Address to New York City Public School Students [1968]

Situationist International. Address to New York City Public School Students. New York: Situationist International, 12 November 1968. 4 p.; 21 x 29.5cm.; ill. B&W comics.

Stunning detourned Pogo comic by Bruce Elwell and Robert Chasse, published by the American section of the Situationist International in late 1968.

A translation of this comic into French is available  courtesy of Editions CMDE here . It is worth noting that CMDE issued the first French-language translation of the writings of the American Section of the Situationist International (2012).

In his preface to the French translation, translator Fabrice de San Mateo explains the context behind this comic: “At the moment that Chasse joined the SI, Elwell prepared a comic strip, “Address to New York Public School Students,” [created] in the vein of the comic-strips detourned by the [European] situationists. He composed these four-page comics with images borrowed from three anthologies of Pogo. The subject of this detournement was the union-led strike of the teachers in New York in the autumn of 1968, of which the Council had made a review in its text “The Newest School Buildings Are Indistinguishable From the Newest Prisons or the Newest Industrial Complexes”…These detourned comics appeared on 12 November 1968 as a publication of the Situationist International.At the same time, Elwell became a member of the SI in his turn.” (translation borrowed from http://www.notbored.org/ecrits-preface.html)

Not in Ford. We locate a single OCLC copy at New York University’s Tamiment Library, where it can be found in the “Ben Morea and Aldo Tambellini Papers” archive (TAM.530, Box 1, Folder 63)

 

 

 

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Maurice Wyckaert [INVITATION CARD] [1961]

Maurice Wyckaert [INVITATION CARD]. Milano: Galleria Del Naviglio, n.d. [December 1961]. 16 x 11.5 cm.; black ink on thick yellow stock.

Invitation card for Maurice Wyckaert’s show at Galleria D’Arte Del Naviglio in Milan on 9 December 1961.

Painter Maurice Wyckaert was a member of the Belgian section of the Situationist International through April 1961, when he was excluded “following an attempt to meddle in the SI’s affairs by the art dealer Otto Van de Loo, who had hoped to influence its politics by making threats and promises to several situationists with whom he had personal relations” (http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/chronology/1961.html). Wyckaert  is best known for having been chosen to read the Declaration in the Name of the Fourth SI Conference to the Institute of Contemporary Arts, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts on 28 September 1960. Often viewed as a relatively “minor” figure in the SI, Wyckaert’s works and contributions were brought to light in Gérard Berréby & Danielle Orhan (éds), L’Œuvre peint (1947-1996). Paris: Allia, 2012.

Not in OCLC.

The End of Music [1978]

[Wise, David] The End of Music. Glasgow: GPP, n.d. [1978?]. 36p.; ill.; 18 x 26 cm.; white wrappers with text in pink.

Contents:  “The Revolution of Everyday Alienation”; “White Dopes on Punk”; “Rebel Music and State Morality”; and “Music All Day Helps You…Work & Play”

Written by David Wise (formerly of King Mob), this is an important pamphlet that lays out the problematic relationship between Punk music and Situationist ideas. “Part of the genesis of punk goes back 10 years to the English section of the Situationists and the subsequent King Mob group, a loose affiliation (hardly a group) of disparate though confused revolutionary individuals in England in 1968”

Initially published in a typescript format, “this text was written around 1978 and came to be circulated in the U.K. by an informal network of revolutionaries who used the text as a focus for discussion in order critically to uncover the ‘social glue’ that maintains capitalist society.” (p. 34).

This “pirate” reprint is interesting in that, laid-in within the facsimile reproduction of the original typescript is a smaller-sized pamphlet that reproduces part of the content with a critical assessment by the authors of this edition: “We have indicated our differences with the author’s formulations at this time, in terms of an attachment to Marxist categories. While those passages dealing with the evolution of the English ‘pro-Situ’ scene are, in our opinion(s), among the most interesting in the text, we don’t view the pamphlet as accounting fully for the development of Punk or Reggae. Like Council Communism, ‘Situationism’ is the creation of a particular era in social struggle, and nostalgia bordering on mystification can only act as a brake on the re-vision of new revolutionary perspectives” (p.34).

“The End of Music” was later reprinted as part of Stewart Home’s “What is Situationism” (AK Press, 1990). It was also reprinted as part of David Wise’s “King Mob: a Critical Hidden History” (Bread and Circuses Publishing, 2014). The full text can be found on David and Stuart Wise’s website at http://www.revoltagainstplenty.com/index.php/recent/216-the-original-copy-of-the-end-of-music.html

For Stewart Home’s (very critical) assessment of the pamphlet, see https://www.stewarthomesociety.org/ass/punk.htm

Ford 318. We locate 4 OCLC copies (Leeds, National Art Library, University of London Research Services, IISG), none of which of this particular edition.