Ivan Chtcheglov), Moustapha Khayatti, and Mohamed Dahou. Fromthe very start their practice appropriated a critical reading of “everyday life”(le quotidien) taken from Henri Lefebvre’s writings. They used this conceptto focus their activity on various “modes of conditioning,” while conceivingof their practice as a highly sophisticated tactical, rather than strategic,game 24 whose goal was achieving nothing less than a “permanent culturalrevolution.” 25The third group, Mouvement International pour un BauhausImaginiste, or the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus (MIBI),was active from 1953 through 1957 and formed as a collaboration betweensome CoBrA artists including Dotremont, Constant, and Jorn, but at varioustimes also incorporated members from the Nuclear Movement (Il MovimentoNucleare) such as Enrico Baj, 26 as well as LI members such as Debord, Wolman,and Dahou. They were joined by musicians, philosophers, architects,and sometimes simply amateurs from Italy, such as Giuseppe-Pinot Gallizio,Ettore Sottsas Jr., Pierro Simondi, and Elena Verrone, but also by PrvoslavRadu from Romania, Jan Kotik from Czechoslovakia, and Echauren Mattafrom Cuba. MIBI was responsible for the creation of the First Laboratory ofthe Imaginist Experimental Art in Albisola, and for staging the First Congressof Free Artists in 1956 that led to the UniWcation Congress and theformation of the Situationist International in 1957.The SI was active from 1957 through 1972. Of all the internationaleriesthe SI has had the most long-lasting inXuence, which is beingrevisited today among younger artists, activists, and cultural critics. Extremelyactive in getting its ideas into print between 1957 and 1969, the SI publisheda journal under the same name, Internationale Situationniste, while variousother SI factions published Spur, Situationist Times, Deutsche Denke, andSituationiske Revolution, to mention but a few of the highly developed if shortlivedjournals that advanced ideas about artistic practice as a purely tacticalgame. Accordingly, their grotesque critique of various forms of “spectacular”

22 Jelena Stojanovićconditioning, such as that carried out by the media or the movies in particular,took up a central position within their internationally conceivedconferences. Totaling eight altogether, these gatherings were inaugurated in1957 with the UniWcation Congress in Cosio d’Arroscia and concluded in1969 with the Eighth Conference in Venice. The international ambitions ofthese collective events is made apparent by their emphasis on the membershipin Africa, Latin America, and Asia as well as the fact that almost fortyorganizations from all over the world attended over the life span of the organization.As noted, however, only two groups stayed on permanently as partof the SI. 27COLLECTIVE EXPERIMENTATION/S:TOWARD FORMING A GROTESQUE CRITIQUE“Mr. Georges Lapassade is a cunt,” 28 exclaimed the Situationists, whose verylanguage manifests itself as a form of excessively hyperbolic and caustichumor. Yet if the Situationist’s grotesque begins in rude expressions andpersonal insults, it ultimately remained an ambiguous act. Its goal was tocritically address a total reality and to do so in the form of an “inside out”reversal 29 or as a “third force” 30 that is ultimately “not beautiful but true.” 31As is well known the experimental method or simply the “experimental”was a powerful modernist trope denoting an objective, positivistic,and scientiWc inquiry: a dispassionate recording and reordering of reality intoa set of easily measurable, quantiWable units. More importantly, the experimentalwas not the “why” but the “how” things happen. As Émile Zola justi-Wed its use in what he termed the “scientiWc age novel,” it was made to Wt a“new, physiological man.” 32 The internationaleries, however, “détourned” theterm experimental, doing so with the hope that as a collective device itwould become a practice, or rather a myriad of practices, for turning insideoutits own positivistic utilitarianism while resisting classiWcation and homogenization.For example, with CoBrA IAE, the experimental was primarilyunderstood as a “third force” that mocked the dominant cold war rhetoricof ideological and formal antithesis. In artistic terms this took the form ofpainterly abstraction vs. realism, or speciWcally, abstract vs. social realism.In artistic terms this meant an ideological struggle between painterly abstractionand realism, or speciWcally, American abstract expressionism versusSoviet socialist realism. As Christian Dotremont explained in 1950, 33 experimentalpractices were also a way to critically rework two important avantgardelegacies, surrealism and Marxism, that were becoming increasinglyidealized and useless in the given historical situation. Although often in apolemical exchange with Henri Lefebvre, 34 who was himself an old surrealist,

Internationaleries 21

Rooskens, Eugene Brands, Lucebert (Lubertus Jacobus Swaanswijk), Lotti

van der Gaag (Charlotte van der Gaag), Theo Wolvecamp, and Jan Nieuwenhuys

from the Netherlands; Shinkichi Tajiro from the United States;

Stephen Gilbert and William Gear from Scotland; Karl Otto Goetz from

Germany; and Max Walter Svanberg from Sweden.

In a similar vein, the members of the Lettrist International were

active between 1952 and 1957. LI was a rebellious fraction formed out of

departing members of the Lettrist group. 23 Formed around a small, yet very

consistent number of members working in Paris they were, contrary to

Rosenberg’s complaint, truly international and included Guy Debord, Gill

J. Wolman, Michele Bernstein, Andre-Frank Conord, Jacques Fillon, Gilles

Ivain (Ivan Chtcheglov), Moustapha Khayatti, and Mohamed Dahou. From

the very start their practice appropriated a critical reading of “everyday life”

(le quotidien) taken from Henri Lefebvre’s writings. They used this concept

to focus their activity on various “modes of conditioning,” while conceiving

of their practice as a highly sophisticated tactical, rather than strategic,

game 24 whose goal was achieving nothing less than a “permanent cultural

revolution.” 25

The third group, Mouvement International pour un Bauhaus

Imaginiste, or the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus (MIBI),

was active from 1953 through 1957 and formed as a collaboration between

some CoBrA artists including Dotremont, Constant, and Jorn, but at various

times also incorporated members from the Nuclear Movement (Il Movimento

Nucleare) such as Enrico Baj, 26 as well as LI members such as Debord, Wolman,

and Dahou. They were joined by musicians, philosophers, architects,

and sometimes simply amateurs from Italy, such as Giuseppe-Pinot Gallizio,

Ettore Sottsas Jr., Pierro Simondi, and Elena Verrone, but also by Prvoslav

Radu from Romania, Jan Kotik from Czechoslovakia, and Echauren Matta

from Cuba. MIBI was responsible for the creation of the First Laboratory of

the Imaginist Experimental Art in Albisola, and for staging the First Congress

of Free Artists in 1956 that led to the UniWcation Congress and the

formation of the Situationist International in 1957.

The SI was active from 1957 through 1972. Of all the internationaleries

the SI has had the most long-lasting inXuence, which is being

revisited today among younger artists, activists, and cultural critics. Extremely

active in getting its ideas into print between 1957 and 1969, the SI published

a journal under the same name, Internationale Situationniste, while various

other SI factions published Spur, Situationist Times, Deutsche Denke, and

Situationiske Revolution, to mention but a few of the highly developed if shortlived

journals that advanced ideas about artistic practice as a purely tactical

game. Accordingly, their grotesque critique of various forms of “spectacular”

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