CONSTANT (Nieuwenhuys). New Babylon. Amsterdam: Galerie d’Eendt, 1963. 10 lithographs on Hahnemühle-Bütten paper, loosely inserted in black original cloth boards with blindtooled title. Portfolio housed in a blue cloth portfolio container (41 cm. x 39 cm.). Text by Simon Vinkenoog. Signed at the colophon by both Constant and Vinkenoog. Edition of 60; this one is e1.
Spectacular artist portfolio by Constant, realized at the height of his New Babylon period. Accompanied by the text “Preeambuul bij een nieuwe wereld” (Preamble to a new world) by Simon Vinkenoog. Some of the lithographs are full-sheet (40 x 76 cm.) while others are half-sheets (40 x 38 cm). The portfolio was produced in an edition of 60, with 10 copies numbered I-X (issued with an original drawing) and 50 copies numbered 1-50.
KOTANYI, Christophe. Cent dérives · A Hundred Drifts · Hundert Driften”. Axel Roch, Magda van Suntum (Eds.) 544pages, ill. Berlin: Gegenstalt, 2020
Cent dérives · A Hundred Drifts · Hundert Driften is a tri-lingual book in French, English and German by Christophe Kotanyi, the son of Attila Kotányi, who was a member of the S.I. between 1959 and 1963. The book drifts in the philosophies of subjectivity, as they were debated and talked over between 1945 and 1956 in Hungary, just before Attila Kotányi fled Hungary, and traces the tremendous influence on the SI through Attila Kotányi by the so-called Budapest Dialogical School, which consisted of Lajos Szabó, Béla Hamvas, and Béla Tabor. The author Christophe Kotanyi states for instance that “Attila Kotányi most certainly discussed [Lajos] Szabó’s theory of subjectivity with the Situationists in Paris, at a time when they were working on a political theory in terms of subjectivity as the active force, seeking to think beyond the romantic concept of subjectivity inherited from Marxism,” (see p. 332)
Indeed, Guy Debord puts in his Society of the Spectacle dialogue as true from of communication against falseness and deceitfulness of the spectacle. Debord claims in §18 the spectacle “is the opposite of dialogue.” And Debord ends his 1967-manifesto claiming that the “‘historical mission of installing truth in the world’ cannot be accomplished either by the isolated individual, or by the atomized crowd subjected to manipulation,” but “only where dialogue arms itself to make its own conditions victorious” (§221). This is the “dialogical principle” as just one example of what the situationist took apparently from the Budapest Dialogical School. Dialogical philosophies not only preceded situationism, but were also, as it seems, introduced to the situationists in person by Attila Kotányi. Kotányi’s influences on Debord are, probably similar to those of Ivan Chtcheglov, of tremendous historical interest.
In a similar way as Attila Kotányi introduced dialogical thinking and the political philosophy of subjectivity to the Situationists between 1959-1963, the author of Cent dérives introduces to the reader key topics of the philosophy of Lajos Szabó, Béla Hamvas, and Béla Tabor, a philosophy forgotten in the West, but central not only to Europe, but to situationism as well. The author of Cent dérives states for instance clearly that “Attila Kotányi transmitted this principle and method [the dialogical principle and the political theory of subjectivity of the Budapest Dialogical School] to the Situationists in Paris in the early sixties,” see also pp.75, 117, 124, 172, 332, etc. The book Cent dérives, thus, ends with an incredible theatre play about the situationists. Actors like “Guy Bordstein”, obviously a mix between “Guy Debord” and “Michèle Bernstein”, enter the stage as pirates that seem to steal and smuggle concepts and ideas in a play called “Le perroquet gris”…
The book equally drifts on a ship in various philosophical currents, and offers the reader ideas and concepts, not only in three languages, but also on 544 pages. The book has been published in Berlin by gegenstalt as hardcover with five different covers.
DEBORD, [Guy]; KOTANYI, A[ttila]; LAUSEN, U[we]; VANEIGEM, R[aoul]. Proclamation from l’Internationale Situationniste. n.p. [Goteborg, Sweden]: Internationale Situationniste, 23 March 1962. 1 p.; 21 x 15 cm.; black ink on thin red stock.
Nash and Elde are blamed for their “support [of] a number of collectors with the aid of the recently repelled fraction which was excluded from the German section at the Paris conference of the Conseil Central on the 10th of February”. JV Martin becomes the “supreme authority to represent l’Internationale Situationniste in the area covered by the former Scandinavian section…”
DE JONG, Jacqueline; NASH, Jorgen; ELDE, Ansgar. Nicht Hinauslehnen = Ne pas se pencher au dèhors = E pericoloso sporgesi! = Danger! Do not lean out! = Det är livsfarligt att luta sig ut! = Niet naar buiten hangen!. Paris: n.p., 13 February 1962. 11 p.; 23.5 x 17.5 cm.; black ink on green stock.
English language leaflet written by the future “Nashists” (Jacqueline de Jong, Jorgen Nash and Ansgar Elde) to denounce the expulsion of SPUR members from the SI. While Jorn did not sign the leaflet, he is believed to have financed its publication. Nash would go on to form the 2nd Situationist International after his own expulsion less than two months later.
“Paris, a witches’ cauldron of political instigations and demonstrations, armoured cars in the streets, the bloody shadow of the Algerian war, OAS, FLN, clearing murders and torture. Strikes, Police raids, censorship, no gallic clarity but a dark witches’ trial, shootings and reprisals, many dead and wounded. Paris, where our Conseil Central hold a meeting in the Internationale Situationniste the 10th and 11th February 1962, 129 Boulevard Saint-German – even here brother against brother!”
Scheppe & Ohrt 200.
We locate copies at Yale’s Beinecke Library (Jacqueline de Jong papers), at the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), at the MACBA (Barcelona)
VANEIGEM, Raoul. Traité de savoir-vivre à l’usage des jeunes générations. Paris: Gallimard, November 1967. 167 p.; 20.5 x 14 cm. Beige cover with text in black and red
First edition of Raoul Vaneigem’s masterpiece. Traité de savoir-vivre à l’usage des jeunes générations is one of the two cornerstones of Situationist theory (along with Guy Debord’s La Société du spectacle, published around the same time by Buchet-Chastel). Excerpts would quickly be translated into English (“Two sections from “Treatise on Living by Raoul Vaneigem”, Re-invention of Everyday Life, 1970), with the full text translated (in two parts) by John Fullerton and Paul Sieveking as “Treatise on Living for the Use of Young Generation” around 1972. Future translations will change the title to “The Revolution of Everyday Life”.
Exceptionally signed by author on title page: “Avec tous mes remerciements pour cette passion et cet interet pour mon travail – Raoul”
COUNCIL FOR LIBERATION OF IMAGINATION. [I have been a PL member for a month now…]. n.p. [Cambridge, MA?]: Council for Liberation of Imagination, n.d. [1969?]. 1 p.; ill.; 21 x 29.5 cm.; black ink on white stock
Leaflet published by a mysterious “Council for the Liberation of Imagination”, likely an offshoot of the Council for Conscious Existence (itself an offshoot of Radical Action Cooperative when its members moved to Harvard — more details here) that Hannah Ziegellaub (who was one of the translators of the first English language edition of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spetacle — more details here) was a member of. There were many such, often ephemeral “Council” groups in the late 1960s: the Council for the Liberation of Daily Life, the Council for the Eruption of the Marvelous, the Council for Conscious Existence, etc.
Very Situ inspired: “Due to your insufficient critique of your daily life and its poverty, you continue to participate in the spectacular commodity system. Capitalist society creates the illusion of participation. And it learned from Eastern bureaucracies how to organize the illusion of participation…”
We do not locate any information or holdings about the Council for the Liberation of Imagination in the trade or on OCLC.
[DEBORD, GUY]. Nous rions mais jamais en meme temps que vous. Paris: Edition privée hors commerce, 2020. 15 x10.5 cm.; ill. color postcard.
A postcard released as an homage to Guy Debord. The slogan was originally released as a header for the text “Position du continent Contrescarpe” in Lèvres nues, no 9, p. 38, novembre 1956 (see below). Also accounted for in Guy Debord, Correspondance volume 0, p. 126 and Lettres à Marcel Mariën, p. 72.
Copies of the detourned postcard can be obtained free of charge from Edition privée hors commerce (see PDF linked)
[DEBORD, GUY]. Ne télétravaillez jamais! . Paris: Edition privée hors commerce, 2020. 15 x10.5 cm.; ill. color postcard.
A detournement of the original French postcard (designed by Louis Buffier) featuring a colorized photograph of the famous “Ne travaillez jamais” (Never Work) graffito, for which Debord claims ownership. This was released on the occasion of COVID-19 and the shift to remote work during the pandemic.
More details on the original postcard can be found on the blog here
Copies of the detourned postcard can be obtained free of charge from Edition privée hors commerce
