The Consul

by Ralph Rumney, Malcolm Imrie (Translator)

Throughout his adventurous life, Ralph Rumney was in constant flight from the wreckage of postwar Europe. Crossing paths with every avant-garde of the past fifty years, he was one of the founding members of the Situationist International. Rumney’s traveling companions — Guy Debord, Pegeen Guggenheim, Asger Jorn, Michèle Berstein, Bernard Kops, Yves Klein, Marcel Duchamp, Georges Bataille, William Burroughs, Félix Guattari, E.P. Thompson, Victor Brauner, and many others — are recalled in the oral history with sharp intelligåence and dry wit. Profusely illustrated with Rumney’s own photos, paintings, and collages and other documentary materials. " The Consul regains that magnificent freedom that a handful of people enjoyed and shared with artists, writers and others, in a world whose password was total, unfailing rejection of the world." —Judith Brouste, Art Press "…fine compendium of the most poetic of political writings, albeit still a partial measure for fans, followers and future revolutionaries awaiting the complete translations of the journal Situationist Internationale." — Publishers Weekly Ralph Rumney (1934 - 2002), was the sole member of the London Psychogeographical Society, a founding organization of the Situationist International (1957). He is the author of The Leaning Tower of Venice , a fabled psychogeographical exploration of that city. Malcolm Imrie is a literary agent and translator whose translations include Guy Debord's Comments on the Society of the Spectacle and Josè Pierre's Investigating Surrealist Discussions 1928 - 1932 .

Genres: Biography, Art, Art History, Nonfiction

125 pages, Paperback

First published October 19, 1999

Reviews

[Stas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The contingency of fame. How intertwined are the establishment and the bohemia. How personal jokes and sloppy meanderings of a few eccentrics are reified into 'movements', 'doctrines', 'cultural capital'.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nice memoir of sorts of a very important time in post-war Europe.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Apparently (according to letters from the early 1990s) Guy Debord held a strong grudge against G. Berréby, the publisher of Editions Allia, for an anthology book Berréby had published in 1985. After Debord's death in 1994 Editions Allia began to publish some new volumes focusing on early situationist figures and oral history interviews, of which this book is volume II. So one can't help but be grateful for Berréby's oral histories, whatever Debord might have thought of him.
This one is particularly interesting because Ralph Rumney is usually written out of S.I. history from the beginning, as he was kicked out of the group c. 1958 after missing a deadline for the first issue of the S.I. journal. Yet he was also the one who had taken the frequently reproduced photos of the 1957 founding meetings of the S.I. in Cosio di Arroscia, Italy — and only for that reason wasn't included in the photos. It was also Rumney's idea to use metallic covers for the S.I. journals (p. 40). He confides as well that the "London Psychogeographical Committee," often dutifully listed as a contributing group to the S.I.'s formation, was in reality just himself ("It was just me.…It was a pure invention, a mirage"). Although Rumney is British the interviews for this book were in French, so the text is translated back into English by Malcolm Imrie.
Apart from summarizing his overall life story, the book includes other interesting details: his happenstance teenage friendship with E. P. Thompson (who later, in 1963, would publish The Making of the English Working Class — "…a notorious communist, a man shunned by our village, who lived at the top of the hill behind our house. One day I went to see him.…"); his meetings with George Bataille ("He was a polite man, a little shy, I think"); as well as his ongoing feuds with Peggy Guggenheim, his first wife's mother. He subsequently married Michele Bernstein, Guy Debord's ex-wife, in the early 1970s and gives her credit for aspects of situationist strategy which are often attributed to Debord by default (for example, "…she was the one in Cosio [in 1957] who picked everyone up on the fact that one does not say 'Situationism' but 'Situationist,' because when it becomes an '-ism' chances are that it will turn into an ideology, a sect, a religion.…").
Ralph Rumney died just 2–3 years after the 1999 French edition of this book was published.

[Philippe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reminds me of something Andrei Tarkovsky once said:

Whatever it expresses -
even destruction and ruin -
the artistic image
is by definition an embodiment of hope.
It is inspired by faith.
Artistic creation
is by definition a denial of death.
Therefore it is optimistic
even if an ultimate sense the artist is tragic.
And so there can never be
optimistic artists and pessimistic artists.
There can only be talent and mediocrity.

I am sure Ralph Rumney would agree with all of that.

[Jeremy Jl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good insight into the mind of a psychogeographer.