Situationist international

DEFINITION

An artistic, political and cultural movement which was founded in the Italian village of Cosio d'Arroscia on July 28,1957, it is a fusion of several things among them CoBrA, Lettrism, Dada, Imaginist Bauhaus and Surrealism. Its most prominent member was the French writer Guy Debord (1931 - 1994). However, during its life several important artists were counted as members, among them, Asger Jorn, Jorgen Nash, Ralph Rumney, Armando, Jacqueline de Jong, Lothar Fischer, Heimrad Prem, Helmut Sturm, Hans Peter Zimmer, Ansgar Elde and Constant Nieuwenhuys. The movement???s political ideology was anti capitalist and called for the destruction of modern consumer, mass media driven society. Its artistic components were detournement, Anti-art, graffiti and Dada. They produced films, paintings, graphics, comics and posters. Their artistic stance was ???there is no situationist art only situationist uses of art.??? Their most famous/infamous venture was decapitating the sculpture of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen harbour (1964). A tamer example was mechanically painting 70 to 90 foot rolls of canvas then cutting them up to sell as individual works of art. Its architecture advocated buildings suspended from wires and cities constructed as one labyrinthine interconnected structure. The movement went through many purges and splits. J.V. Martin and Guy Debord were its only two constant members from its beginning to end, in 1972. Source: Written and submitted by M.D. Silverbrooke, Art Historian and Collector, West Vancouver, British Columbia.