Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen, Jakob Jakobsen (eds.): Expect Anything Fear Nothing: The Situationist Movement in Scandinavia and Elsewhere (2011)

“This volume is the first English-language presentation of the Scandinavian Situationists and their role in the Situationist movement. The Situationist movement was an international movement of artists, writers and thinkers that in the 1950s and 1960s tried to revolutionize the world through rejecting bourgeois art and critiquing the post-World War Two capitalist consumer society.

The book contains articles, conversations and statements by former members of the Situationists’ organisations as well as contemporary artists, activists, scholars and writers. While previous publications about the Situationist movement almost exclusively have focused on the contribution of the French section and in particular on the role of the Guy Debord this book aims to shed light on the activities of the Situationists active in places like Denmark, Sweden and Holland. The themes and stories chronicled include: The anarchist undertakings of the Drakabygget movement led by the rebel artists Jørgen Nash, Hardy Strid and Jens Jørgen Thorsen, the exhibition by the Situationist International “Destruction of RSG-6” in 1963 in Odense organised by the painter J.V. Martin in collaboration with Guy Debord, the journal The Situationist Times edited by Jacqueline de Jong, Asger Jorn’s political critique of natural science and the films of the Drakabygget movement.”

Contributors: Peter Laugesen, Carl Nørrested, Fabian Tompsett, Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen, Jacqueline de Jong, Gordon Fazakerley, Hardy Strid, Karen Kurczynski, Stewart Home, Jakob Jakobsen.

Publisher Nebula, Copenhagen; in association with Autonomedia, New York, 2011
Open access
ISBN 879936512X, 9788799365128
288 pages

Reviews: Kim West (Kunstkritikk, 2011), Lugo (2011).

Publisher

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See also Bolt, Jakobsen (eds.), Cosmonauts of the Future: Texts from the Situationist Movement in Scandinavia and Elsewhere, 2015.
More on Situationists

OPEN Cahier on Art and the Public Domain: Emergency Issue. The New Politics of Culture (2011) [Dutch]

“The Dutch government’s new cultural plan and the cutbacks have intruded on our comfort zone and roughly awoken us from our reflective and theorising positions as critical observers.

This ’emergency issue’ of Open. Cahier on Art and the Public Domain is a special edition that accompanies De Groene Amsterdammer on September 23, 2011. It not only addresses the austerity measures, but also pays special attention to the overarching ideology and the right-populist government policy from which these arise.

Similarly, the publication does not merely defend the position of the arts, but is a record of public opposition to what many believe is a malicious policy that is adversely affecting or excluding growing numbers of groups (the sickly, immigrants, refugees, children, the elderly, artists, ‘ordinary’ people) and issues (relating to culture, knowledge, the environment, education, health care, multiculturalism).”

With contributions by Willem de Rooij, Jorinde Seijdel, Joke Robaard, Merijn Oudenampsen, Sven Lütticken, Willem Schinkel, Steven ten Thije, Dirk van Weelden, Bik Van der Pol, Can Altay, Jeremiah Day, Charles Esche, Zihni Özdil, Pascal Gielen, Robin Brouwer, Arnoud Holleman, Gert Jan Kocken, Florian Cramer, Josephine Bosma, Eric Kluitenberg, Grahame Lock, Marc Schuilenburg, Luuk Boelens, Hugo Priemus, Margreet Fogteloo, Samuel Vriezen, Jonas Staal, Chris Keulemans, Lotte Haagsma, Matthijs de Bruijne, Actie Schone kunsten, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Foundland, Lidwien van de Ven, Liesbeth Melis, Thomas Buxó

Publisher: SKOR / NAi Uitgevers, September 2011
68 pages

Publisher

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Jonas Staal: Art, Property of Politics I-II (2010) [English/Dutch]

“In 2010, Dutch artist Jonas Staal realized the exhibitions Art, Property of Politics and Art, Property of Politics II: Freethinkers’ Space in which he researched the art collections of Dutch political parties. The first part took place in exhibition space TENT in Rotterdam, during the municipal elections of 2010, in which he showed the artworks of all parties involved in the elections. In a documentary produced by filmmaker Rob Schröder he challenged politicians to introduce their political vision based on their own art collections. The second part took place in the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands and existed of artworks that were selected by the liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the Party for Freedom (PVV) in their so-called ‘Freethinkers’ Space’: and exhibition space that the parties opened in Dutch parliament to give a platform for artists that had dealt with religious (Islamic) censorship. The project focused on the way in which artworks were used as instruments for representing a political idea of democratic freedom.” (from Wikipedia)

Author (Art, Property of Politics)
Author (Art, Property of Politics II: Freethinkers’ Space)
Wikipedia

PDF (I, updated on 2018-7-26)
PDF (II, updated on 2018-7-26)