the alba platform

8/10/2019 The Alba Platform

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Originally appeared as aleaflet published after the

Bauhaus Immaginista'sCongress of Free Artistsin Alba September 2 - 8,

1956 and signed by J.Calonne, Constant, G.Pinot-Gallizio, Jorn, J.

Kotik, P. Rada, P.Simondo, E. Sottsass Jr.,

E. Verrone and G.J.

Wolman. Drawn up byJorn together with others.

Later printed in PolatchNo.27 (2 November

1957). Translated by KenKnabb and taken from

Situationist InternationalAnthology, Bureau Of

Public Secrets, 1981

The Alba Platform

September 2-8 a Congress was held in Alba, Italy, convoked by Asger Jornand Giuseppe Gallizio in the name of the International Movement for anImaginist Bauhaus, a grouping whose views are in agreement with theLettrist International's program regarding urbanism and its possible uses(see Potlatch #26). Representatives of avant-garde groups from eight

countries (Algeria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, GreatBritain, Holland, Italy) met there to determine the bases for a unitedorganization. The tasks toward this end were dealt with in all theirimplications.

Christian Dotremont, who had been announced as a member of theBelgian delegation in spite of the fact that he has for some time been a

collaborator in the Nouvelle Nouvelle Revue Franaise, refrained fromappearing at the Congress, where his presence would have beenunacceptable for the majority of the participants.

Enrico Baj, representative of the "Nuclear Art Movement," was excludedthe very first day. The Congress affirmed its break with the Nuclearists by

issuing the following statement: "Confronted with his conduct in certainprevious affairs, Baj withdrew from the Congress. He did not make off withthe cash-box."

Meanwhile our Czechoslovakian comrades Pravoslav Rada and Kotik wereprevented from entering Italy. In spite of our protests, the Italiangovernment did not grant them visas to pass through its national ironcurtain until the end of the Alba Congress.

The statement of Wolman, the Lettrist International delegate, particularlystressed the necessity for a common platform specifying the totality ofcurrent experimentation:

"Comrades, the parallel crises presently affecting all modes of artisticcreation are determined by general, interrelated tendencies and cannot beresolved outside a comprehensive general perspective. The process ofnegation and destruction that has manifested itself at an accelerated rateagainst all the former conditions of artistic activity is irreversible: it is theconsequence of the appearance of superior possibilities of action on theworld. . . . Whatever prestige the bourgeoisie may today be willing to grantto fragmentary or deliberately retrograde artistic tentatives, creation cannow be nothing less than a synthesis aiming at the construction of entireatmospheres and styles of life. . . . A unitary urbanism - the synthesis wecall for, incorporating arts and technology - must be created in accordancewith new values of life, values which we now need to distinguish and

disseminate. . . . "

The Congress concluded by expressing a substantial agreement in theform of a six-point resolution, declaring the "necessity of an integralconstruction of the environment by a unitary urbanism that must utilize allarts and modern techniques" the "inevitable outmodedness of anyrenovation of an art within its traditional limits" the "recognition of anessential interdependence between unitary urbanism and a future style oflife" which must be situated "in the perspective of a greater real freedomand a greater domination of nature" and finally, "unity of action among thesigners on the basis of this program" (the sixth point going on to enumeratethe various specifics of mutual support).


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Apart from this final resolution - signed by J. Calonne, Constant, G.Gallizio, A. Jorn, Kotik, Rada, Piero Simondo, E. Sottsass Jr., ElenaVerrone, Wolman - the Congress unanimously declared itself against any

relations with participants in the Festival de la CitRadieuse, thusfollowing through with the boycott initiated the preceding month.

At the conclusion of the Congress Gil J. Wolman was added to the editorialboard of Eristica, the information bulletin of the International Movement foran Imaginist Bauhaus, and Asger Jorn was placed on the board of directorsof the Lettrist International.

The Alba Congress will probably one day be seen as a key moment, one ofthe difficult stages in the struggle for a new sensibility and a new culture, astruggle which is itself part of the general revolutionary resurgencecharacterizing the year 1956, visible in the upsurge of the masses in theUSSR, Poland and Hungary (although in the latter case we see thedangerously confusing revival of rotten old watchwords of clericalnationalism resulting from the fatal error of the prohibition of any Marxistopposition), in the successes of the Algerian revolt, and in the major strikesin Spain. These developments allow us the greatest hopes for the nearfuture.

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