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.
I feel like detournement is essential in the development of the theories of the Situationist International. Atists use the old, the past, and change it/ add to it for their own. With the presence of the original element I feel that together they put a very clear and presice message that challanges the viewer. Making people think of their own views on the world. We see that the first element (the old paintings taht Jorn paints on to) is sterile in Asger Jorns paintings. It is old, boring and too pretty. We only get this because Jorn has painted over them with bright,m vivid colours creating strange very imaginative creature. We only understand the first element due to the second element. If it was on its own then I would miss the ideas. I would probably not even bother to look at it let alone think of it.
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