page_title: Situationist International
section_title: Artistic period (1958–1962)
hierarchical_section_title: Situationist International / History / Artistic period (1958–1962)
caption_attribution_description: Dansk: Asger Jorn Norsk bokmål: Asger Jorn
context_page_description: The Situationist International was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists, prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution in 1972.
  The intellectual foundations of the Situationist International were derived primarily from anti-authoritarian Marxism and the avant-garde art movements of the early 20th century, particularly Dada and Surrealism. Overall, situationist theory represented an attempt to synthesize this diverse field of theoretical disciplines into a modern and comprehensive critique of mid-20th century advanced capitalism. The situationists recognized that capitalism had changed since Karl Marx's formative writings, but maintained that his analysis of the capitalist mode of production remained fundamentally correct; they rearticulated and expanded upon several classical Marxist concepts, such as his theory of alienation.
context_section_description: During the first few years of the SI's founding, avant-garde artistic groups began collaborating with the SI and joining the organization. Gruppe SPUR, a German artistic collective, collaborated with the Situationist International on projects beginning in 1959, continuing until the group officially joined the SI in 1961. The role of the artists in the SI was of great significance, particularly Asger Jorn, Constant Nieuwenhuys and Pinot Gallizio.
  Asger Jorn, who invented Situgraphy and Situlogy, had the social role of catalyst and team leader among the members of the SI between 1957 and 1961. Jorn's role in the situationist movement (as in COBRA) was that of a catalyst and team leader. Guy Debord on his own lacked the personal warmth and persuasiveness to draw people of different nationalities and talents into an active working partnership. As a prototype Marxist intellectual Debord needed an ally who could patch up the petty egoisms and squabbles of the members. When Jorn's leadership was withdrawn in 1961, many simmering quarrels among different sections of the SI flared up, leading to multiple exclusions.
  The first major split was the exclusion of Gruppe SPUR, the German section, from the SI on 10 February 1962. Many different disagreements led to the fracture, for example; while at the Fourth SI Conference in London in December 1960, in a discussion about the political nature of the SI, the Gruppe SPUR members disagreed with the core situationist stance of counting on a revolutionary proletariat; the accusation that their activities were based on a "systematic misunderstanding of situationist theses"; the understanding that at least one Gruppe SPUR member, sculptor Lothar Fischer, and possibly the rest of the group, were not actually understanding and/or agreeing with the situationist ideas, but were just using the SI to achieve success in the art market. the betrayal, in the Spur #7 issue, of a common agreement on the Gruppe SPUR and SI publications.
  The exclusion was a recognition that Gruppe SPUR's "principles, methods and goals" were significantly in contrast with those of the SI. This split however was not a declaration of hostilities, as in other cases of SI exclusions. A few months after the exclusion, in the context of judicial prosecution against the group by the German state, Debord expressed his esteem to Gruppe SPUR, calling it the only significant artist group in (Germany) since World War II, and regarding it at the level of the avant-gardes in other countries.
  The next significant split was in 1962, wherein the "Nashists," the Scandinavian section of the SI led by Jørgen Nash, were excluded from the organization for lacking the theoretical rigor demanded by the Franco-Belgian section of SI led by Guy Debord. This excluded group would later declare themselves the 2nd Situationist International, basing their organization out of Sweden. Journalist Stewart Home, who favored the "Nashists" and considered Debord a "mystic, an idealist, a dogmatist and a liar" wrote that while the 2nd Situationist International sought to challenge the separation of art and politics from everyday life, Debord and the so-called 'specto-situationists' sought to concentrate solely on theoretical political aims.
caption: Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author Asger Jorn, founding member of the Situationist International.
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