Relations With The Situationist International
The Spur group collaborated with the Situationist International, a restricted group of international revolutionaries, between 1959 and 1961, when the Spur members joined the SI. After a series of core divergences during 1960-1, the Spur members were officially excluded from the SI on February 10, 1962. After this, despite the two organizations having a "sufficiently large objective opposition between their respective principles, methods and goals," Guy Debord expressed esteem to Spur, considering it the highest expression of German art and culture of post WW2. However, after the exclusion and split, the two groups remained distinct and separated, and each was only responsible for its own autonomous actions.
The first contact with the Situationist International happened through Asger Jorn. Jorn, one of the most prominent members of the SI, discovered the SPUR-paintings at a gallery managed by art dealer Otto Van de Loo. Later on, the Spur members come to join and became members of the Situationist International, forming the majority of the members of the German section of the SI.
A major point of divergence come up from the Spur group during The Fourth SI Conference in London (December 1960). The discussion of a report by Attila Kotányi, leads to posing the question: “To what extent is the SI a political movement?” Various responses state that the SI is political, but not in the ordinary sense. The discussion becomes somewhat confused. Debord proposes, in order to clearly bring out the opinion of the Conference, that each person respond in writing to a questionnaire asking if he considers that there are “forces in the society that the SI can count on? What forces? In what conditions?” This questionnaire is agreed upon and filled out. When, a day later, the Spur members present a joint response to the questionnaire, in which they reject the concept of a proletarian revolution, it generates a sharp debate:
| “ | This very long declaration attacks the tendency in the responses read the day before to count on the existence of a revolutionary proletariat, for the signers strongly doubt the revolutionary capacities of the workers against the bureaucratic institutions that have dominated their movement. The German section considers that the SI should prepare to realize its program on its own by mobilizing the avant-garde artists, who are placed by the present society in intolerable conditions and can count only on themselves to take over the weapons of conditioning. | ” |
This position was critiqued by Debord, Nash, Kotányi and Jorn. The majority of the S.I. seems to be against it, and the Spur members are asked to formalize their position so it can be brought to a vote. But, when the Spur group return from their deliberation, they retract the preceding declaration. Debord starts to suspect that the Spur members were not actually understanding and/or agreeing with the situationist ideas, and that they were instead using the SI to get success in the art market. As a consequence, during the Fifth SI Conference held in Göteborg, Sweden, 28–30 August 1961, Asger Jorn (signing himself as "George Keller") proposed to unify the S.I. publications in the various countries (including Spur) as a single journal, to be translated in four editions in English, French, German and Swedish. The reaction of the Spur members to this proposal was mentioned in the conference report:
| “ | The German situationists who publish the journal Spur agree to the project in principle, but prefer to postpone its implementation until the time is right; such that the majority of the Conference abstains from voting on a question rejected by the situationists most directly concerned. They stress the urgency, already made evident by the Conference, for them to unify their positions and projects with the rest of the SI. Kunzelmann declares that this discussion could advance quickly on the basis of Vaneigem's report, which would be studied more closely in Germany. Nonetheless, the Germans commit themselves to propagating and elaborating situationist theory as soon as possible, as they have begun doing with issues #5 and #6 of Spur. On their request, the Conference adds Attila Kotányi and J. de Jong to the editorial committee of Spur in order to verify this process of unification. | ” |
Despite Spur agreement to add Attila Kotányi and Jacqueline de Jong to editorial committee of Spur, the following issue #7 was printed five months later without Kotányi and de Jong’s knowledge. The issue #7 featured considerable divergences with the SI ideas, marking a distinct regression from the preceding #5 and #6 issues. These events led the following month, February 1962, to the exclusion from the SI of those responsible.
The arguments for the exclusion, declared in a letter on February 10, 1962, were that "fractional activity of this group is based on a systematic misunderstanding of situationist theses", that they were using the Situationists to succeed on the art market and that do achieve this they had "perfectly disregarded the discipline of the S.I.". On the accusation of using the SI to "arrive" as artists, Spur member Dieter Kunzelmann admitted that it applied for sure to Lothar Fischer, but rejected that it was true for the other Spur members present at the Fifth SI Conference in Göteborg.
Read more about this topic: Gruppe SPUR
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