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1960

January

9 January to 9 February A text on Constant by Guy Debord appears in heavily altered form on the occasion of an exhibition of Constant's constructions and maquettes at Van de Loo Gallery, Essen; Debord makes it known that he withdraws his signature.

Retrospective exhibition of the Experimental Laboratory in Alba, Notizie Gallery, Turin.

March

16 Stavrim, sonetter (Stanzas and Sonnetts), book by Jørgen Nash with drawings by Asger Jorn, Copenhagen.

Exclusions of A. Alberts and Har Oudejans (architects who have accepted an offer to build a church in Volendam), then of Armando, Dutch section.

May

6 to 31 Exhibition of thirty-one paintings by Jorn, Rive Gauche Gallery, Paris.

17 Manifesto of the Situationist International (IS #4).

Critique de la politique économique (Critique of Economic Politics), followed by La Lutte finale (The Last Struggle), by Asger Jorn, Brussels. 'This publication is the second in the series of "Reports presented to the Situationist International."' The legend on the back cover — 'Not everyone can read Internationale Situationniste, central bulletin edited by the section of the Situationist International' — is accompanied by a photograph of paratroopers, leading to the seizure of the brochure at the Belgian border.

Resignation of Heinrich Höfl, German section.

Cahier pour un paysage à inventer #1, Montréal. Editor: Patrick Straram. Texts by Gilles Leclerc, Gaston Miron, Marie-France O'Leary, Paul-Marie Lapointe, Gilles Hénault, Serge Garant, Marcel Dubé, Asger Jorn, Gilles Ivain, Guy-Ernest Debord, Louis Portugais and Patrick Straram

31 Exclusions of Giuseppe Pinot Gallizio, Giors Melanotte and Glauco Wuerich, Italian section.

June

1 Resignation of Constant, Dutch section.

Second London screening of Howls for Sade.

10 Christian Christensen, to whom Jorn had dedicated his Critique de la politique économique, dies in Denmark.

Internationale Situationniste #4. Central bulletin published by the sections of the Situationist International. Editor: G.-E. Debord. Editorial committee: Constant, Asger Jorn, Helmut Sturm, Maurice Wyckaert.

July

20 Preliminaries Toward Defining a Unitary Revolutionary Program by G.-E. Debord and P. Canjeurs (pseudonym of Daniel Blanchard of the Socialisme ou Barbarie group).

Pinot Gallizio, texts by Michèle Bernstein ('In praise of Pinot Gallizio') and Jorn ('L'état des passions au milieu du XXe siècle et Gallizio-le-Tatoué' [Gallizio the Tattooed Man and the state of the passions in the middle of the twentieth century]), second monograph by Bibliothèque d'Alexandrie, Paris: 'This monograph on Pinot Gallizio is published on the occasion of his exclusion from the Situationist International.'

26 Erwin Eisch is dismissed from the SI's German section.

Announcement of the creation of a situationist library at Silkeborg Museum.

August

Spur #1, journal of the German section of the SI, Munich. Editors: Helmut Sturm, Heimrad Prem, Hans-Peter Zimmer, Lothar Fischer.

30 Tous les chevaux du roi (All the King's Horses), novel by Michèle Bernstein, Paris.

September

Shooting begins for Guy Debord's film, Critique of Separation.

8 Erklärung der deutschen Sektion des I.S. über den Wahnsinn (Declaration on Madness by the German section of the SI), signed by Sturm, Prem, Fischer, Zimmer, Jorn and Debord, Munich.

25 to 28 The SI's fourth conference in London. Participants: Guy Debord, Jacqueline de Jong, Asger Jorn, Attila Kotànyi, Katja Lindell, Jørgen Nash, Heimrad Prem, Helmut Sturm, Maurice Wyckaert, Hans-Peter Zimmer.
Creation of the Central Council of the SI, composed of Debord, Jorn, Kotànyi, Nash, Sturm and Wyckaert.
Transfer of the Bureau of Unitary Urbanism from Amsterdam to Brussels. Director: Kotànyi.
Adoption of the Declaration on Madness, presented by the German section.

27 Resolution of the Fourth Conference of the Situationist International Concerning the Imprisonment of Alexander Trocchi, tract denouncing the arrest and detention of the situationist Alexander Trocchi in the United States, for drug use and trafficking.

28 Declaration in the Name of the Fourth SI Conference to the Institute of Contemporary Arts, read in English by Maurice Wyckaert.

29 On the day after strict measures are announced by the Gaullist government against the first 121 signatories of the Declaration on the Right to Insubordination in the Algerian War, produced and distributed since Maurice Blanchot and Dionys Mascolo, Guy Debord and Michèle Bernstein co-sign the declaration, which eventually collects 200 signatures.

Autumn

Guy Debord joins Socialisme ou Barbarie.

October

7 Hands off Alexander Trocchi, English-language tract protesting Alexander Trocchi's arrest in the United States, signed by Guy Debord, Jacqueline de Jong and Asger Jorn, Paris.

November

4 to 6 First session of the SI's Central Council in Alsemberg, near Brussels. Participants: Debord, Kotànyi, Nash, Sturm and Wyckaert (Jorn absent).
Publication of an English language situationist journal, The Situationist Times, planned for 1961 (a project that would only be realized by jacqueline de Jong after her departure from the SI).
No person collaborating with the journal Arguments from 1 January 1961 onwards will be considered a situationist under any circumstance at any point in the future.

21 Guy Debord, questioned by the police tribunal about his participation in the Declaration on the Right to Insubordination in the Algerian War, has it recorded in his deposition that by the fact of having signed the declaration alone, he assumes complete responsibility for publication and distribution, 'equal to that of its signatories, whatever their identity, and the persons responsible, whomever of them might wish to be recognized as such.'

Spur #2, journal of the German section of the SI, Munich. Editors: Helmut Sturm, Heimrad Prem, Hans-Peter Zimmer, Lothar Fischer, and Jørgen Nash, Katja Lindell and Christel Fischer.

December

13 The Long Voyage and Other Tapestries (1941-1960) by Asger Jorn and Pierre Wemaëre, with essays by Gaston Bachelard ('La Création ouverte' [Open Creation]) and Michèle Bernstein ('The Long Voyage'), third monograph by the Bibliothèque d'Alexandrie, Paris.

16 to 26 Exhibition of the tapestry The Long Voyage (14 x 1.8m) by Asger Jorn and Pierre Wemaëre, Quatre Saisons Gallery, Paris.

27 Asger Jorn records his first musical experiments with Jean Dubuffet (Nez cassé [Broken Nose]).

Internationale Situationniste #5. Central bulletin published by the sections of the Situationist International. Editor: G.-E. Debord. Editorial Committee (Central Council of the SI): Debord, Jorn, Kotànyi, Nash, Sturm, Wyckaert (resignation of Abdelhafid Khatib, Algerian section).

Spur #3, journal of the German section of the SI, Munich. Twenty-nine original lithographs by Asger Jorn and the Spur group (Helmut Sturm, Heimrad Prem, Hans-Peter Zimmer and Lothar Fischer).

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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