Die Welt als Labyrinth
This spring, MAMCO has decided to turn back to Letterism and the Situationist International, two artistic movements from Paris which occupied a very special place on the political horizon of May 1968. The exhibition has been organized by a group and its method is to follow 鈥渢he passage of a few people over quite a short period of time,鈥� rather than enter into the genealogical quarrels that constantly agitated these two artistic groups.
The title refers to an unfulfilled project for a Situationist exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1960, and shows up one of the questions that are raised by any presentation of these avant-garde movements: how to exhibit in a museum people who were systematically opposed to cultural institutions? Going further than a sabotaging of art through an unconventional register of forms and techniques, it was art as distinct social territory, governed by institutions, and determined by the market economy, that was in these movements鈥� crosshairs.
The Imaginist Bauhaus, as its name makes clear, was born from a radical theoretical opposition to the school headed by Max Bill; meanwhile the Letterist International was trying to wipe out the Surrealist heritage, in particular as embodied by Andr茅 Breton; their merger as the Situationist International led to a series of events aimed at art criticism, art market galleries or the museum as an institution. This systematic opposition was played out on every cultural front, including UNESCO, which the SI intended to take over鈥� Gradually, artistic approaches became subordinated to a revolutionary political combat.
It is these contradictions and attacks made against art that the exhibition at MAMCO aims to retrace through the evocation of a series of historical events. Furthermore, the exhibition鈥檚 very title focuses on one motif that runs through the movement鈥檚 productions, be they Guy Debord鈥檚 films, SPUR鈥檚 schemas, or Ralph Rumney鈥檚 paintings: as both a pre-established journey, and a site allowing for all kinds of encounters, the labyrinth can be seen as one of the finest metaphors for the Situationist d茅rive, that 鈥減sychogeographic鈥� experience of the urban territory, which remains the practice that is most often associated with the movement. Finally, in this universe, the exhibition particularly focuses on a few figures who did not want to give up on art; so it is that works by Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio, Ralph Rumney, Asger Jorn, Gil Wolman and Jacqueline de Jong, all thrown out of the SI (apart from Jorn, who left of his own accord), have been given pride of place in the exhibition.
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This spring, MAMCO has decided to turn back to Letterism and the Situationist International, two artistic movements from Paris which occupied a very special place on the political horizon of May 1968. The exhibition has been organized by a group and its method is to follow 鈥渢he passage of a few people over quite a short period of time,鈥� rather than enter into the genealogical quarrels that constantly agitated these two artistic groups.
The title refers to an unfulfilled project for a Situationist exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1960, and shows up one of the questions that are raised by any presentation of these avant-garde movements: how to exhibit in a museum people who were systematically opposed to cultural institutions? Going further than a sabotaging of art through an unconventional register of forms and techniques, it was art as distinct social territory, governed by institutions, and determined by the market economy, that was in these movements鈥� crosshairs.
The Imaginist Bauhaus, as its name makes clear, was born from a radical theoretical opposition to the school headed by Max Bill; meanwhile the Letterist International was trying to wipe out the Surrealist heritage, in particular as embodied by Andr茅 Breton; their merger as the Situationist International led to a series of events aimed at art criticism, art market galleries or the museum as an institution. This systematic opposition was played out on every cultural front, including UNESCO, which the SI intended to take over鈥� Gradually, artistic approaches became subordinated to a revolutionary political combat.
It is these contradictions and attacks made against art that the exhibition at MAMCO aims to retrace through the evocation of a series of historical events. Furthermore, the exhibition鈥檚 very title focuses on one motif that runs through the movement鈥檚 productions, be they Guy Debord鈥檚 films, SPUR鈥檚 schemas, or Ralph Rumney鈥檚 paintings: as both a pre-established journey, and a site allowing for all kinds of encounters, the labyrinth can be seen as one of the finest metaphors for the Situationist d茅rive, that 鈥減sychogeographic鈥� experience of the urban territory, which remains the practice that is most often associated with the movement. Finally, in this universe, the exhibition particularly focuses on a few figures who did not want to give up on art; so it is that works by Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio, Ralph Rumney, Asger Jorn, Gil Wolman and Jacqueline de Jong, all thrown out of the SI (apart from Jorn, who left of his own accord), have been given pride of place in the exhibition.
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