« Guy would never have done that. » Debord Curator, Before publication 9, brochure, 44 pages – single booklet, 17,2 × 23,5 cm, offset, stapled binding – published in the Before publication collection, which gathers the pre-publications of authors’ texts or artists’ inserts, which will appear regularly and as a preview before the final publication, L’Effet papillon II (second volume of L’Effet papillon, 1989 – 2007, catalogue of the Centre d’édition contemporaine published in 2008). Graphic design: Niels Wehrspann, Lausanne. Edition of the Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva, 2022. ISBN: 978-2-9701369-7-2
Paul Bernard is director of Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel/Bienne.
In 2018, the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Genève (MAMCO) presented Die Welt als Labyrinth, an exhibition devoted to the early years of the Situationist International (S.I) and the various movements it derived from. Conscious of the complexity of such a project, we began to work on it a year earlier, setting up a curatorial committee (composed of Lionel Bovier, Gérard Berréby, Julien Fronsacq, John M Armleder, Mai-Thu Perret, Swana Pilhatsch-Morenz and Luca Bochicchio) which enabled us to quickly get in touch with a network of specialists. For my part, I was able to travel to Paris, Albissola, Prato, Venice, Berlin, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Silkeborg in the space of a year to meet collectors, historians, curators and artists who were more or less directly related to the S.I. Nearly all of these meetings were fascinating, supportive and even downright enjoyable. But there were a few condescending grimaces from people who found our project to be deplorable. How indeed to conceive an exhibition about the Situationists without distorting the meaning of their action?
From the first paragraph of Paul Bernard’s text, “Guy would never have done that.” Debord Curator, Before publication 9, ed. CEC, 2022
