Lettrism and Situationism

The Situationist International (SI) was formed by a merger of two post-war continental art groups, Guy Debord’s Lettrist International and Asger Jorn’s International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus (IMIB) .

Lettrism was an avant-garde movement, established in Paris in the mid-1940s Isidore Isou by a Romanian immigrant. The movement was rooted in Dada and Surrealism. In French, the movement is called Lettrisme, from the French word for letter, arising from the fact that many of their early works were centred around letters and other spoken or visual symbols. They applied their theories to all areas of art and culture, markedly in painting poetry, film ,and political theory.

Isidore Isou, The God's Diaries (1950)

For the early part of its existence the SI continued with the artistic work of the Lettrist International and it’s infuence can be seen in their continual use of text.

They projected a number of 'situations' which promoted a new global culture that was based around the continually changing principles of contemporary art rather than what they saw as a worn-out, materialistic culture. They proposed the concept of ‘Unitary Urbanism’ , the study of the effects of geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals living in that environment. Thus, it may be noted that there were very few organized exhibitions of Situationist work while they were active as they wanted art to become a part of every day life.

"A unitary urbanism — the synthesis of art and technology that we call for — must be constructed according to certain new values of life, values which now need to be distinguished and disseminated."- Gil J Wolman

"Beneath the boardwalk, the beach."

references

Books

(1959) Detounement as Negation and Prelude. In: Knabb, K ed.
Situationist International Anthology Berkelely CA. Bureau of Public Secrets pp 67-68

Debord, G (1956) A Users Guide to Detournement. In: Knabb, K ed.
Situationist International Anthology Berkelely CA. Bureau of Public Secrets pp 14-21

Plant. S (2000) The Most Radical Gesture London, routledge

Websites

Art Knowledge News.(2009) The Aarhouse Art Building Seeks Danish Artist Asger Jorn 'Modifications' [Internet] Rubin. Available from . [accessed 30 October 2009]

Monocuar Times Detourned painting [Internet] Jorn, A. Available from [accessed 30 October 2009]

Not Bored. Asger Jorn [Internet] Available from [accessed 30 October 2009]


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Detournement

Detournement

Detournment was created by the Situationist International. Short for ‘detournement of pre-existing aesthetic element’ Championed by Guy Debord and Asger Jorn, it was an art form that took original, older pieces of work and adding or even changing them to work differently. Detournement means ’turnabout’ or ‘derail’ in English. The artist takes a piece of work and changes it to usually meaning the opposite of what it was first set out. So it becomes a piece of work with a very new message but crucially it still holds the first element to the piece. The idea is that two objects from very different context can have a relationship. They overcome one another to become a greater piece.

Detournement has many styles and rules that it follows. Minor Detournement is where the first or original element has no importance and uses the new context to gain a meaning. Deceptive Detournement is the where the first element is from a very different place to the new. Of the rules there is one main rule that applies to all:

‘It is the most distant detourned element which contributes most sharply to the overall impression and not the elements that directly determine the nature of the impression’
‘A Users guide to Detournement’ Guy Debord, Gil J Wolman 1956 Situationist International Anthology Ken Knabb. Pg 14 -21 2006 Bureau of Public Secrets.

This is almost saying that the more abstract it is the better it is at giving a message across. What it is not saying is that if you there is a poster saying ‘Yes to Consumerism’, you do not go and put a cross through the ’Yes’ and put a ‘NO’. Using the imagination and being free of limits is what the rule wants from the artist.

Detournement was a very easy idea to apply and could be used over and over again. This made it ideal for people like Asger Jorn to show what Situationism stood for. That the world is full of boring, consumerism objects that do not fulfil one’s life but just clutters it. People are bombarded with advertising and propaganda. This is what a lot of Detournement is responding to.



The Disquieting Duck, 1959 by Asger Jorn is an example of Detournement. Painted on a very simple painting of a small cottage by a pond with very quaint surroundings there is a very large, colourful, magical and almost grotesque duck. The first element of this artwork is off the small cottage and surroundings. This is a very banal object which merely has boring aesthetic qualities. There is nothing exciting, new or challenging about it. So he painted the large duck. It features very abruptly and obtrusively over the cottage. It is very alien to its surroundings. Large, thick bush strokes compared to the fine strokes of the first element. The bright, simple colours compared with the muted, slight colours of the first element. The odd, badly described subject matter compared with the quiet, precision subject of the first element. Below is what Jorn wrote for his exhibition at the Galerie Rive Gauche in Paris.

Be modern, collectors, museums. If you have old paintings, do not despair. Retain your memories but détourn them so that they correspond with your era. Why reject the old if one can modernize it with a few strokes of the brush? This casts a bit of contemporaneity on your old culture. Be up to date, and distinguished at the same time. Painting is over. You might as well finish it off. Détourn. Long live painting.

Asger Jorn May 1959
http://www.monoculartimes.co.uk/avantgardening/detournedpainting.shtml
Detourned Painting.



Chuox 1962. Asger Jorn.

Complete disfiguration of the face and background of the first element here in Chuox by Asger Jorn. The original element is of a classical beautiful woman leaning on an object. The Second element is of highly bright contrasting colours swirled around in the background and onto her face. This would be Deceptive Detournement as they are very different elements but together they are pushing an idea and supporting each other. Jorn would have wanted to get rid of the old idea of beauty and the female figure. Slim and tall with curves, perfect skin and face. This woman is showing the world what females should look like. Propaganda you could call it. Jorn disagrees so paints a crude, child like face on to her head where her head would have been. Challenging her beauty in a very crude way. With not much thought but his own instincts of his beliefs.

The beginning of situationism

While researching situationism I eventually grasped the very simple concept behind this very complicated time. All artists were against capitalism and were supporters of socialism. They came to an agreement that humanity had stopped living and was only existing in order to produce a product of their lives like machines. Therefor situationists took it upon themselves to express their views of a creative of nomadic lifestyle, in essence, they wanted humanity to have fun and live life for the purpose of living, not to become boring products of mundane existence.

Guiseppe Pinot-Gallizio together with his son Giors Melanotte created industrial paintings. These were abstract paintings which were created on large rolls of canvas using traditional methods. Their aim was to sell the painted fabric by the yard in hopes that everyone would have a piece of art. The term “industrial Painting” is used to discribe the scale of these paintings and not the method by which they were painted.
This would emphasize humanities dependency upon machines, and how we need to reproduce and repeat. Pinot-Gallizio explains in his manifesto for industrial painting that humans should become nomads, return to nature.

“letter to my son”
Asger Jorn
Oil on Canvas
In this painting, Jorn has used the idea he explored during his CoBRA period of children’s drawings. This painting shows a lot of energy and urgency that is often found in children’s drawings. His intention was to create an image that was playful and fun while forgetting strict rules and conformities. “Tension in a work of art is negative-positive: repulsive-attractive, ugly-beautiful. If one of these poles is removed, only boredom is left” – Jorn.

Constant developed the idea of New Babylon. A structure built above ground which would lend space for agriculture, forests, parks, throughways and fully automated production centres necessary for the structure, on the exterior. The structure would be a network of buildings creating many sectors and labyrinths which would be versatile internally but restricted to the base structure.
This would be a habitat were material value was not important and people could live a nomadic lifestyle with the aim to progress creatively.


‘Everyone wavers between the emotionally still-alive past and the already dead future.
We don’t intend to prolong the mechanistic civilizations and frigid architecture that ultimately lead to boring leisure.
We propose to invent new, changeable decors.
Architecture is the simplest means of articulating time and space, of modulating reality and engendering dreams. It is a matter not only of plastic articulation and modulation expressing an ephemeral beauty, but of a modulation producing influences in accordance with the eternal spectrum of human desires and the progress in fulfilling them.
The architecture of tomorrow will be a means of modifying present conceptions of time and space. It will be both a means of knowledge and a means of action.’
http://dossierjournal.com/read/theory/formulary-for-a-new-urbanism/

“formulary for a new urbanism” by Ivan Chtcheglov was published in the first issue of the Situations’ Journal. He talks about a new world, a new way of life. He envisions people living together under one construction viewed in his mind as many castles, reminiscent of the Baroque period. And under this construction would be many different Quarters where people would be able to experience different states of being. Some quarters will be for ill-reputed people and others could be hospitals or nurseries. We would all socialize amongst ourselves and interact, living the life of a “drifter”. Chtcheglov write about the economy and how it prevents us from living a free live, one of creativity and fun.

The importance of the Everyday

Due to their resistance towards a static ideology, Situationist ideas are very difficult to give a definitive explanation and are open to a wide degree of interpretation. However, there are some distinctive features of their work. Typically, they tried to bring to focus the importance of everyday life, "People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have corpses in their mouths." -The Revolution of Everyday Life - Raoul Vaneigem

They argued that increased material wealth of workers would not stop class struggle and ensure capitalism’s continuous existence. They argued that genuine human desires would conflict with alienating capitalist society. Debord saw this as the "society of the Spectacle' asserting that, 'The origins of the spectacle is the loss of the unity of the world, and the gigantic expansion of the modern spectacle expresses the totality of this loss: the abstraction of all specific labor and the general abstraction of the entirety of production are perfectly translated in the spectacle, whose mode of being concrete is precisely abstraction. In the spectacle, one part of the world represents itself before the world and is superior to it. The spectacle is nothing more than the common language of separation. What ties the spectators together is no more than an irreversible relation at the very center which maintains their isolation. The spectacle reunites the separate, but reunites it as separate. Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (Detroit, MI: Black & Red, 1970).

To counter this, Situationist tactics included attempting to create “situations” where humans would interact together as people, not arbitrated by possessions. They felt that in these ‘situations’ of community the possibility of a future, joyful and united society.




‘The very development of class society up to the organization of a non spectacular view therefore leads the revolutionary project has become visible what was already essential’
From his image we can see that the Situationists felt that capitalism was to blame for the division and alienation of society.

This led to their subversion of elements of popular culture. They critically analysed capitalism in its consumerist form. They felt that, rather than being repressed, workers were instilled with the notion that purchasing would make their lives complete through mass marketing.



This is reflected in this image, wherein we see a woman surrounded by commodities that she is encouraged to buy, regardless of whether she needs them and ignorant to her human, animal desires, as is reflected in the caption, ‘Thee is nothing they won’t do to raise the standard of BOREDOM’. The use of the pronoun, ‘they’ creates a dichotomy between the worker and the capitalists.

Discussion on Situationism - Please contribute freely:

The situationists were a group of young anti-artists who believed that art and culture should not only be for international elitists but for all people - predominantly the proletarian. Guy Debord was a key figure within Situationism (along with Asper Jorn, Charles Radcliffe and Ralph Rumney to name a few) who founded the Situationist International. He and his fellow situationists (Parisian and other global derivatives) were highly inspired by the Dadaists and the Futurists who felt that through culture there can be a revolutionary breakthrough within the state. They stood within the left wing of political activities using bold system of avant-garde art forms, to create ‘situations’ in which they could convey a message to the ‘everyday’ working people. These messages motivated the likes of the revolts of 1968 in Paris and furthermore to the likes of Punk-rock and Post-modernism.
They were against capitalism and it is evident that they were highly influenced by Marxist theories - however, they did not let these go unchallenged . One example is shown in Len Brackens’ Critical Biography ‘of Guy Debord where he explains that; “ Debord wasn’t an uncritical follower” of Marx. He then goes on to say that “Debord would criticise Marx’s identification of proletarian revolution with the seizure of state power...”
Through this we see how, the likes of Debord confronted and developed the Marxist ideas that had stimulated the situationsist movement.

A brief introduction to our project

This blog has been created in order to fulfill eca CVCS Stage 2, Task A. During the course of this project we will be creating an 'image notebook' looking at the Situationist movement, through their creative output during the brief period that they were active. We hope that this will be an interesting and comprehensive look at this movement so please feel free to add any comments and contributions.

Blaise Holt

Eleanor Hirst

Stephen Kernaghan

Shannon Kelly