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(Not) Being on Time: The Legacy of the Situationist International–Response to Simeon Hunter

Rasmussen responds to Hunter’s critique by asserting that we are confronted with a widespread effort–visible in Hunter’s reply–to turn the Situationist project into an art movement (creating objects to be seen and commodities to be sold), and thereby to minimize its role in the political and social movements of the sixties. The different art-world accounts of the Situationists that focus on the early phase of the group, where art played a role through the presence of artists like Asger Jorn and Pinot Gallizio, and neglect the later more political phase has to be corrected. The Situationist International sought to abolish the system that kept art and politics apart; that was why they refused to be identified as “artists” or “political activists.”

Situationist International, post-modernity, Guy Debord, French Communist Party, art world, political and social movements

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 33, No. 2 (2006): 29-30