Die Welt Als Labyrinth [CATALOG] [2018]

Die Welt Als Labyrinth.  Geneva: MAMCO, 2019. 63 p.; ill.; 48 x 32 cm.; black ink on newspaper stock. Catalog from the exhibition held at the MAMCO Museum in Geneva between February and May 2018.

The publication “Die Welt als Labyrinth” (The world as Labyrinth) relates back to the exhibition dedicated to the Situationist International which took place at MAMCO in the Spring of 2018 and is shaped as a journey through some episodes of this story. This exhibition was the occasion to reflect on the paradox that is raised by any presentation of these last twentieth-century avant-gardes: how to exhibit in a museum people who were systematically opposed to cultural institutions? (Printed Matter)

The illustration on the front cover is an untitled darboard collage from the Situationist exhibition Destruktion af RSG-6 at the gallery Exi, Odense, Denmark in 1963.

The title of the exhibition “refers to an unfulfilled project for a Situationist exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1960, and shows up one of the questions that are raised by any presentation of these avant-garde movements: how to exhibit in a museum people who were systematically opposed to cultural institutions? Going further than a sabotaging of art through an unconventional register of forms and techniques, it was art as distinct social territory, governed by institutions, and determined by the market economy, that was in these movements’ crosshairs.” (MAMCO)

For more information and pictures of the exhibition, see https://www.galleriesnow.net/shows/die-welt-als-labyrinth/. For a video, see https://vimeo.com/288680033

Della Miseria Nell’Ambiente Studentesco [1969]

KHAYATI, Mustapha. [De la Misere en Milieu Etudiant] Della Miseria Nell’ambiente Studentesco. Catania: Gruppo Anarchico M. Bakunin di Cosenza, November 1969. 32 p.; ill.; 17 x 23 cm.; ill.. White wrappers with text in black.

Second Italian edition by Luigi Lo Celso, following the Feltrinelli edition in 1967. “During 1969 he came into contact with some members of the Italian Section of the Situationist International. He appropriates the critical thinking of the situationists and begins its dissemination in Cosenza, distributing the first issue of the Italian edition of the magazine. In November of the same year, admist the student struggles that shake Cosenza, he translates and prints Della Miseria under the “Bakunin” Group imprint. This version is accompanied by explanatory notes and two of Celso’s own writing (more details at http://www.bfscollezionidigitali.org/entita/13839-%E2%80%8Blo-celso-luigi/)

This edition is not accounted on either OCLC or in the trade.

L’Estremismo Coerente dei Situazionisti [1968]

[Internationale Situationniste]. L’estremismo coerente dei situazionisti / O extremismo coerente dos situacionistas. Milan: Ed. 912, November 1968. 190 p.; ill.; 16.7 x 11.7 cm.; ill. Purple cover with text in black.

 

Early collection of Situationist works in translation, published before the Italian section of the S.I. could distribute its own texts.The front cover is illustrated with a portrait of Karl Marx stating (in Italian): “On 28 September 1964, it will be exactly one hundred years since we founded the Situationist International. It’s starting to take shape”. A leaflet was released by the S.I. on that day to commemorate the 100 year founding of the International Workingmen’s Association.

Contents include: A short chronology of the SI movement, translations into Italians of “De La Misere en Milieu Etudiant” (1966), “Adresse aux Revolutionnaires d’Algerie et de tous les Pays” (1965), “Le Declin et la Chute de l’Economie Spectaculaire-Marchande” (1965), “Contributions servant à rectifier l’opinion du public sur la révolution dans les pays sous-développés” (1967), “Le Point d’Explosion de l’Ideologie en Chine” (1967); “Definition Minimum des Organisations Revolutionnaires” (1968), a postface, a short bibliography, and a list of addresses for the S.I. and related groups (Heatwave, Zengakuren, Noir & Rouge…). A few of the above texts are also translated into Portuguese.

Raspaud & Voyer 143; Scheppe & Ohrt 356