345 pages Text(s) by Patrick Marcolini 22 x 16,5 cm Language: French Paperback Publisher: Editions L'échappée 2012
In the 1960s and 1970s, revolts erupted around the world against the growing grip of commodities and the State over every aspect of everyday life. The Situationists helped shape the critical tools of this widespread uprising, alongside intellectuals and groups influenced by Marxism and anarchism. Unlike the latter, however, they emerged not so much from the workers’ movement as from the artistic avant-gardes of the twentieth century: Dada, Surrealism, and Lettrism. Artists who had broken with convention, part rebels and part troublemakers, the Situationists came together around a radical programme: a rejection of the conditions imposed on modern human beings, both in advanced capitalist societies and in so-called communist regimes, together with a desire to experiment with new forms of existence and community that broke with the established order. This book offers a detailed analysis of the cultural roots of Situationist theories and practices. It also explores their diverse and often contradictory legacy: between recuperation and radicalisation, among postmodern intellectuals and in contemporary art, within the strategies of neocapitalist power as well as among today’s rebels.
