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background > chronology >
1959
February
Exclusion of Hans Platschek, German section.
March
The Dutch section adopts a Resolution Against the Renovation of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange — a renovation called for by the dominant opinion in the artworld — proposing instead 'the demolition of the Stock Exchange and the redevelopment of the land as a playground for the area's population [...] the center of Amsterdam is not a museum, but a place inhabited by living beings.'
Guy Debord is interviewed on Belgian radio, speaking at length on industrial painting.
April
15 April to 8 May 'A meter of art for 40 to 70 marks,' slogan of Giuseppe Pinot Gallizio's first exhibition of industrial painting at Van de Loo Gallery, Munich.
17 to 20 3rd SI conference in Munich. Participants: Armando, Constant, G.-E. Debord, Erwin Eisch, Heinz Höfl, Asger Jorn, Giors Melanotte, Har Oudejans, Giuseppe Pinot Gallizio, Heimrad Prem, Gretel Stadler, Helmut Sturm, Maurice Wyckaert, Hans-Peter Zimmer.
Foundation in Amsterdam of the Bureau for Invesigation for Unitary Urbanism. Director: Constant.
Potlatch becomes a bulletin of internal liaison under the responsibility of the Dutch section.
Adoption of 'The Amsterdam declaration.'
The tract Ein Kultureller Putsch während Ihr schlaft! (A Cultural Putsch While You Sleep!), signed by Constant, Debord, Jorn, Pinot Gallizio, Wyckaert and Zimmer for the Dutch, French, Danish, Italian, Belgian and German sections, is distributed on the morning of the 21st with an invitation to Professor Bense's tape-recorded pseudo-press conference.
Tape recorded conference by the Dutch section at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture.
May
4 Exhibition of around thirty maquettes for Constant's spatial constructions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
6-28 Modifications, an exhibition of 'some twenty pictures, partially repainted' by Asger Jorn, at the Rive Gauche Gallery, Paris. Jorn publishes Détourned Painting for the occasion.
'This exhibition, which proposed to "demonstrate that the preferred sustenance of painting is painting," was a strong illustration of situationist theses on détournement, in our opinion the essential mode of action in the transitional culture.' (Potlatch #30)
13 Giuseppe Pinot Gallizio covers the walls, floor and ceiling of Drouin Gallery to create a 'cavern of anti-matter' out of 145 meters of rolls of industrial painting.
'Unfortunately, the poor presentation of this "attempt at the construction of an ambiance" prevented the efficacious application of industrial painting already seen in Italy and Germany.' (Potlatch #30)
Constant, first monograph published by the Bibliothèque d'Alexandria, Paris.
June
Tape recorded conference by the Dutch section at the Stedelijk Museum.
July
15 Potlatch #30, internal newsletter of the Situationist International, new series #1, Amsterdam.
Autumn
First contact with Socialisme ou Barbarie.
August
Article by Constant on the unification of the arts, their integration into everyday life and unitary urbanism in issue 6 of the journal Forum, Amsterdam.
In New York, Alexander Trocchi completes his novel Cain's Book, which will appear on 25 April 1960.
September
18 September to 25 October Exhibition of collages, ceramics, drawings and graphic designs by Jorn, Van de Loo Gallery, Essen.
Editing of Guy Debord's film On the Passage of a Few Persons through a Rather Brief Period of Time.
One reel (20 mins.), 35mm, black and white. Produced by the Dansk-Fransk Experimentalfilms Kompagni and Laboratoire GTC; cinematographer: André Mrugalski; editor: Chantal Delattre; assistant director: Ghislain de Marbaix; assistant cinematographer: Jean Harnois; script: Michèle Vallon; grip: Bernard Largemain.
Music: Georg Friedrich Handel, Origin of Design; Michel Richard Delalande Caprice no 2.
Voice-over: Jean Harnois, Guy Debord, Claude Brabant.
October
Industrial painting manifesto Per un'arte unitaria applicabile (For a unitary applicable art) by Pinot Gallizio, in the review Notizie: arti figurative #9, Turin.
November
5 Launch, at the Statsgymnasium in Århus, Denmark, of the Ceramic Mural (27 meters long and 3 meters high), produced by Jorn during summer in Alba, Italy.
Difendiamo la libertà (In Defense of Freedom), tract by Pinot Gallizio, Eisch, Fischer, Nele, Prem, Sturm and Zimmer advocating public execration of the Spanish painter Cuixard, who, in order to increase his chances of securing the Grand Prize for painting at São Paulo, did not shrink from denouncing the communism of his compatriots Saura and Tapiés, at the risk of putting them 'in grave danger with political organizations in their country.'
December
Internationale Situationniste #3. Central bulletin published by the sections of the Situationist International. Editor: G.-E. Debord. Editorial committee: Constant, Asger Jorn, Helmut Sturm, Maurice Wyckaert (resignation of Mohamed Dahou, Algerian section).
The concept of the spectacle appears for the first time in the article 'Cinema after Alain Resnais.'
31 First projection of the film On the Passage of a Few Persons through a Rather Brief Period of Time, Paris.
This chronology has been adapted and expanded from Jean-Jacques Raspaud and Jean-Pierre Voyer, L'Internationale Situationniste: Chronologie, bibliographie, protagonistes (avec un index des noms insulté) (Paris: Champ Libre, 1972); Christophe Bourseiller, Vie et mort de Guy Debord (Paris: Plon, 1999); and Guy Debord, Correspondance (volumes 1, 2 & 3) (Paris: Arthème Fayard, 1999 , 2001 & 2003).
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