U PRISIN G S

Georges Didi-Huberman

UPRISINGS
With essays by

Nicole Brenez
Judith Butler
Marie-Josd Mondzain
Antonio Negri
Jacques Ranci£re
TABLE OF CONTENTS

F orew ord by Marta Gili, 7

In tro d u c tio n by Georges Didi-Huberman, 13

U prising by Judith Butler, 23

U prising as E vent by Antonio Negri, 37
To “Those w h o sail th e s e a ...” by Marie-Josd M ondzain,46
One U prising Can H ide A n o th e r by Jacques Rancifcre, 62
C o u n te ra tta c k s by Nicole Brenez, 71

PORTFOLIO
I. WITH ELEM ENTS (UN LEA S H ED ), 94
The elements become unleashed, tim e is out of joint, 96
And if the im agination m ade m ountains rise up?, 104

II. WITH G ESTU R ES (IN T E N S E ), 116

From burden to uprising, 118
With ham m er blows, 130
Arms rise up, 133
The pasidn, 142
When bodies say no, 144
Mouths for exclaiming, 148

III. WITH WORDS (EXCLA IM ED ), 156

Poetic insurredtions, 158
The message of the butterflies, 176
Newspapers, 186
Making a book of resistance, 190
The walls speak up, 198

A
 IV. WITH CONFLICTS (FLARED UP), 206
To Strike is not to do nothing, 208
Demonstrate, put yourself at risk, 212
Vandal joys, 228
Building barricades, 234
Dying from injustice, 244

V. WITH DESIRES (IN DESTRUCTIBLE), 254

The hope of those condemned to death, 256
Mothers rise up, 264
They are your own children, 270
They who go through walls, 274

By The D esires (Fragments on What Makes Us Rise Up)

by Georges Didi-Huberman, 289
Loss and uprisings, 289
The depths of the air are red, 290
Freiheitsdrang, the “upsurge of liberty”, 295
Zeros for condudt, 296
From the depths, 299
A gesture rises, 301
From contrition to uprising, 305
In order to throw your suffering overboard, 307
Potency againSt power, or the adt of desire, 310
Duende of transgression, 315
The tim e of the revolt, 319
Masses and potency, 322
Even the newborn rises up, 328
Desire, Struggle, domination, recognition, 332
Political eros, 336
Refusal, or the potential to do otherwise, 344
Desiring, disobeying, doing violence, 358
The message of the butterflies, 370

Bibliographic index (texts cited), 384

Index of artists, 395

5
6
 Marta Gili

FOREWORD

For almost a decade, the Jeu de Paume’s exhibition program has been
conceived with the convidtion that twenty-firSt century museums and
cultural institutions cannot be detached from the social and political
challenges of the society of which they are part.
To us, this approach is a m atter of simple common sense.
The program it has shaped does not monitor market trends or seek
complacent legitimacy within the field of contemporary art. Rather,
we have chosen to work with artiSts whose poetic and political concerns
are attuned to the need to critically explore the models of governance
and practices of power that mold much of our perceptual and emotional
experience, and thus, the social and political world we live in.
Because the Jeu de Paume is a center for images, we are aware
of the urgent necessity—in line with our societal responsibilities—to
revise the analysis of the historical conditions in which photography
and the moving image developed in modernity and, subsequently, in
poStmodernity with all its alternatives, provocations, and challenges.
Thankfully, the history of images and our ways of seeing and
understanding the world through them is neither linear nor
unidiredtional. These are the sources of our fascination with images
th at don’t tell everything they show and with images affedted by
the vicissitudes of the hum an condition. Photography, and images
in general, represent not only reality, but things that the hum an eye
cannot see; like us, photography is capable of concealing, denying
and sustaining. It is only waiting for someone to listen to its joys
and its sorrows.
The Jeu de Paume’s programming sites its oblique look at history
and contemporaneity in this oscillation between the visible and
the invisible in the life of images, creating a space for encounter and
the clashing of ideas, emotions, and knowledge, accepting that
the coexistence of conflict and antagonism are an essential part of
community building.

7
 For these reasons, and from this position, in the superb proposal
by the philosopher and art historian Georges Didi-Huberman
to form an exhibition from his research on th e them e of “uprisings,”
we found the ideal intellectual, artistic, and museological challenge.
While the notion of revolution, rebellion, and revolt isn’t alien
in contem porary society’s vocabulary, the objeCt of its aCtion is
replete with collective am nesia and inertia. That is why analyzing
the representations of “uprisings”—from the etchings Goya,
to contem porary installations, paintings, photographs, docum ents,
videos, and films—dem onstrates an unequivocal relevance to the
social context in which we are living in 2016.
Constructing a chronological narrative or an exhaustive review of
“uprisings” is not the aim. Thousands of representations of the gesture
to say “NO,” to shout “STOI? or to raise the ban n er “THEY SHAT.I. NOT
PASS” exiSt. They are known by women, m en, and children, by workers,
artiSts, and poets, by those who cry out and those who are silent,
by those who weep, who m ourn and those who m ake them .
“Uprisings” is a montage of these words, gestures, and actions,
which defy submission to absolute power.
The lam ent of the famous Cddiz poet Rafael Alberti seems
fitting here:

Crefmos en las sirenas

que cantan entre las olas.
Sus cantos nada nos dieron
ni ayer ni ahora.

Somos los mismos que el viento

nos tird en las mismas olas.
Los hijos pobres del mar,
de ayer y ahora.

We believed in merm aids

singing in the waves.
Their songs gave us nothing
not yesterday nor right now.

We are the same as the wind

We are pulled into the same waves.
The poor children of the sea,
Yesterday and right now.1

l.
Rafael Alberti, “Cancibn
de los Pescadores pobres,"
in Ora Maritima, seguido
de Baladas y Canciones
del Parand (Buenos Aires:
Editorial Losada, 1953), 49.

8
 Uprisings and submissions: for Alberti, two sides of the same coin.
The wind defying gravity, its strength raising up bodies, salt, and sand,
all toward the same destination; “the poor children of the sea,” the
sailors of Cddiz, Stripped of those siren songs, of the promises of a life
lived with dignity, between sky and sea.
These are the people, the earth’s dispossessed, Georges Didi-
Huberman refers to in this catalogue’s moving introductory essay.
The thousands of hum an beings that pass through the walls
of a society that has loft all transparency, all ability to let light pass
through so that other bodies, other souls, may find their way; these
visible beings, in flesh and images, wandering our ftreets, parading
on our televisions, who are denied the ftatus of lawful citizens.
Uprisings confronts us with these and many other contradictions
for which there are no words of consolation or geftures of indignation
that could take the place of shared and solidary aCtion, an aCtion
o f“enough.”
If only the elation of the poet’s song could awaken our senses!

Cantad alto. OirCis que oyen otros ofdos.

Mirad alto. VerCis que miran otros ojos.
Latid alto. SabrCis que palpita otra sangre.

Sing loud. You shall hear other ears hearing.

Look high. You shall see other eyes looking.
Beat loud. You shall know that other blood is pulsing.2

The Jeu de Paume team wishes to thank Georges Didi-Huberman

for his passion, enthusiasm, and involvement in carrying out of
this colossal project. His intellectual generosity is without limit: he has
not only engaged us all fully in the project, but has enriched
and broadened our collective ability to think and to be energized.
We wish to express our appreciation and admiration to this
catalogue’s authors: Nicole Brenez, Judith Butler, Marie-JosC Mondzain,
Antonio Negri, Jacques Rancifcre, and Georges Didi-Huberman himself.
The sensitivity of their reflections and depth of their thinking
conftitute a unique contribution to a publication of unprecedented
quality.
Without partners who firmly believe in the social and artiftic
relevance of such a project, it is not possible to create an exhibition
of this caliber. Thus we are sincerely grateful to the four inftitutions,
and their representatives, which will hoft Uprisings: Pepe Serra,
director, and Juan JosC Lahuerta, curator, Museu Nacional d’A rt de

2.
Rafael Alberti, “Balada para
los poetas andaluces de hoyf
in Ora Maritima, seguido de
Baladas y Canciones del Parand
(Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada,
1953), 159-

9
Catalunya (MNAC), Barcelona; Anfbal Jozami, diredtor, and Diana
Wechsler, curator, Museo de la Universidad Nacional de Tres
de Febrero (MUNTREF), Buenos Aires; Graciela de la Torre, diredtor,
and Cuauhtdmoc Medina, chief curator, Museo Universitario
de Arte Contempor&neo (MUAC), Mexico City; and Louise Ddry,
diredtor, Galerie de l’Universitd de Qudbec k M ontreal (UQAM)
and Guillaume Lafleur, curator of the Cindmathdque de l’Universitd
du Qudbec k Montrdal.
Jeu de Paume does not have its own colledtion. The works displayed
in our exhibitions are shown thanks to the collaboration of colledtors,
and public and private institutions. To th em we also wish to extend
our profound thanks: it is their good will th a t has m ade this exhibition
a reality We would also like to express our gratitude to Maria Kourkouta
and EStefanla Penafiel Loaiza for the com m itm ent they brought to
producing the original works commissioned by the Jeu de Paume
for the exhibition; and to Marie Lechner for h er exploration of the
Uprisings them e on the Internet and social networks.
LaSt but by no m eans leaSt, we thank the Parisian designer
Isabel Marant for her generous support of this projedt, and, as always,
the Amis du Jeu de Paume.

10
11
12
 Georges Didi-Huberman

INTRODUCTION

H EAVINESS OF TH E TIM ES

As I write these lines—March 2016—some thirteen thousand

people fleeing the disasters of war find themselves practically arrested,
parked as such, in Idomeni in northern Greece. Macedonia has
decided to close its borders, but it is officially Europe as a whole, by the
opportunistic and Strangely cowardly voice of its leaders (but doesn’t
history show us that a single political cowardice is very coStly in the
long term?), which is denying these people the minimum hospitality
th at any sense of ethics should expedt, and that is proscribed,
furthermore, by the rules of international law What fate awaits people
when we Start to confuse the foreigner with the enemy?
The sky, therefore, is heavy, in whatever way we wish to understand
it. It is raining in Idomeni today. The people, deprived of everything
now, wait for hours in the mud for a single hot cup of tea or for
medicine. Members of non-governmental organizations and, even
more so, independent solidarity groups work to the point of
exhaustion, while soldiers calmly keep watch over the barbed wire.
Yet, m any Greeks in the region come spontaneously to bring aid:
having little themselves, dispossessed by the “austerity” imposed on
them by the European government, they give what they can, which
is invaluable: consideration, hospitality, clothes, medicines, food,
smiles, words, and someone to look with sincerity. It seems they have
not forgotten one of their firSt great poets: Aeschylus wrote
The Suppliants 2,500 years ago—a recent French translation was
called Les exitees, meaning “the exiled women”—and it is a tragedy
th at is diredtly linked to the founding m yth of Europe, and which
tells how “black” women from the Middle Eaft were received in
Argos according to the sacred law of hospitality, which conflicts with
the political and governmental calculation that their welcome
brought about.1

l.
Aeschylus, The Suppliants,
trans. Alan Sommerftein,
Penguin Classics, London, 2009.
Aeschylus, Les Exitees, trans.
Irfcne Bonnaud (Besangon:
Les Solitaires intempeftifs, 2013).

13
It’s raining in Idomeni. People w ant to flee, to find refuge, and
they cannot. The sky is heavy over th eir heads th eir feet becom e ftuc
in the m ud and the barbed wire would tear th e slon from th eir
t o d s If f e y dared to approach th e b o rd er The sky is heavy over Ureir
heads, but I know th a t there is only one sky on earth, and so we
in diredt contaft w ith their fate. Indeed, I have n o t b een to Idom eni.
I am writing these words from hearsay and visual testim onies.
Furtherm ore, I am w riting this for the introductory sedtion of a n a rt
catalogue. Yet I am not off topic, if you accept th e idea th a t a rt has n o t
only a history but also appears as th e “eye itself” of history. Sa y,
it is not the presence of Ai Weiwei in Idom eni—w ith his w hite piano
and his specialized team of photographers—th a t will help anyone
or anything w ith regard to this gaping question; th e refugees showed
themselves to be completely indifferent to this “performance,” w ith
their thoughts elsewhere, waiting for som ething else. I can see th a t
white piano, surreal in the middle of the w asteland of th e camp,
a derisory symbol of our good artistic consciences: white, like th e walls
of an art gallery, it merely evokes, in the end, the contract by which
we see, w ith heavy hearts, in Idomeni as elsewhere, the weight of
the dark times on our contem porary lives.
“Dark times”: th a t is how Bertolt Brecht spoke for his
contemporaries, and from his own condition as a m an surrounded by
evil and danger, as a m an in exile, as a fugitive, as a perpetual “m igrant”
who waited for m onths to receive a visa, and to cross a border.
In contract, Hannah Arendt used the same expression, a few years later,
to draw from it a certain notion of “hum anity” as such: the ethics
of a Lessing or a Heine, th at of free poetry and thinking, beyond any
dom inant political barbarities.2
Dark times. But w hat do we do w hen darkness reigns? You can wait,
quite simply: you retreat, endure. You say th a t it will end at some point.
You try to manage. At beSt, in the dark, you repaint your piano white.
And as you get used to it—and this will happen soon, for hum ans
are animals th at adapt quickly—you Start to expedt nothing at all. The
horizon of expectation, the tem poral horizon, ends up disappearing
in the gloom, juSt as any visual horizon does. Where there is limitless
darkness, there is nothing more to expedt. This is called submission
to obscurity (or, if you prefer, obedience to obscurantism). This is called
the death impulse, the death of desire. In a 1933 text titled “Experience
and Poverty? Walter Benjamin wrote th at “here and there, the beSt
minds have long since Started to think in these term s [regarding these
burning questions of the contem porary political context]. A total
absence of illusion about the age and at the same tim e an unlim ited

2.
H annah Arendt, “On Hum anity
in Dark Times: Thoughts about
Lessing” (1959), trans. Clara and
Richard Winfton, Men in Dark
Times (Orlando, FL: Harcourt
Brace 8c Company, 1983), 3-32.

14
 commitment to it—this is its hallmark.”3This diagnostic has loSt none
of its relevance today. Everyone, or almoSt everyone, knows that you
have no illusions in obscurity, unless you are bombarded with billions
of puppets, as on the walls of a Platonic cave filled with plasma screens.
It is one thing not to have any illusions in the obscurity, or in front
of the puppets in the imposed show, but it is another thing to fall back
into the deadly inertia of submission, be it melancholic, cynical, or
nihilistic submission.

TO LIFT UP OUR BURDENS

Before he ever had to recognize the efficiency of the death impulse

(it took him the FirSt World War to do so), Sigmund Freud had asserted,
at the end of his great book on dreams, that desire was indeStru&ible—a
magnificent hypothesis! How that ought to be truel The indeStrudtibility
of desire would make us seek, in obscurity, a light in spite of all, however
hazy it may be. If you are loSt in a foreSt in the night, the light of
a faraway Star, or of a candle behind a window, or of a firefly nearby
will be astonishingly beneficial. This is when the times rise up.
Enclosed in their dark cells from the beginning of the twentieth
century, the Andalusian anarchist or the Gypsy thief of three olives had
invented a particular Style of “prisoners’songs” called carceleras, in
which it was often said that their horizon of aspiration could depend
entirely on the glow of a burning cigarette in the blackness:

A m i me metieron en un calabozo
donde yo no uefa ni la luz del dia
gritando yo me alumbraba
con el lucerito que yo incendia.

They threw me in a prison cell

Where I could not see the light of day
Crying out I m ade my light
Under the little Star that I lit for myself.

And so the voice, in this context, was the beSt way to desire, to speak
to each other, to pierce the darkness, or to cross the perimeter. The little
3.
light, for its part, could guide the prisoner towards what ErnSt Bloch,
Walter Benjamin, “Experience
and Poverty” (1933), trans. in The Principle o f Hope, called “wishful-images” that is to say, images
Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge, th at can become prototypes or “guiding figures of venturing beyond
MA: Harvard University Press,
the limits.”4
1999X733.
4.
E m it Bloch, The Principle
of Hope, Volume 3. Wishful Images
of the Fulfilled Moment (1938-59),
trans. Neville Plaice, Stephen
Plaice, and Paul Knight
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1996).

15
 The “dark tim es” are so dark only because they knock against our
foreheads, press down on our eyelids and offend our gaze. Like lim its
placed on both our bodies and our thoughts. In reality (if we look
at them from a distance) they are gray. Gloomy gray of rainy skies and,
above all, anthracite gray of the barbed wire, of th e weapons, or th e
lead used by the cruellest prisons. The dark tim es are leaden times.
Not only do they prevent our ability to see beyond and, therefore,
to desire, but they weigh heavily upon our necks, u p on our skulls,
and as such they suffocate our ability to w ant and to think. With this
paradigm of weight or of lead, the word submission has a m ore obvious
and more physical meaning. But we should u n d e rh a n d , then, th a t
the desire against this—the survival of desire in th e space th a t was
conceived for neutralizing it—finds its full m eaning in the word
uprising, and in the gesture th at this word suggests.
Should we not, at every instant, raise up our m any lead screeds?
And for this should we not rise up ourselves and, necessarily—for
the screed is so vaft and the lead so heavy—rise up in num bers?
There is no single scale for uprisings: they go from th e tiniest gesture
of retreat to the m oft gigantic m ovem ent of protect. W hat are we
underneath the lead of the world? We are at the sam e tim e vanquished
Titans and dancing children, perhaps future vidtors. Vanquished Titans,
like Atlas and his brother Prometheus, who had once risen up against ’
the unilateral authority of the gods of Olympus, th en defeated by Zeus
and punished, the one to carry the weight of th e sky on his shoulders
(a sidereal punishment), the other to have his liver devoured by
a vulture (visceral punishm ent).
This is how Titans became the “guilty? punished by Olympian law.
ccordmg to a fate shared by m any uprisings, they failed therefore to
take power on Olympus. This is not the Story's only lesson. They had
adtually liberated hum anity by transm itting to h u m an s—in order to
share or to p o o l - a crucial part of the power of the masters: a certain
nowledge (for Atlas, the science of the earth and th e Stars) and
a certain know-how (for Prometheus, the maStery of fire). Where the

s s s s k ir s s s r r r s s --

T C ^ - a lb e d o, r t t h the hum im ^ ^ e tw e n

16

5.
Georges Didi-Huberman,
Peuples en larmes, peuples
en armes. L’ceil de I’hifloire, 6
(Paris: Les Editions de Minuit,
2016 ).
6.
Georges Didi-Huberman,
Atlas; How to Cany the World
on One's Back?, trans. Shane Lillis
(Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro
de Arte Reina Sofia, 2010).
17
Olympus. We can imagine that, one day, the Titan Atlas, having
sung his laSt carcelera, would throw his burden, in a grand gesture
of liberating uprising, over his long-bruised shoulders. He could, then,
exclaim his desire once and for all: expose his drive for life and for
freedom in front and for everyone, in the public domain and in the
time of history. Two decades after the French Revolution had ignited
minds in Europe, Francisco de Goya was able to give shape to this
luminous exclamation in the fabric of the lumpenproletariat,
somewhere between the carrier fatefully crushed under his burden
(Jig. l) and the worker claiming—albeit firSt of all “for nothing,” that is
to say to obtain nothing decisive in this history that is only open to
him —his revolt (Jig. 2). This is the gesture—a gesture of uprising—that
will be the objedt of my examination and research here.
EVID EN CE OF UPRISINGS
I was already following this line of questioning—all that was needed
was the montage between the gestures represented as though
successively in the two drawings by Goya, and successive refledtions on
the representations of revolt in EisenStein5—when, a few months ago,
Marta Gili asked me to imagine an exhibition for the Jeu de Paume in
Paris. The evidence of Uprisings: it sufficed that Atlas, the hero of an
earlier exhibition at the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid,6 should find
the energy, the free potency to throw his burden—and with it his
failure, his sadness—over his shoulders and in the face of his bosses
on Olympus. As I write these lines, I do not know, finally, what will
come of the montages of works that we are attempting to bring
together, in the disjundtion that occurs sometimes between what we
might have wished and what is adtually impossible to obtain for this
type of undertaking (with its specific material constraints): it is no
easier to move large paintings by Joan Mird or Sigmar Polke than
it is Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People or Daumier’s The Uprising.
But these possibilities remain immense, given how true it is that
the uprising is a gesture without end, continually Starting again,
sovereign juSt as we can call sovereign the desire itself or that inStindt,
the “push towards freedom” (Freiheitsdrang) that Sigmund Freud
spoke of. So, the dom ain of uprisings is potentially infinite. In this
sense, the roaming, the traveling th at has already been planned
for this exhibition—to Barcelona, Montrdal, Mexico, and Buenos
Aires—will be the opportunity for a constant reformulation or heuristic
transjormation through which, I hope, new aspedts of the uprising—
 political, historical, and aesthetic aspedts—will be deployed. To this
pleasure in research—which is infinite, since learning, discovering,
inventing new montages th a t can give life to new em otions and
offer new paradigms for thought are never finished—muSt be added,
nonetheless, the fadt th at anxiety will also play a part, and even
th at it will be infinite: “the anxious gay science,” according to w hat
we learned from both Friedrich Nietzsche and Aby Warburg.7 This
is because such an endeavor is not w ithout fundam ental pitfalls, n o r
w ithout contradidtions: why should a liSt of works for exhibition be
limited when their Study is not? The essay offered in this catalogue,
though long and arm ed w ith an extensive bibliography, is adtually only
a Start to the exam ination needed of philosophical, historical, political,
and aesthetic questions regarding uprisings. It is for this reason
that Marta Gili and I believed it was necessary to call upon thinkers or
researchers from different horizons—Nicole Brenez, Judith Butler,
Marie-Josd Mondzain, Antonio Negri, and Jacques Ranci&re, who will
be joined by other figures during a planned Study day—who have th eir
own experiences and histories w ith regard to this question of uprisings.
One final contradidtion, though not th e leaSt, could be form ulated
as follows: do we not betray these very particular “objedts”—uprisings
that are not only “objedts” but gestures or adts—w hen we m ake
them “objedts” of an exhibition? What do uprisings becom e and w hat
comes of their energy on the white walls of the white cube or in the
vitrines of a cultural institution? Does the objedtion to the w hite piano
not risk turning back on itself in the distance th a t separates every
exhibition from w hat it speaks of? Some will think perhaps th a t such
a projedt of aesthetics— since it has to do above all w ith showing
images, many of which are works of art—merely aeStheticizes and as
a result, anaesthetizes the practical and political dim ension in h erent in
any upnsmg. By proposing to bring such images together in the
public space of an exhibition, I am not attem pting to create a Standard
iconography of rebellions (which would underm ine them ) no r am
Iattem pting to draw a historical tableau, or even a trans-hiStorical
Style, of uprisings either paSt or present (which, in any case, would
be an unpossible task).

th ,!n^ d ’11 ' Su a que^ 10n of ^ ^ 8 th a t hypothesis, or m ore simply,

question: How do images draw so often from o ur memories
in order to give shape to our desires for emancipation? And how does
a poetic dimension manage to be created in the very h e art of our
gestures of uprising and as a gesture o f uprising? It suffices to recall
Baudelaire’s words from l848 in Le Salut public or thoTe of Z b a ^ d
t a n 1871 his U n „ s du royom, or ^ * £ £ £ £ “ *

7.
Georges Didi-Huberman,
Atlas ou le gai savoir inquiet.
L’aeil de I’hiStoire, 3 (Paris:
Les fiditions de Minuit, 2011).

18
Francisco de Goya, The Porter, c. 1812- 23. Francisco de Goya, No haras nada con clamar
Scraper, brush, and sepia ink wash on white laid (Crying out will get you nowhere), c. 1814-17.
paper, 20.3 x 14.3 cm. MusCe du Louvre, Paris. Ink drawing on paper, 26.5 * 18.1 cm. Private collection.

19
 of Daumier, or the films of EisenStein or of Pasolini. It suffices to
rem em ber the avant-garde phrase from th e end of th e FirSt World
War: “Dada makes everything rise up!” Is th e sam e thing not happening
today when, in its m odest calendar of 2016—which does n o t claim to
be a work of art—the Social Solidarity Infirm ary of Thessaloniki, w here
the worSt off are cared for, those th a t th e State health services no
longer want, juxtaposes Joan Mird’s The Hope o f a Condemned Man and
the No of the Greeks to the current austerity plans, the barricades
constructed by the wom en in Barcelona in 1936 and th e great gestures
addressed by the rescuers to the Syrian refugees on the Mytilene coaSt?
A poem by Jorge Luis Borges accompanies this particularly current
image captured by a volunteer caregiver (fig. 3):

The JuSt

A m an who cultivates his garden, as Voltaire wished.

He who is grateful for the existence of music.
He who takes pleasure in tracing an etymology.
Two workmen playing, in a cafd in the South, a silent gam e of chess.
The potter, contemplating a colour and a form.
The typographer who set this page well, though it m ay not please
him.
A woman and a m an, who read the laSt tercets of a certain canto.
He who Strokes a sleeping animal.
He who justifies, or wishes to, a wrong done him.
He who is grateful for the existence of Stevenson.
He who prefers others to be right.
These people, unaware, are saving the world.8

We not rise up w ithout a certain force. W hat is it? Where does it

o Z f T f * not o b v io u s-fo r it to be exposed and transm itted to
o th e r s - th a t we m uft be capable of giving it a form? A political
anthropology of unages should Start from the fadt th a t our desires
Tfn 7 7 ™ ° f 0Ur m emories’ P ^ d e d we create a form therein
ca Z l off reinventing
capable ^ f° possibilities.
reet ^ 0rigin ^ th a t>therefore>becomes ’

8.
Jorge Luis Borges, “The Juft"
(1981), trans. Alistair Reid,
Selected Poems, vol. 2,
ed. Alexander Coleman
(London: Penguin, 2000), 455 .

20
 AUitUrrvol <W| Mr'ilflm. Untlfilp>K201S

KAttoioc noo mMKpytl rev Kftno too bnux; 8o

rtOtXt o DoXtalpoc; KAttoioc ttou viuSn aryvu*
pooi>vn yiaii otov <c6opo onftpxn n pouoixA
Am*: nou avaacaAomjci pt xapd pia mipcAopa
AOo m M m noo oc icAnoio Koqxvtio noltouv to
oiiunnM tom okAxl 0 nnJ.on.Vimn.; noo npcaca
OoplCci evo oxftpa ft tva xpwpa. O <noutno6ftnc
nou aiftvci 6pop?a toOto to aipzw not nou
lotmSevi Ofrfoci Mia Yuvatica K) tvoc ftvtpoc
nou Siafl&ouv paO tic ttVvtaltc otpo^c tv*;
naiftpatoc. Kftnoioc xoffieuovtoc tva CuXnu noo
Kotpfttai Kctvoc nou ouyzuiptl ft etUi va ouyxto-
ptoo to kucA nou too yivt Kdnoioc nou viwflct
tuyvuipoouvn pat I o' autdv tow nxtpo tCnot o
Itftjkvoov. KAnoioc noo ttpottpft va 'xouv 6bno
01 ftAAoi Oi ftvOpunot autol nou prtago tout: 5cv
P'tupRovtoi, ttouv otooei tow Kbopo.

Jorjje Lull Borges. Oi ftftanoi

fig-3
Pages from the 2016 calendar (July 4-10) by the colledtive of the Social Solidarity
Infirmary, Thessaloniki.

21
22
 Judith Butler

UPRISING

Who rises up when there is an uprising? And what is it that rises up

when people rise up? We speak about an “outbreak” of frustration
or anger, and yet such visceral moments centrally involve modes of
recognition and judgm ent that a group of humans have reached their
limit. Humans rise up in numbers when they are indignant or when
they have had enough of subjugation, and that seems to follow from
the experience that a limit has been crossed. Something indispensable
for living with dignity or freedom has been denied, and for too long.
So an uprising usually seeks to end a condition that has been suffered
longer than it should have been. Uprisings come late, even as they seek
to instate a new State of affairs. They take place paSt the time when the
condition of subjugation should have ended. And when they happen,
they expose the limit of what anyone should endure.
How do we account for uprisings? What is it that rises up in a group
when they are living beyond their limit and an uprising follows? Is it a
part of the soul that seeks freedom from constraint? Or does a demand
emerge in the course of our life together, borne of our social relations?
An individual can surely rise up againSt an unjuSt law all alone,
heroically defying the m andate of such a law, and yet an individual adt,
no m atter how defiant, is not an uprising. An uprising is not a solitary
affair. A political State cannot undertake an uprising, though it can
make war againSt other States, or inflidt violence on its citizens or the
population under its control. When there is an uprising, it is
individuals who form a part of that adtion, but the adtion has a shape
and meaning that is socio-political, though not embarked upon by
State adtors. In th at social adtion, no individual adts alone, but neither
does a colledtive subjedt emerge that denies all individual difference.
An uprising does not well up from my indignation or from yours.
Those who rise up do so together, recognizing that they suffer in ways
th at no one should. So an uprising requires a recognition not only
th at w hat the individual suffers is shared, but that a group is living

23
 beyond a shared sense of its limit. Individuals and groups both undergo
subjugation and so in rising up, it is this body w ith o th er bodies, and
from a shared refusal to live beyond the lim it of w hat can be, or should
be, endured. An uprising can be local and directed; it can be against
a particular set of laws or polices, such as unfair taxation, segregation,
discrimination, lack of shelter, or health care. An uprising can also be
diredted against an entire legal regime, w hether it is one th a t supports
slavery or colonial power, including occupation, siege, and apartheid,
authoritarian rule, fascism, capitalism , State corruption, or auSterity.
What rises up in an uprising follows from a growing resolve th a t
subjugation should not be endured any longer; a shared sense th a t
things muSt Stop and how they muSt change, draw n from converging
individual and group histories. And yet, we would be wrong to assum e
that if there is an uprising, it is always justified, or th a t everyone will
agree with its political aims. After all, there are som etim es uprisings
againSt democratic regimes. Here we will focus m ainly on those
uprisings that seek to realize democratic aims. In general, uprisings
tend to emerge from indignation—an angry refusal of th e condition
under which dignity, held in place by the m oral limits of w hat should
be endured, is denied or destroyed. And th a t indignation spreads
among people, gathering those who have been lying low, w ho have
kept close to the ground, or who have been “grounded” in some way,
those for whom Standing up and looking forw ard em bodies the
physical risk of asserting dignity. They are no longer making themselves
low, keeping themselves down, trying to avoid th e eyes of th e law.
They rise, but they do not simply Stand u p —they rise up. If they w ere
only to Stand, they would make themselves known, exposing
themselves to the law—the police, the military, th e tribunal. But if they
nse up, they are not planning to sit or lay dow n anytim e soon. Their
adtion is reflexive: they rise up, and in this way they take th e body
in hand and assume an eredt poSture. Their adtion has an objedt- they
w hal'r T •t S° m ethm g- they w hat they wish to overthrow

I S I S S fortooTong0 free

24
 or to overthrow the regime predicated upon that injustice. To rise up
is to gland forth with others againSt a form of power, to be seen and
heard precisely under conditions in which Standing forth, being seen
and heard are not allowed, and not only for the symbolic value of
appearing in public when it is proscribed. One rises up with a certain
energy or force, a corporeal and visceral intention that is not juSt one’s
own, but shared—a transitive resolve to overcome a common condition
endured for too long. To endure a condition that is unendurable can
break a person, fradture a community, decimate a social world, but it
can also produce the paradoxical circumstance in which those who
have been living with something they should never have had to endure
now mobilize to rejedt that very condition, making a bid for a livable
life. They have been crossed, denied, degraded, but now, in the moment
of uprising, they gather a certain Strength or force from one another,
from alliance itself, one formed by a shared rejection of the unlivable,
emerging now as bodies whose political Strength lies in its growing
numbers.
Perhaps a series of indignations individually suffered is recognized
as a shared condition, a subjugating power is identified for opposition
or overthrow; that shared recognition is a firSt moment of gathering.
A gathering is, however, not yet an uprising. Perhaps that gathering
takes the form of a community meeting or a set of conversations on
the Street, or the transmission of a newspaper analysis or a spreading
understanding that follows upon seeing a pidture widely enough
distributed to form a consensus about the unacceptable charadter
of an incident or condition of suffering. Each sees it from his or her
own location, or with a proximate set of others, and a group of people
gathers there at the site of the image, or the image gathers people
across disparate locations, perhaps the loss of innocent life, or the
evidence of torture, but also the forcible dispersion of a people from
their lands and homes, or evidence that a certain group of lives are
treated as dispensable, or that racial inequality has become accepted
as the legal and social norm, or that an entire legal or economic
system depends upon the disenfranchisement of workers or minorities
to work as it does. There does not have to be an elaborate analysis for
an uprising. It is not required that everyone reads Karl Marx or follows
poSt-MarxiSt debates, and yet uprising does involve thinking. All that
is required is a sense of living w ithin a particular regime, whether that
be political or economic, requires suffering in unbearable ways, and
an understanding th at this should not be bearable, and that this claim
is true not only for oneself but for others who are positioned in
a similar situation within the field of power.

25
A shift in perspective takes place in th e m id d o f uprising. It is n o t
only th at I suffer, b u t th a t you do as well, and th a t some “we” form s
in the course of recognizing the w idespread and systematic character
of th at form of subjugation th a t has been suffered too long and th a t
calls now to come to an end. So a “we” forms in th e m id d of th a t
uprising, one th a t congeals th e sense of a shared indignation. But th ere
is also a “now” or a “no m ore” or a “no longer,” m arking th a t it is p a d
tim e to throw off this subjugation. In a way, every uprising is both
urgent and belated. Many have already subm itted to w hat breaks th e m
or has broken them , often suffering im m easurable losses, an d yet dill,
the uprising signifies th at even in the m id d of being broken, th e people
are not fully or finally broken such th a t rising up proves impossible.
A group of already abrogated people rises up, those w ho lived w ith
those shackles but who now arrive together n o t only to d a n d or
to gather, but to rise up and shed th e shackles they have borne. They
throw them off or shake them off.
Uprisings tend to rely on an organizing m etaphor, a figure
of someone who d an d s up, one for w hom d a n d in g signifies a form
of liberation, one with the physical power to free h im or herself from
chains, shackles, the signs of slavery, or indentured servitude. Indeed,
we may not find anyone who approxim ates this figure in an actual
uprising, and yet the figure is there, cading the shadow of its physicality
on the gathering. In German, the uprising is called AufStand, w hich
can m ean outrage, uprising, revolt, or revolution, depending on context,
but relying on a sense of dand in g u p and d a n d in g forth. In Hebrew,
it is hitqomemut ’amamit (popular uprising), usually a g ain d an
edablished authority. And in Arabic, it is intifada, u n derdood not only as
a tremor, a shuddering, or a convulsion, b u t figuring the act of emerging
from prone position on the ground, shaking off d u d and leaves.
In French, soulbvement also implies the idea of lifting, as if suddenly
there is d rength enough to lift and c a d off an enorm ous weight
by which one has been burdened. In any given uprising, th ere m ay be
no literal shackles, and no individual body suddenly rising up from
a protracted prone position can describe the acts of gathering, moving,
danding, and residing th at comprise an uprising. And yet, such figures
convey a sense of the unprecedented capacity of a group th a t appears
and moves in numbers, gathering popular power as they do. With th a t
corporeal spread and speed a form of residance is produced, but so, too,
a demographic problem of containm ent for police and the m ilitary as
hum an barriers emerge, or traffic rules are set aside, a problem that, if it
becomes too large, proves to be uncontainable. The larger they becom e
the more those shackles seem, for the tim e being, to be c a d away.

26
 Of course, not everyone can be on the Street or literally rise up.
Contemporary uprisings are hardly thinkable without Internet
aCtivism. Some people lag behind, or some Stay in sheltered spaces
where they work the Internet or arrange for lawyers or health care
in the course of an uprising, or write an editorial, or engage in
reproductive labor. For some, Standing may be literally difficult or
impossible, so they undertake different tasks. And yet, bodies Still have
a way of making their presence known through physical or virtual
space, even though that form of “appearing” should not be confused
with hyper-visibility. An uprising is not the same as a discrete
and finite demonstration, but when demonstrations laSt longer than
expedted, they can, at some moment, become an uprising. Despite
some efforts to designate uprisings as spontaneous and irrational
outbursts, they are often the result of long simmering processes of
dawning and expanding recognition. They have been forming, taking
form, before they take place as uprisings. Those who dismiss or
fear uprisings as “outbreaks of the irrational” presume that processes
of recognition and judgm ent are separable from visceral processes
of resistance. Some even insist that uprisings are beStial and barbarous
outpourings that have to be contained so that more “civilized” modes
of deliberation can proceed within established political Structures.
But what if uprisings are expressions of a popular will, ways of making
demands, or exposing the unjuSt limits imposed by existing political
Structures? What if those existing Structures were responsible for
the conditions th at could not be endured, and that no one should
have to endure? If a set of established political Structures do not reflect
or represent the popular will, are those Structures Still legitimate?
How m uch of the popular will muSt political Structures reflect in
order to lay claim to legitimacy? Which populations count as part
of the relevant popular will? And if those political Structures actively
seek to break the popular will, then is there not only a crisis of
democracy, but the fertile conditions for uprising?
Prior to uprising, there are ways of enduring and resisting
unendurable situations under conditions of subjugation that remain
local and furtive. For there to be an uprising, some set of connections
have to be m ade among those who endure and resist in ordinary
life, even if they lack the ultimate power to bring down the political,
legal, or economic regime by which they are subjugated. And so,
for there to be an uprising, there muSt firSt be a set of links, networks,
virtual and corporeal gatherings that are not only organized by
dialogic or deliberative principles, but in which a group of people are
moved and moving. They are moved from a complacent to an aCtive

27
 position, and this gathering of bodies for th e purposes of adting
together involves a visceral judgm ent, th a t is, a way of feeling and
thinking th at is m ore or less shared. They are on th e move, and
as they move from one site to another, they also begin to m ove from
a prostrate to an upright position—upright and mobile, against
the odds. As they move and gather, they also rise, and th e ir adtion,
however physical, is not fully sum m arized in this figure of physicality.
Rising up and shedding shackles is a physical figure for a concerted
colledtive m ovement th at seeks frontally to content a form of pow er
identified as the source of subjugation. It is a way of thinking and
adting together against a commonly identified source of subjugation.
W hether we approve or disapprove of an uprising, we probably
m isunderstand the phenom enon if we do not u n d erstan d it as
a colledtive and embodied political judgm ent— a visceral ju d g m en t
incarnated in Stance and adtion. The trace of such a body persists
even on the web or with the cell phone: som eone typing, som eone
holding the camera.
What is the power of those who rise up? Is this p opular power?
Who is rising up? What if it is not all of the people? On th e one hand,
whoever they are, these people are establishing a certain public
presence, corporeal and virtual. On the other hand, they are exposing
themselves deliberately to a power th a t can cut th e m back and beat
them down, returning them to a subjugated position or destroying
them. Sometimes those who rise up are those for w hom basic rights
such as gathering and dem onstrating u n d er protedted constitutional
rnnnitmnc — *i_i_1 ^.i
conditions are not available. Other times, those w ho rise i
because gathering and dem onstration, though perm itted,

28
 which there is no single colledtive subjedt. It is a judgment shared,
passed between people, heterogeneous yet concerted, embodied
differently and yet in common.
When people do appear in this way, their adtion may well be
misnamed by those who oppose their aims or their tadtics. Sometimes
misnaming is understandable: after all, uprisings, rebellions, and
revolts may all seem like one another in certain ways and they can,
under certain conditions turn into one another. Other times, however,
a misnaming indicates that there is a more fundamental
misrecognition in play. Governments and the media may call what they
are seeing a demonstration, thinking it is temporary, or a hot, figuring it
as a chaotic outbreak with no legible demand, or a breach of national
security so that police and military interventions are justified, including
violence, detention, arreSt, and forcible dispersion. At such a point, the
people who engage in uprisings are not understood to be expressing
any part of a popular will, but treated instead as a “population” to be
managed, contained, and controlled. The police and the prison syStem
is always implicitly there in any uprising; police power awaits the
people at the spatial boundary or temporal limit of the uprising,
making sure that the uprising resolves as a spatio-temporally discrete
event, seeking to block its transitive and contagious effedts. At the
m om ent when the police join the crowd or lay down their arms,
the uprising Starts to become a revolution. More often than not, that
is not the case.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprisings of 1943 were part of a larger Jewish
resistance movement in Poland during World War II, directed againSt
Nazi and collaborationist forces on two discrete occasions. In the
sum m er of 1942, the Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto rose up againSt
German soldiers who sought to enter the ghetto and deport the Jewish
to Treblinka where they were to be exterminated. After 300,000 Jews
were deported from the Ghetto to Treblinka, the Jewish resistance
organization, Z.O.B., rose up early in 1943 with only 750 resistance
fighters to block the entries and resist the Nazis. Their resistance laSted
a full m onth before they were vanquished and tens of thousands
more were deported to death camps. Although the uprising was
brutally crushed, and so “failed,” the history of the uprising testifies
to a willingness to fight for freedom even in the face of near-certain
defeat. The Story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising has become iconic
for thinking about uprisings after World War II. It tells us a Story of
resistance, freedom, and the desire for emancipation, and so these
principles are clearly articulated by the historical narration. Uprisings
give rise to narrative reconstructions after the faCt. In the moment,

29
 uprisings are not always pradtical and calculated. Yet they' som i eum es
embody ideals th at live on in th e accounts th a t p ostdate th e ir
failures. Even w hen they are crushed, uprisings Still have th e pow er to
articulate ideals. The afterm ath o f defeat is also th e tim e in w hich
the Story of the uprising becomes narratable. Only from th e vantage
of hindsight does an uprising becom e a discrete Story w ith beginning,
middle, and end, sometimes th e Story o f a valiant Struggle th a t
exemplifies principles of freedom and justice.
Uprisings are generally understood as discrete or periodic
forms of resistance, as bids or dem ands for em ancipation u n d er
conditions in which political freedoms and rights have been denied
and insupportable conditions endured. For those w ho rise up,
emancipation is transiently em bodied by the uprising itself. Uprisings
laSt longer th an a m inute or an hour. They begin, they have duration,
and they end—an indefinite uprising is not quite thinkable, even
though an uprising can happen again and again—slave rebellions h a d
to occur m any times before slavery came to an end; th e intifada in
Palestine takes place in waves and in Stages, alternating betw een
periods of tim e more adtive and m ore subdued. The end of an uprising
usually comes about not because people are exhausted or they m eet
an internal limit, nor because political aims have b een achieved
or opposing forces have prevailed. If an event comes to be called an
upnsm g rather than a revolution, th a t is because, however valiant it
was, the bid for em ancipation failed in the end. If an uprising is
organized againSt State power, th a t possibility o f failure is always there:
.. * ™ beurs 311(1 ***ta<ftics outwit and overwhelm State pow er
teeH? Or will the State’s m ilitary power im pose its own end on
tTV T ^ UPnSm8’ vanquishing ^ have sought to contest
its authority or jurisdiction?
From the Start an uprising is a risk: will those who rise u p againSt

30
 The iconicity of an uprising can be translated into another place
or time, or it can happen in the same place as part of an ongoing
movement. The figure of Cuban poet and freedom fighter,
Josd Marti, incited the Cuban struggle to free itself from Spanish
colonial rule in the late nineteenth century. His image and verse
continues to be invoked in almost all subsequent Struggles to preserve
Cuban independence and the opposition to subjugation and
exploitation. Of course, it can be that uprisings take place and are
rapidly or eventually effaced from history. When that happens, the
chain of citations comes to an end and the task of politics becomes to
fight againSt oblivion.
An uprising is usually a discrete event. It comes to an end. Failure
is there as the very condition of its definition. So even when an
uprising fails to achieve its goal, it nevertheless “goes down in history?
and that is Still a deed, a discursive accomplishment with affedtive
reverberations. A failed uprising can become a historically transmitted
memory, an unfulfilled promise taken up by future generations
who vow to realize those aims. One uprising cites another, becomes
reanim ated by its imagery and Story. As uprisings Start to happen here
and there, and again and again, a historical legacy is produced. One
uprising fails and another commences, suggesting that at some point
a cumulative history of uprisings implies an ongoing movement,
a Struggle th at is larger than any of the uprisings by which it is
composed, a Struggle that does not end. An uprising can fail, but a
movement can continue on indefinitely or become a revolutionary
movement and either come to an end (once the revolution has
taken place) or continue as a State form that paradoxically understands
itself as a “perm anent revolution.”
The contagious and citational character of uprisings was apparent
in the Arab Spring of 2011. The uprisings began with the suicide of
a fruit vendor in Tunisia in 2010, who had been defeated in his
individual Struggle with the State after losing his license to sell his
goods on the Street. The iconic imagery of that self-immolation incited
huge num bers of people in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya where
rulers were ultimately forced from power. Popular uprisings convulsed
Bahrain and Syria. In both Tunisia and Egypt, rulers loSt their power
once the m ilitary Started to defedt to the popular movement. At this
writing, moSt people believe that the Arab Spring is over, defeated for
all tim e as so m any of the affedted countries have returned to
authoritarian rule, but perhaps the Story is not yet over. Perhaps the
people rise again, in a different form, for another purpose, continuing
the larger citational chain of democratic uprisings.

31
 In the Arab Spring, one uprising was quickly followed by another,
but the interval between uprisings can take m uch m ore tim e. We are
more conscious of the contagious and quick m odel o f transitivity.
Adtions prom pt new adtions very quickly w hen an uprising takes
on a life on the Internet and works its effedts in a complex netw ork
of physical and virtual space. The uprising is reported, an d th e rep o rt
gives the event its virtual life, becoming a virtual p a rt o f th e event.
That very event, reported on the web, becomes com m unicable once it
Starts to spread in this way. The event takes leave of its own space an d
time, determ ined as a comm unicable event, inciting those w ho receive
and relay the news and so become p art o f th e adtion. And yet the
Internet alone cannot spread the uprising. An uprising has to h ap p en
again and again, relying on the concerted physical adtions o f those w ho
rise up. The representation of the event incites desire, an d som etim es,
as EmeSto Laclau has shown, a key term , such as “dem ocracy” o r
“freedom” or “independence” comes to nam e and incite a fu n d am en tal
longing transm itted from one group o f people to another, linking th em
to one another as it spreads.
Of course, iconic uprisings com m end a Story of adm irable courage
and they fundtion as paradigms th a t distinguish betw een th e kinds
of uprisings that are considered valuable and those th a t are dem eaned
or dismissed. There is something odd about distinguishing juSt from
unjuSt uprisings, but, of course, there can be an uprising of racists w ho
are indignant” th at foreigners are entering the country. In 1676. there

,Aa
group understands itself as “subjugated”

32
 by democracy, or equality, women’s rights, gay marriage, or the concept
of “gender,” what are we to make of their rising up? Who are they?
Are they “the people”?
It is always difficult to say whether an uprising represents all
the people, the essence of the people, or a pure democratic demand.
So that is one reason why it is not possible to simply affirm all
uprisings as democratic. And sometimes uprisings take violent forms
that are im portant to condemn. Our judgments about violent uprisings
might become more precise if we distinguish between aims and tadtics.
An uprising may begin with lofty ideals and end up destroying
property or murdering people, at which point we would be right
to condemn those deStrudtive consequences. This does not mean,
however, that all uprisings have deStrudtion as their aim. Indeed, many
uprisings, moSt of the slave rebellions in the Americas that took place
from the seventeenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries, were
poorly armed uprisings—slaves in the early seventeenth century rarely
had recourse to arms. Anti-colonial Struggles have famously differed
on the use of weapons to achieve goals of independence. We see this in
the very different approaches to anti-colonial Struggle in Frantz Fanon,
who affirmed the necessity of some kinds of violence to overcome
colonialism, and Mahatma Gandhi, who sought to establish pradtices
of nonviolent disobedience to bring down colonial rule. So uprisings
raise the question of w hether violence is a legitimate means for
achieving the goals of freedom and emancipation. And if violence
were to be deemed legitimate in some cases, is it possible to “contain”
violence as a means to an end, an instrum ent that is set aside when
the aim is realized? Can the violence deployed by an uprising to free
itself from violent oppression successfully distinguish its own violence
from the violence it opposes? Of course, uprisings seek to dismantle
oppressive forms of power, and that “dismantling” may well seem
deStrudtive in one sense, but surely it remains possible to distinguish
between violent and nonviolent modes of dismantling power. Jack
GoldStone tells us th at moSt uprisings are undertaken by unarm ed or
poorly arm ed groups of people. And yet, those engaged in uprisings
have been constantly confronted with the dilemma of violent
resistance: they have had to come to terms with the question of
w hether violent resistance is any less wrong than violent subjugation,
and if so, why. Slave and prisoner uprisings take place within a context
in which citizenship has been denied or suspended, and political
participation in a polity has been foreclosed through the exercise of
institutional and legal violence. Violent resistance is often the result.
Nevertheless, it would be an error to conflate all uprising with violent

33
 resistance. MoSt of the uprisings th a t belonged to th e “Arab Spring”
were nonviolent: those assembled in public squares exposed th eir
unarm ed bodies to a surrounding m ilitary threat, w ith m any injured
or killed in the process.
One problem with the debate on the justifiability of violent
tadics is th at it is not always easy to identify “violence.” Calling an
uprising “violent” can be a discursive in stru m en t of its suppression.
For instance, a State may well call any uprising “violent” if it challenges
th at State’s own monopoly on violence, evidenced by its police and
m ilitary powers. The State m ay call an event an “outbreak of violence”
only because power is seized and police force is m itigated or
neutralized for the duration of the uprising—not because of any
physically violent ads. The upsurge of the people is n o t th e sam e as
an “outbreak of violence” even though an uprising can lead to violent
resistance. That situation is surely different from th e State calling
an uprising “violent” as it invokes Security” to unleash police or
military forces againSt the very people who are rising up againSt a
government or a State or a colonial condition or a m ode of
imprisonment. When an uprising is nam ed by the State as violent
rather than, say, a democratic resistance m ovem ent, th e n th e State can
suppress any uprising on such grounds, justifying an attack on its ow n
people or on those people it disavows as its own. W hether or n o t an
uprising should tu rn to violence is an abiding ethical question for
resistance movements. But th at im portant debate can hardly take place
if uprisings are presum ed always to be violent.
The scene of rising up is one in which non-authorized freedom
is seized to contest an authority th at seeks to deprive a group of
the freedom they exercise. If we take the objedt o f an uprising to be an
essentia^ aspedt of what it is, th en an uprising is a rising up againSt
au honty or power or systems of violence or disenfranchisem ent Seen
m this way, upnsm gs are concerned w ith p opular self-determ ination
m the course of resisting some existing form of power. We w ould be
part l y right to claim th at uprisings belong to p opular p oT er

: 2 r fr o t iip: " Bu,qidteapartftom,he

unendurable condition opposition to an

the uprising. Laying d a t a t0 ,|K pP J ar° * C “' e t0 be ^ P re se n te d by

a Struggle for hegemony. So though an ^ ° ngOUlg
r mougn an uprising seems to be an

34
 expression of the popular will, we always have to ask: which version of
the popular will, and who is not included in that version, and for what
reason? Is it some people or “the people” who rise up in an uprising?
Is it the popular will in a pure form that rises up? What rises up in
people when people rise up? And what histories rise up again when
there is an uprising? What historical forces aCt on the people when
they rise up, and does history itself rise up when they do? In the 18th
Brumaire o f Louis Bonaparte (1852), Marx famously claimed that the “the
tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the
brain of the living ” It is especially at moments in which people come
together to create something new, to make revolution that the paSt
surges up in unexpected ways. For Marx, this unconscious way that the
paSt surges up proved to be a nightmare or, rather, was itself a
nightmare lived out in the light of day. He writes, “precisely in such
epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of
the paSt to their service and borrow from them names, battle slogans
and costumes in order to present the new scene of world-hiStory in this
time-honored disguise and this borrowed language” (MER1595). Marx
terms this a “world-historical conjuring up of the dead.” What Marx
called a decidedly bourgeois revolution in France (1848-51) drew its
imagery and self-underStanding from the Roman Republic and the
Roman Empire, from “a need of heroism, of sacrifice, or terror, of civil
war and of national battles” (MER 596). Marx explains this Strange
resurredtion of the dead as serving the purpose of “glorifying the new
Struggles... of magnifying the given tasks in im agination...” For Marx,
the nightmarish return of Roman grandeur in the figure of Napoleon
is, indeed, a nightmare, for Napoleon rallied “the conservative
peasantry” by giving them the opportunity to be property owners,
breaking any potential ties with revolutionary workers. For the
conservative peasant, “war was their poetry” The revolutions that Marx
approved had no need to reanimate the imperial paSt to lend grandeur
to their proper aims. They were “critical” and “revolutionary” and so he
claimed: “the social revolution of the nineteenth century cannot draw
its poetry from the paSt, but only from the future” (MER 597).
And yet, is Marx right to assume th at the revolutionary movements
draw their inspiration only from the future, and not from the paSt? If
we consider uprisings as discrete outbreaks of the popular will or, at
leaSt, one version of the popular will, it follows that they take place
tim e and again, often drawing on the unfulfilled promise of the former
episodes. However transient they may be, uprisings that are sequential,
episodic, and cumulative invariably draw upon paSt uprisings, or find
themselves anim ated by images and Stories of valiant Struggle as they
 seek to continue a m ovement, or com plete a p ro je d o f em ancipation.
Those uprisings th at eventually lose th eir n am e and tu rn into a
revolution succeed in time. Uprisings are a set o f failures, th en , th a t
succeed through finishing off the series, transform ing into revolutions.
In 1831, slaves in Jamaica w ent on Strike, dem anding to be paid for
their labor. When their owners refused, they b u rn ed dow n hom es an d
warehouses filled with sugar cane, dam aging th e economic holdings o f
their owners. Under the leadership o f Samuel Sharp, 20,000 slaves
seized ownership of more th an 200 plantations, an d though they w ere
finally subdued, imprisoned, and m any were executed, th a t uprising
has been credited with helping to bring an end to British slavery in
1834. All the uprisings failed, b u t taken together, they succeeded.
Marx made historical note of “prem ature revolutions,” suggesting
that revolutionary promise emerges in partial an d episodic forms,
and th at the paSt can resurge w ith a prom ise o f th e future. Perhaps th e
paSt does not only weigh as a nightm are u pon the brains of th e
living. If every discrete uprising is a repetition, a citation, th e n w hat
happens has been happening for some tim e, is h appening now again,
a memory embodied anew, in events episodic, cum ulative, an d partially
unforeseeable. Those exhilarated by uprisings often find them selves
left with a terrible disappointm ent and sense o f loss. In hindsight,
we can ask w hether th at failure has a history—and a future.

36
 Antonio Negri

UPRISING AS EVENT

Do you know the sport where athletes lift increasingly heavy weights?
There is a pause, an exceedingly long inftant, between their lifting
the weight from the ground, the clean, and pushing it high, the jerk.
This pause or interval is what we need to think about when speaking
of uprising. Only when the weightlifter, the halttrophile, has completed
the lift is it possible to say lifted. The up-rising is accomplished,
a noun replaces a verb, a term substitutes an adtion.
The pause we muSt pay attention to is not a pause but a short
movement, almoSt a Stop, a temporal contraction. The athlete’s veins
bulge on neck and muscles: this effort is immeasurable. The athlete
can no longer choose, only decide; he or she gesture knows of no
alternative; it’s an expiration, a “blow?5Like the creation of the world.
A God?
When the Olympic Games were firSt held this is what was believed.
But no: it can fail to succeed. We need to find out where the movement
Slops and the effort fails; the difference between a pause and an
interruption. Once the difference is discerned, we muSt try to experience
it from within, comprehend it, adt within it.
Images chase one another. And here comes Atlas. He carries
the sky on his shoulders, he lifted it but would like to lift it even
higher. He can’t. There, in the heavenly garden of Hesperides, the pause
has turned into an interruption. Ananke imposed herself over Titan’s
effort: juSt as Zeus wished. Another side, this, between lifting and
uprising, a necessity th at blocks. Ananke, the force th at translates
weight into a limit and then turns limit into an insuperable mark
of hum an misery, death always lurking around the corner. In the Iliad,
Zeus conceives the Keres, who carry Achilles’s and Hedtor’s souls,
and on the scales Achilles’s goes up while Hedtor’s descends into Hell.
Is there, then, a gravity that only a gigantic force can overcome?
Let us try to tu rn th at interruption back into a pause, rather than
a break, a brief suspension. Only a concentrated effort can affedt

37
 the gesture. There was an event, and a surplus o f being arises o u t
of the extraordinary power of th a t gesture. It is a pow erful gesture,
but we can see, it comes out as a breath, a blow, a waft, a whiff,
a pn f n .pt us see the plot from a colledtive Standpoint. Can we grasp
this being, this surplus, this “breath” as a colledtive experience?
Of course we can. In fadt, it only becomes pow erful w hen produced
colledtively. Uprising is plural; the event is colledtive. Sure, each
colledtive is constituted by individuals and th e uprising is m ad e u p
of a m ultitude of singularities, but th e “tru e ” colledtive is th e shift th a t
turns the heaviness and unbearableness of life into th e choice of
rising up, into the effort and joy of doing it. Political science attests to
this fadt and dem ands th at the sovereign avails him or herself of
the tools necessary for the repression of th e revolt around th e com er.
The science of capital knows th a t th e eventuality of a riot is p resent in
every place of produdtion, and th a t there is only valorization w hen
that power is wrenched away from th e uprising, and discerned
and ordered. When there is an uprising, before exploding, th e colledtive
tension gathers up in a m om ent of pause, an interval th a t betrays
an undecided effort th a t precedes the decision to open u p to adtion.
Altogether. When this happens, tim e becomes joyful.
Even poets and philosophers displace th e analysis o f this interval
onto a social plane. Here the event of th e lifting is m istaken w ith
that of the uprising and becomes a powerful colledtive “breath.”
“Me, I hate the crowd, the herd. It always seems to m e Stupid o r

1.
Guftave Flaubert to Louise Colet,
March 31,1853.
2.
Vidtor Hugo, Les Mis&rables,
I pointed out the difference between a pau- Part IV, Book 10 , June 5 , 1832,
a pause/interval in th e gesture trans. Julie Rose (London:
and an m terruption/rupture of the gesture
eSture. Now, th e interruption can Vintage, 2008), 861 .
3.
Michel Foucault, “Inutile
de se soulever?”Le Monde,
May 11 - 12 ,1979. “Useless to
Revolt,” in Power: Essential Works
o f Foucault 1954-1984 Volume 3,
ed. Jam es D. Faubion,
trans. Robert Hurley et al.
(London: Penguin, 1994), 452.

38
 become the place of utopia. A negative place, portrayed precisely by
the rupture: when the weight of lifting becomes unbearable and one
escapes from the materiality of that operation. What is left is a sad
and fearful desire that has been won over and frustrated: a reparatory
idealness has come undone from it. The episode of the rupture is tied
to the dramatic importance of the insolubility of the link between
the awaiting and the uplifting, and the self-delusion that the Stoppage
might be minimized in the consolatory perspective of apocalypse
and exodus. In other words, if this world irresistibly runs towards the
catastrophe of meaning, the destruction of nature, and the end
of history, if it is corrupted to such an extent, it cannot but end in
apocalypse. The denunciation that comes with this desperation takes
on myStical or cynical semblances, and that expectance of the tragedy
of the world sees itself as exodus. A myStical exodus, new—or, less
often, a political exodus: “You want to make us govern, we will never
give into this provocation.”4 But where, how and when to exodus?
The answer is missing. Those subjects who have not planned to rise up
in revolt fool themselves that a magical hand will lift them up from
the pending catastrophe. They move towards exodus as a salvation,
actually building an anxious flight and forcing themselves into a sort of
containm ent of the will.
This is the place of negative ontology. The time of the pause and the
space of expectation are occupied by a malevolent angel who destroys
their substance. Utopia is the apology of a flight into the idea, an
im patient flight that does not measure the heaviness and the danger
of doing and making. What remains of the thought of uprising?
Memory, suffering, regret, repentance... and where has subjectivity
gone? Nostalgia takes away the desire to Start again and deposits tired
residue of th at ancient experience into the soul. The perception of the
crushing of desire replaces the uprising. The soul transpires cowardice
before difficulties, the refusal of the concrete.
Parallel to it, mythologies develop—utopias of insurrection
and revolution ...“They are coming!”But where do they come from,
and how? These insurrections avoid subjeCtivation. The vain “I’d like”
of childish games and the atrophy of adults’desire. The revolution
comes after the catastrophe. The “breath” of the uprising becomes the
flame of a dragon th at sets everything on fire, and there is no Saint
George to come to liberate us. More than lugubrious, it is funny
to gather, enveloped in the same deStiny, “desk Marxists” and DadaiSt
libertarians. For the former, uprising presupposes a fall (of capitalism)
th at ends reasonably well; for the latter, it is a concession to a
catastrophic precipice from which they will resurface with a pure soul!

A.
“Nos quieren obligar
a gobemar y no vamos a caer
en esa provocaciCn.”

39
 The apocalypse is central and necessary, on this they all agree. There is
no more subjedtivation and the ability to fight to change th e world,
to rise up not for the pleasure of the gesture, b u t for th e urgency
of a transformative adtion, has come away.
Thus it appears that only when subjedtivity is introduced in th e
pause, in the interval, as a m otor of lifting, is it possible for th e tension
of the shift from clean to jerk, from lifting from below to rising u p to
the sky, to produce adtion. A negative ontology of uprising: we have
already touched on its definition. But we will understand it better once
we answer this question: What is a positive ontology of uprising? Or
rather, what does a definition of uprising dem and so th a t a positive
ontology can develop from it?
FirSt, it requires to be planted in the ground, enervated by passions
and interests, radical will and desires for the future. Second, it needs
to make itself a machine producing subjedtivity th a t pulls together, in
an adtive “we,” a whole of singularities. There is always a shift betw een
the firSt and the second moment: an ontological shift o f spirit and
passions, materiality and needs between a m om ent of ru p tu re an d an
adt of building. Negative ontology, conversely, separates these two
moments and vainly takes on the semblance of either one or th e other.
Positive ontology is th at which conjoins the two m om ents and roots
to the ground what rose to the sky.
Let us ask ourselves: Is it possible to think following th e rhythm ,
and placing ourselves within, these uprisings? The 1977 New York
Blackout, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the youth revolt of th e French
anheues m 2005, and the English riots of 2011, for instance?
AH these episodes are the same: those who rise up are young people
c o lS m °parthe,d ^ a s condemned to poverty, working in b rutal
conditions, stigmatized for facies or religion, discrim inated by the
law and persecuted by the police. But these episodes are all different

In e z h c Z Z J T ^ '* * * " * ° f t h e Sub>eAs revolting.

S T n o ,'^ T t I T '" SUre e° 0ds:L° ° “"e and arson*11

their ‘? ? ' they Pr0l« “ “ *
break the law, migrants out of n e« l ^ ^ m igrants w h°
fleeing war. Again, a scandal Why? Thev° ^ diSSem’0r refijgees
a sacred demand, linked to the law of J right to ^
anyone. They flee misery they live as Cann0t be denied t0

AO
 “They Steal our jobs, they tarnish the nation’s homogeneity? the
wealthy protest! Well, that flight is an uprising.
The multitudes rebel againSt austerity and the debt neoliberalism
imposes on subjects. Here too, the uprising is rooted in the harsh
materiality of need, and this is what the multitude wishes to satisfy.
To rise up to change the earth in which we are rooted, to occupy squares
to free them from the control and fear that domination produces,
to attack Wall Street to diveSt debt of its legitimacy, to denounce the
media and its invasiveness in order to build, againSt it, truth,
to demyStify political representation to rise up to self-government.
The uprising does not easily turn into insurrection, and the revolution
remains beyond the horizon. The difficulties pertaining to migration
are ever more insurmountable. The command of money and financial
capital has risen to such a level that it seems impossible for the march
of contestation to reach it. Spontaneity without blockages, then?
No, because cupiditas, the desire for freedom and happiness, are not
exhausted in arson and looting, in border crossings and clandestine
existences and occupations. On the contrary, they are excited, they
suffer their not-making it as a harsh limit that muSt be overcome at all
coSts, not as a form of impotence. We will win next time. Venceremos!
The intensity of desire is so Strong in the ontology of uprising
th at it produces extreme subjectivities. It does not train consciousness,
it changes it. If consciousness simply matured, there would be
evolution, but there is no evolution. There would be someone in charge
of an ultim ate tru th who guides it, but there cannot be anyone,
because th at ultim ate end is not something to discover and reveal,
but something to build in Struggle; it is not truth, it is verididtion.
Uprising transforms consciousness; in this movement consciousness
is reconstituted by it. It gathers needs together and turns them into
dem ands, it turns affedts into desires and wills, it positions them
in a tension towards liberty. A red thread links the attem pt to break the
existing order and the projedt of a future world: this thread is not
a process but a leap, it has no end; it produces it, juSt as it produces
ever new subjectivities th at are adequate to it. From rupture to
construction, the uprising moves beyond the space that separates
them . It w ithstands the pause of a gesture that is not automated:
the lifting is not blind. Ask anyone -who has experienced this and
participated in the passions of revolts. They will tell you: every time it
happens, the revolt is unpredictable, but we always organized it.
This is w hat is positively revealed about the ontology of uprising:
the fadt th at the “breath? however sudden, was built towards in
the colledtive practice of suffering and desire.
As we have seen, there is a limit: defeat. The experiences of defeat are
burning. However, it is not from the lim it th a t one can grasp th e
distance covered. There is the defeat of th e uprising, b u t th e re is also
the point of arrival, the field th a t has been conquered, th e in te rru p tio n
that is challenged. There is always a lim it to th e uprising: th e athlete
lets the weights fall. But th at lim it is also the sign o f som ething
that has been built, an ontological Stratum. It is an engine th a t muSt be
restored and reignited.
We have almoSt two centuries of workers’uprisings behind us.
They go from 1848,, those dam ned days for the bourgeoisie, as Karl
Marx called them , to the Commune of 1871. From 1905 to 1917, to th e
cycles of Struggle th at Still m ark o ur existence: from th e lateSt
alter-globalization movements to the “Springs” o f th e indignados
movements. Those Struggles represent the paradigm of a m ovem ent
that grows, continues, and intensifies even through defeats. How m uch
negative dialedtics has been throw n u pon this p a th o f Struggles:
a paSt of catastrophes? No, our reasoning cannot Stop here. The Angelus
Novus is not a theology of the paSt, b u t an ontology o f th e present, o f
the not-yet. There is a sort of secular training th a t leads th e m ultitudes
to shake the limits of power w ith growing force. The defeats are
a Stratum, a deposit, and a living one. They are n o t inert, they are
passions that keep producing subjedtivity, produdtions th a t cannot be
Stopped. Defeat is also an indication of a subterranean pow er always
capable of rising up to the surface.

Indignation is spoken of as the spark of uprisings. This is tru e only

when the sad passion of the indignant comes across th e ontological
power deposited by lives of Struggle. Only th e n is th e uprising
realized, and it is enthusing for the m ilitant to see how in th a t concrete
historicity and in the produdtive imagination, th e relay is h an d ed over
om the peasants’jacqueries to the workers’insurredtions, from
the uprisings of second-generation migrants to th e occupations
o t e indignant precarious class. In the continuity of uprisings lies
a common content, an urge for liberty: the “breath” o f a body th a t
no longer accepts its suffering

a new ^ whereas^ of

42
 Indignation can be the basis, but never the end point; it can be an
occasion but not an engine. Indignation ftill participates in a negative
ontology. Instead, what speaks of a positive and constituent ontology
is the paradigm that blows from the Commune to the Soviet, from the
metropolitan insurgencies to the “Springs” of the new proletariat.
This paradigm produces institutions. But what is an institution in the
movement of an athlete who is lifting weights? It is the intellectual
concentration, the muscular tension that prevents the pause from
becoming an interruption of the gesture. It is the inner development
of power. Not even the halterophile had expected to reach such a high
score... but they had organized it. Organizing means discovering the
surplus of ontological Stratum and putting it at the service of the
uprising, of the constituent expression.
Uprising then unleashes survival needs, ethical resistance,
and political indignation againSt power; it inaugurates processes of
subjedtivity that produce intense ruptures; it aims to fix the outcome
of Struggles by inscribing them into a constitution. This is the only way
for it to overwhelm and defeat the enemy; when it cannot do this, it
disseminates indeStrudtible desires of liberation all over the territories,
and builds ontological Strata for a new uprising.
“Strip us all naked; you will see us all alike” said an anonymous
rebel in Machiavelli’s account of the Revolt of the Ciompi againSt the
popolo grasso (the wealthy townsmen). “Dress us then in their clothes
and them in ours,” the anonymous agitator continues, facing the rich
owners of wool manufadturing, “without doubt we shall seem noble
and they ignoble. There is no reason for the poor to feel remorse
for the violence of their rebellion, “for when, like us, men have to fear
hunger, and imprisonment, or death, the fear of hell neither can nor
ought to have any influence upon them .... Faithful servants are always
servants, and honeSt m en are always poor.... Now then is the time,
not only to liberate yourself from them, but to become so much
superior, th at they will have more causes of grief and fear from you,
th an you from them.”5

“My theoretical ethic i s ... ‘antiftrategic’: to be respedtful when a

singularity revolts, intransigent as soon as power violates the universal.
A simple choice, a difficult job: for one m uft at the same time look
closely, a bit beneath history, at what cleaves it and ftirs it, and keep
watch, a bit behind politics, over what m uft unconditionally limit it.
After all, th at is my work; I am not the firft or the only one to do it.
5. But th at is w hat I chose.”6This is how Foucault replied to accusations
Niccolb Machiavelli, Hiftoriae of being an apologist for the perverse revolution in Iran. That revolt
fiorentme, History of Florence
and of the Affairs of Italy. From
The Earliest Times To The Death
Of Lorenzo The Magnificent
(Washington, DC: M. Walter
Dunne Publisher, 1901).
6.
Foucault, “Useless
to Revolt?,” 453.

43
 might end badly we know. History does n o t leave any room for
the smallest error; it is m ade of im perceptible and contiguous
differences. It is the “breath” th at makes u p singularities, gives m eaning
to their projedt and turns the uprising into a creative power. But if
the “breath” fails, the smallest errors becom e deStrudtive agents.
And yet, we keep searching for its constituent spirit in th e experience
of the uprising, and various elem ents come together here.
FirSt of all, a pradtice. A pradtical kairos blooms, an arrow is
launched, an avalanche composes no one knows w hat exadtly. As in
the parrhesia of the Cynics, where m aking th e tru th m eans producing
it, building through the engagement o f subjedtivity a “w e” th a t is adtive
in history. A complex “we” because it is an ensem ble of singularities,
a m ultitude of differences: in this lies its power. This adtivity is n o t
generic: telling is generative of the “we,” the generative m aking
of subjedtivity.
Secondly, taking the floor. When uprising, one always needs th e
word. The uprising is linguistic, perform ative, and a shift from saying
to doing, but without the saying, it would n o t exist. A m anifesto,
a text, a message, a symbol, a flag, or a sim ple shaking of th e h an d s
to ask or approve, or a clenched fiSt: these are words.
Third, the exercise of force. The pradtice of th e gesture an d th e
taking of the floor attack and transform , overcoming th e lim its o f o u r
existence. This produdtion of subjedtivity generates violence. A violence
addressed to the deStrudtion of the legitimacy o f every in stitu tio n th a t
msiSts on exercismg inhum an com m and on our hum anity. This is a
chfferent kind of violence; Walter Benjamin claims it is detached from
the wrath of the State and the master, it is an im m ediate violence,
WCr’YCt PUrC th e absence o f all
buTh t ™ 8 '' 1S,JuShfiable t0 cal1 tWs l i e n e e , too, annihilating;
it is so only relatively, with regard to goods, right, life an d suchlike
never absolutely, with regard to the soul of the M u g " ’ ’

the light web, of a presumably i n d e f L S e o “ “P to

As a power to resist and change the context ° ^ Z a tlm o{
cuts short all links to fixed power Th* h ? ’ UprismS
of labour will be destroyed violentlv ? ° f th e " S t a t i o n
of singularities established within CV?n ’ y t^le seh'-valorization
Wished within social cooperation. “The right to

7.
Walter Benjam in “Critique of
Violence,” in Reflections, trans.
Edm und Jephcott (New York:
Schocken Books, 1986), 297-298.

44
 self-determination” “the right to have rights”: this is the giant leap
forward that nourishes the uprising. And the impenetrable border,
the forbidden frontier will rightly be crossed by migrants, who thus
constitute a “right to flee.” And the “right to the common” againSt
private property: this is another great objedtive for uprisings. In the
uprising, private property is always pointed to as what it really is:
egoism, indiscriminate violence, use and abuse of things and people,
possession and subjugation of all goods. The deStrudtion and
looting of private property that manifest themselves in the excesses
of the uprising thus reveal an inviolable demand of the common,
for a “right to the common” that legitimizes every juSt social need.
The uprising is a “divine power” as Benjamin says, an irrepressible
power of freedom. Why can we not imagine constitutions that affirm
as their premise the priority of singular self-valorization in colledtive
work, and the conStrudtion of the common and deStrudtion of
private property?

We got loSt in the Stars. Let us descend to where the uprising is

the salt of the earth. Uprising = resistance, as we have seen. But let us
also reconquer the nuances of these gestures. The uprising produces
performances that go, going down and rising up again, from the
expression of a constituent counter power to the moSt minute “no”
uttered againSt command. We integrate the simple “difference” to
our framework: difference = resistance = uprising. Can it be a smile?
Alexis de Tocqueville’s Memoirs tell of a day in June 1848. We are
in a beautiful apartm ent on the Parisian left bank, the seventh
arrondissement, at lunchtime. Tocqueville’s family is gathered there
and yet, in the calm of the evening, the cannons drawn by the
bourgeoisie againSt the workers in revolt suddenly resonate, distant
noises from the right bank. The diners pale, their faces darken.
A young waitress serving their table, fresh from the Faubourg
Saint-Antoine, inStindtively smiles. She is immediately fired. Wasn’t
there, in th at smile, the real mark of the uprising? Wasn’t that what
really terrified the Czar, the p o p e... and the lord of Tocqueville?
Wasn’t there a “breath” of the joy that is also a spark of liberation?

45
Marie-Jos£ M ondzain

TO “ THOSE WHO SAIL

THE S E A ...”

U P R IG H T

Are we living through a general ebbing of m ental and physical vitality?

It’s possible. Given the current political slum brousness th a t n um bs all
capacity for dreaming, is not a sense of a crushing global pow erlessness
imbuing certain words w ith a kind of ethereal, m agical energy?
I pronounce the word uprising and I seem to h ear a m u rm u r swelling
in the distance, so far off th at I cannot tell if it is th e exhilarating
return of some old m em ory or the ultim ate m uttering of a fading,
receding voice doomed never to return. True, I did say energy; b u t this
energy has to escape the skepticism th a t drags us back to a sense of
futility. “Uprising” has to lose its intim ations of some bereaved passion.
It makes audible the susurrus of Storm and w ind and wave rolling in
from the horizon, then conjures up the ageless m em ory of all
insurredtions, of nature’s wild, spedtacular unleashing of th e sublim e,
and of peoples who put their urge for revolution into pradtice.
But while the up-rising of the sublime offers an in tim ate savoring of
intoxicating limitlessness, of a terrifying frisson of excess, popular
insurredtion seeks to put an end to the excesses of oppression an d so
install freedom’s new order. Yet insurredtion retains of th e sublim e
the inherent residue of the contradidtory tensions underlying any
uprising. This is because, paradoxically, uprising takes place w ithin
boundaries: it seems to seek self-containm ent w ithin a territory w here
its movements defy all reStridtion. Consider Samuel Beckett’s superb
irony in Endgame:

CLOV: I can’t sit.

HAMM: True. And I can’t Stand.
CLOV: So it is.
HAMM: Every m an his specialty.

46
 Beckett’s characters inhabit a vibratory space that wrenches them
free of the ground but forbids them to fly. To Stand up or not Stand up,
unaided, is that the question?
Uprising, soul£vement,Auf§tand, solleuazione, leuantamiento—all
these words vibrate with the same summons to get up, Straighten up,
Stand up. “Rise up and walk” is the injunction of miracle workers
bent on conquering death, exhorting us not to take things lying down,
submissively and passively. It is surely not a m atter of resuscitating,
though, but rather of triumphing over the weight and gravitational
pull of everything that hampers the power and lightness of the dance
of bodies that are free, living, thinking, and desiring. An emancipatory
uprising, inevitably situated between the excesses of disorder and the
painful order of the fall. Midway between chaos and fall, the insurgent
arises between w hat he or she is to be severed from and what he or
she seeks to bond with. But uprising glands unaided in this interspace
of supposedly unlimited possibility—of freedom. Friedrich Nietzsche
issued the warning in his rhyming prelude to the soarings, careerings,
and volcanic dances of The Gay Science:

Do not gtay in the field!

Nor climb out of sight.
The begt view of the world
Is from a m edium height.1

He concludes his book w ith a song to dance to, dedicated to the

Migtral, the power of waves and the unfettered gallopings that
enchant and liberate both the body and the mind. This is an ode
to all uprisings:

Migtral wind, you rain cloud leaper,

Sadness killer, heaven sweeper,
How I love you when you roar!

Through the heavens’threshing basin

I could see your horses hagten,

Dance on myriad backs a season,

Billows’backs and billows’treason—
We need dances th at are new!
Let us dance in myriad manners,
Freedom write on our art’s banners,
our science shall be gay.

l.
Friedrich Nietzsche,The Gay
Science, trans. Walter Kaufman
(New York: Random House,
1974J, 43

47
 Let us whirl the dufty hazes
right into the sick m en’s noses,
flush the sick brood everywhere!2

This is all about w hat uprising owes to w ind and waves, to inspiration
and respiration. Those who do not dance cannot Stand, an d joy is p a rt
of the uprising.

IN SPIR E, D ESIR E? PNEUM A, LUN G

When silence Stifles the eloquence of desire, th e o u tbursts of reason

and the exultations of unreason, the real or im aginary spedtacle o f any
unleashing alerts us to the rising of our ow n lungs. It m akes o u r
respiration the body’s moSt intim ate response to th e world’s upheavals.
No insurredtion w ithout the swelling of lungs th a t set words a n d songs
ringing out, triggering images th a t unfailingly signal all-shattering
seismic events and movements. The body’s rhythm ic in n er d in couples
with public clamor and the vox populi. Cheats swell w ith w hat is firft
called the birth cry and later song. Then rises inspiration. W hat fills us
is weightless, ju ft as in the holy delirium of enthousiasmos, w hich swells
the poet’s heart and body, and which Socrates discusses w ith Ion, th e
performer of poetry: the force th a t draws iron filings to th e m ag n et is
the same as the one th at affedts the lover of beauty uplifted by th e
sacred fire of poetic creation: “The gift which you possess of speaking
excellently about Homer is not an a r t ... there is a divinity m oving you,
like that contained in the ftone which Euripides calls a m a g n e t... This
ftone not only attradts iron rings, b u t also im parts to th e m a sim ilar
power of attradting other rin g s... In like m an n er th e Muse inspires th e
poet, who communicates inspiration to o th e rs ... For th e p o et is a light
and winged and holy thing.”2 What lightens and gives wings begins by
filling us with an impalpable ether in which the words, im ages a n d
sounds called up by breath intermingle. Body, m ind, and soul are
uplifted by the divine energy of desire. Pneuma, spiritus-p h ilo s o p h e rs
have not shrunk from ethereal m etaphors and evocations of flight in
U w r descriptions of the forces th at intensify thought an d diredt it
f f “ a? a l 35 th6Y 316 noetic-In 111686 skies horses have
wings. For those who have ears to hear, the silence of a n angel’s passing
nngs with the clatter of hooves.The noble chariot and h o m e s X
ou, t o t o o , p eats of in t o e d r o s a « pulied i„ tw o S o m f
: on
eavenward pilgrjnage- and towards the "darkness a n d th e

2.
Ibid., 306
3.
Plato, Jon, trans. Ber^jamin
Jowett, http://classics.m it.edu/
Plato/ion.htm l (translation
modified).

AQ

4.
Plato; "Phaedms,” in Six Great
Dialogues, trans. Benjamin
Jowett (New York: Dover, 2007),
118.
5.
Hesiod, Theogony, Works and
Days . Teftimonia, trans. Glenn
W. Moft (Cambridge, MA: Loeb
Classical Library, 2006),45.
6.
Andr£ Leroi-Gourhan, Gesture
m d Speech, trans. Anna Bollock
Berger (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1993).
49
journey beneath the earth.”4 Every uprising is a battle in which the fall
is conquered. But not all gallopings are desirable, even when they
are the burning daughters of desire. The elevation of souls calls for the
uplifting of bodies when the aerobatics of the body owe everything
to the acrobatics of the soul. Creative thinking is an athletic adt, but
one that involves no lifting of weights.
GRAVITY, W EIGHT, C O U N TER W EIG H T ...
An impetuous passion wrenches us free of the earth, but with a
thrilling, perilous price to pay: the price of the uncontrollable. At the
core of the word uprising there Stands firm the weight—the value,
the price—of lightness itself: Old English risan, at once “to make an
attack” and “to wake, get out of bed.”
Experienced in all its lightness, the power of being can be the
“unbearable” movement of something that refuses all assigning to
a fixed, identifiable place. Milan Kundera has worked through
its desireful and political manifestations. The uprising is a form of
enantiosemy in that it gives voice simultaneously to weight and
lightness. Everything brings us back to earth, everything subjects us
to gravity, everything reminds us of duSt. When the burden of living
becomes too heavy, fable and myth are there to recount the vigorous
effort dem anded by the lifting of the load in a movement that defies
gravity. Such is the task of the Titan: Atlas, Hesiod tells us, was
condemned to hold up the sky for eternity as a punishm ent for
having rebelled againSt Zeus. He who rises up againSt Zeus incurs the
heaviest penalty.5Thus did “atlas” become the name of the firSt cervical
vertebra, whose fundtion is to uphold the weight of the head, while
its companion,“axis”allows the head to move and pivot. Atlas is at
the head of column, but the burden is so heavy that from Diirer’s
Melencolia to Rodin’s Thinker, Atlas’s neck asks for aid and support from
the hand. The image of the thinker cannot separate the hand from
the skull, from th at weighty site of speech that the helping, adting hand
upholds. Raising the head requires the assistance of the hands.
Thus does Andrd Leroi-Gourhan describe the birth of speaking, adting
humanity:6 the foot freed the hand and together they Straightened
up a body asking only to be raised, to lift its face and look upwards at
the infinity of the heavens and the flight of birds. Then humans
became able to speak and produce a world of signs and techniques.
Birth is an uprising: it is a Straightening up, a lifting up of oneself
and a m aintaining of the upright Stance of something that threatens to
 buckle, fall and sink u nder its own weight. Later “atlas” cam e to m
a book containing a sum m ary of th e images o f th e ea rth a n d th e
heavens. The lightness of signs and images delivers us from th e
crushing weight of the universe. And th e n th ere was Sisyphus, also
punished by Zeus, endlessly condem ned to raising, after each fall,
a rock unremittingly obedient to th e laws o f gravity: “T hen I saw
Sisyphus, suffering bitter torm ents, trying to roll a gigantic rock w ith
his hands. Bracing himself, constantly Straining w ith all his m ight,
he would push the huge rock Straight up tow ard th e top o f a hill; b u t
juSt as he came close, its weight would roll it back, an d th e pitiless rock
went bounding down from the top of the hill to th e valley below.
And once more he would descend and begin to Strain back u p th e hill,
with the sweat pouring over his body”7 N either th e T itan n o r Sisyphus
had access to Archimedes’s m arvelous engineering, w hose levers
could move crushing weights w ith th e aid o f a single finger: “Give m e
a fulcrum and a lever” he declared, “and I shall move th e world.”
Archimedes reversed the energy of lifting by using dow nw ard forces
to achieve elevation. Lifting becam e an a rt o f balance, a science o f
equilibrium based on opposing forces. The a rt o f th e lever, able to lift
the heaviest weights, is th at of weight and counterw eight, w ith o u t
which there is neither equality nor justice. It is th e Strength of th e
weakest that lifts up the masses. The tru th of fable an d m yth, though,
has nothing to do with the ingeniousness of intelledtuals o r th e
engineers of social and political balance. The uprising driven by th e
energies of disequilibrium has no fear of conflict. Moreover, no lever
has ever succeeded in freeing anybody from th e w eight o f reality, from
the encumbrance of the shamings and adversities h an d ed o u t by gods
or demons. The uprising shares the history of all o u r b urdens and
throws the scales out of kilter. It w ants to have done w ith th e w eight
of destiny. Even if the heaviest of all our burdens is quite sim ply d eath
our perception is of a burden as weightless, insubstantial, invisible,
and impalpable as tim e itself. No image o f it exists. Only fable a n d th e
metaphors of shadow seek to fit, us far above fhe ground, far

levitation, nothing but exercises in the eternal. The uprising is a

5 5 m etaphor
with the 3 Sof the wave-
5 £ ^S = 5 knowledge
= :
person who cannot swim—this is PS Submerges ***
if you meet the wave it lifts you u p m d d vo,'!’ ' ' Ship” re ' k;

-VO«-.his,s.,maS,e;pS ; Vm r r h; S r eS

7
Homer, The Odyssey, trans.
Stephen Mitchell (New York:
Atria, 2013), 330.

50
 but when the wave meets you and lifts you up you become one with it,
“feeling and experiencing eternity? Beatitude in the immanence
of uplift.

BETW EEN EARTH AND SKY

Uprising rhymes with realizing, but it seems to hesitate, not to say

negotiate, between the ongoing movement that smoothly and
unbrokenly “shifts the lines” upwards and the eruptive force of the leap
that takes its chances with vertigo and the risk of falling. The uprising
can blend with a slow, patient, gradual lift-off from some point
of constraint—with a solemn composure aiming at sovereignty over
the heights so effortfully conquered. But like every conquest, this
one weakens the driving force of the uprising by endowing some
overarching fidtion with the privilege of well-earned reSt. Once the
goal has been attained, the Status quo loses the energy demanded by
a perm anent uprising. Dialedtically speaking, there is a real temptation
to reduce the uprising to a mere Step, a Stage in the liberatory shift
towards the pleasure of the concept and regal glory. Dialedtical
thinking tends to skip the leap—the break—in favor of considerations
of process. The uprising’s temporality is discontinuous within the zone
of radical indeterminacy without which there can never be revolution.
The uprising is an adventure that defies the loci of power, be it the
power of reason or of truth. It flees exposure.
On the uprising’s shifting ground, the fluidity of waves is equally
receptive to Storms, cataclysms, and seismic ffadtures. The uprising
has given birth to mountains, to ignited volcanoes. Our political
history shares a radical intimacy with subterranean geology:
both have darkness at their center. The deities of forge and fire, of the
netherworld and of vengeance, reside below ground, ever
ready to rise to the surface.

LEVITATION

Far from the dialedtic in queSt of power, what of the surprising power
held by those uninterested by power in any form? If we return to those
celeStial elevations th at bear souls and bodies off into the territories of
the birds, we muSt take account of the spiritual exercises that bear and
bear off the soul and the body of the one who feels called, irresistibly
drawn, towards supraterreStrial, saving places. Levitation is the singular

51
 experience of a body flying towards th e ether, attested to by th e <
myStical tradition from EaSt to WeSt. In h er autobiography, Saint Teresa — -
of Avila makes a distinction betw een union and rapture: “I w ish th a t
I could explain, w ith God’s help, the difference betw een u n io n an d
rapture (orfoboinicnto), or elevation (elevomiento), o r flight of th e spirit
(vuelo que llaman de esp(ritu) or tran sp o rt (arrebatamiento)— for they
are all o n e ... these are all different nam es for th e sam e thing, w hich is
also called ecstasy (&Stasis).”8 Thus does Teresa, uplifted, distinguish
different experiences of the phenom enon according to th e degree o f
violence and joy she feels. Far from always surrendering to th e ecStasy
of these upliftings, whose rapture Bernini’s Statue o f h e r seizes b u t does
not immobilize, she remains plaintive even in th e midSt o f th e moSt
exquisite emotional volatility. Her description o f this ethereal spiriting-
away by the deity illum inates the paradoxical tension of a State w hose
grace is as eroticizing as it is em barrassing. The s p e d a c u la r visibility
of the invisible forces th at bring h er to climax is barely tolerable, barely
acknowledgeable.
“But rapture is, as a rule, irresistible. Before you can be w arn ed by
a thought or help yourself in any way, it comes as a quick an d violent
shock; you see and feel this cloud, or this pow erful eagle rising an d
bearing you up on its w ings... very often I should like to resist, a n d
I exert all my Strength to do so, especially at such tim es as I am in a
public place... At other tim es resistance has b een impossible; m y
soul has been carried away, and usually m y h ead as w e ll... It seem ed
to me when I tried to resist th a t a great force, for w hich I can find no
comparison, was lifting m e up from ben eath m y feet. It cam e w ith
greater violence th an any other spiritual experience, and left m e
quite shattered.”9What Teresa experiences is an uprooting, a leap
that separates her not only from the ground, b u t from th e com m unity
as well. The supernatural order of the m iracle is a ru p tu re w ith th e
natural and the social orders. Repudiating th e upw ard leap, b u t
following the mystical path of uplift, Simone Weil speaks o f th e
elevation through grace as an experience o f gravity, as acceptance
the law of descending movement.” Refusing th e prideful pleasure

is t f n s l X T m0VT n t t0WardS 3 Wgher ^ ate “To lower oneself

towards the h e i ^ * " * * * * * » * * * m akes us faU
8.
T r cma*“a™. andat u n i n g Teresa o f Avila, The Life o f Saint
Teresa o f Avila by Herself
“Equilibrium alone destroys
° f 3 coumerba|ance. trans. J. M. Cohen

- - - S t s * - (Harm ondsw orth: Penguin,

1988), 136.
9.
Ibid., 38.
10.
Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace,
trans. Em m a Crawford and
Mario von den Ruhr (London:
Routledge, 2002), 4 .
U.
Ibid., 17 1 .

52
 what we can to add weight to the lighter side. Although the weight
may be something evil, if we handle it with this motive we shall
perhaps not be tainted by it”12No uplift to be achieved, then—
including by grace—if one Steers clear of the worSt. If Teresa fears in
her elevation the ruses of the devil, Weil, on the contrary, sees hers
in the form of a descent towards the real world of work and war. In
London, during the winter of 1943, she wrote The Need for Roots after
publishing La condition ouvribre (The condition of the working class)
in 1937. For her, what uplifted was the commitment of spirit and body
to uprisings: in 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, she joined the
Durruti Column. Andrei Tarkovsky was another who was committed
to resisting the two worlds he rejected: Stalinism and capitalism.
Tarkovsky used the cinema to meet the near-myStical but nonreligious
responsibility of putting images of uprising into adtion. In three films
he achieved the union of the myStical fable and political thinking.
In Andrei Rublev, the peasant, Yefim, has made a kind of hot-air
balloon out of animal skins, intended to fly him over fields and foreSts.
As Tarkovsky tells it, “The script includes an episode in which a
peasant, who has made himself a pair of wings, climbs up on to the
cathedral, jumps, and crashes to the ground... Evidently it was a case
of a m an who all his life had been thinking of himself flying...
Then he ju m p e d ... In order to dispel the Icarus overtones we decided
on an air balloon... we felt it rid the episode of spurious rhetoric
and turned it into a unique happening.”13This kind of pivotal event
recurs in Solaris, as the levitation of the cosmonaut’s dead wife in the
orbiting space station. In the depths of interstellar space, Tarkovsky
confronts a dual torment: the raising of the dead and the Stirrings of
the primordial magma. Ultimately, in Stalker, he endows a child’s gaze
with the power to lift objedts and thw art the law of gravity.
And now is the m om ent to let Guillaume Apollinaire restore its
enigmatic lightness to divine grace:

It’s ChriSt who goes up in the sky better than any pilot could
He holds the world record for altitude.14

RA ISIN G ?

It may be th at paths like these distance us from the initial energy

12. th at in every uprising acknowledges the effedts of an exercising of the
lbid.,xvii. body and of reason. This is because there exift other elemental forms
13 . of thought and imagery th at dem and we pay homage to the gravity
Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in
Time, trans. Kitty Hunter-Blair
rAdStin,TX: University of Texas
Press, 1989), 79-80.
14 .
Guillaume Apollinaire, “Zone,”
Zone: Selected Poems, trans.
Ron Padgett (New York: NYRB
Poets, 2015 J.

53
 of lightness. Gravis, heavy. The law of gravity seeks to deter all birds,
all who laugh and dance, all poets, and all who believe in th e
insurrectional forces of revolution. Gravity is w hat makes every upw ard
movement weighty. Is not the firft phase o f this uplifting th e raising of
a child as a subjedt full of gravity who, through th e pow er of play,
invents dramatic scenarios of his or h er own existence as a desiring
subjedt, in defiance of the world’s let-downs and failings? To teach th e
pupil to transform the absence of things into a ferm ent of signs is to
offer the resources inherent in all uprisings, and to use this ferm ent
to trigger an endless, limitless interplay of volatile images an d words.
Raising does not consist in teaching the pupil to walk and talk and
do everything others have already done before in our relationship w ith
the ground beneath our feet, language, and tim e. Raising im m ediately
betokens the power of flight. In enabling pupils to do w hat n one have
done before, the master gives them wings.

FLYING

This winged child is also Cupid. The archer of desire also takes flight.
Lacking gravity, Eros shares the space of the angels and th a t o f
butterflies. “Light as a feather,” flighty w om an defies volatile m a n an d
the lightness of libertinage. Desire lifts veils but often prefers to in tu it
what lies hidden. There is room here for everything ascendant, for
the subterranean” rush of air th at blows Marilyn Monroe’s sldrt sky
„, ,an ° r French chans°m ie r Georges Brassens’s celebration o f th e
haphazard, roguish wind” th at sets youthful petticoats aflutter But
desire, flurryings can also betray their chance origins and veer

n m i^ T o f others to perform leaps and bounds it was

with dance a n d T s e ' t a T l ™ ' a T “ « “ t e d e “ ’ff

But when photography yields to t h ^ f „ and deMal o f erav,t't
■hat catches the up r i s l £ v e r y a«
and the acrobat are in constant n . y e The dancer
* impossible. T h T u ren S2 , “ in “ *
™th the-m om ent of our death conversation
like every dghtrope walker. perf° m e r ls on th e brink,

54
 STASIS: IN SUR R ECTIO N

It is to the Greeks that we muSt turn now, with uprising becoming an

im m anent menace to democratic peace. Stasis is the word they used
for the paradoxical insurredtion/equilibrium dyad of the “Divided Cityf
to quote the title of a remarkable book by Nicole Loraux.15At issue
here is that State of insurredtion inherent in the social bond and peace.
The sedtion of the book dealing with the fundamental ambivalence
of Stasis is titled “A Gegensinn,” a German term referring to the use
of the same word for something and its opposite. Stasis embraces
both the fixed, stable State of what Stands firm, and the insurredtional
m ovement about to trigger civil war. “We could, of course,” Loraux
writes, “disregard the opposite meanings of words. We could pretend
that nothing of the sort is happening and shelter behind an
etymological didtionary that glosses Stasis as ‘Stability, place, adtion
of Standing, hence insurredtion\.. But I suggest that we complicate
the double meaning even further by adding to the opposition (between
movement and reSt) the tension between what is upright and of a
piece—Stasis, then—and the representation moSt commonly associated
with Stasis in daily life, namely, division.”16
Whence the author’s hypothesis, which does indeed complicate
the question of insurredtion by illuminating its non-dialedtical force:
“Civil w ar is Stasis inasmuch as the clash between two equal halves
of the city eredts (juSt like a Stele) conflidt in the meson?17The Athenian
city is not the fantasy model of a peaceful democracy that has only
external enemies againSt whom it makes war and with whom it makes
peace. On the contrary, there is no internal peace, no inner equilibrium
w ithout Stasis, an energy at once insurredtional and Stabilizing. Stasis
is affiliation and disaffiliation. In Aeschylus’s Eumenides it is clear that
the Erinyes have their abode beneath the law court, and that hatred
and discord are the subterranean coals underlying the exercise of
justice. At any m om ent the Kindly Ones can revert to being
bloodthirsty hounds surging out of their lair to claim their due. What
Loraux so vividly points up is the place of memory in the distribution
of the forces th at make and unm ake bonds. Should the uprising of
m em ory readtivate the desire for revenge and once again cause
hideous crimes, political life will cease to be possible. And so, in order
th a t this threat should no longer weigh crushingly on the city, the
wording of contradts and oaths muSt be given a performativity rooted
15 . in amneSty w ithout amnesia: “The establishm ent of the Erinyes
Nicole Loraux, The Divided city: f0 0 ^ 0 f Areopagus indeed symbolises the domesticated yet
lZ ™ 7 h eZ d£ Z e.te riZ e threatening presence of terror and w rath in the city?”8
Pache with Jeff Fort (Brooklyn:
Zone Books, 2001).
16 .
Ibid., 105.
17 .
Ibid., 106.
18 .
Ibid., 41.

55
The uprising is, as language was for Aesop,‘th e b e ft a n d w o rS o f
d u n g s ." Without the founding th reat o f in su rreftio n a n d c ra l war, th ere
can he no contrafl and no peace. This is why Loraux calls o n Hesiod
for the epigraph to her chapter on Stasis.

It was never true th a t there was only one kind

of Strife. There have always
been two on earth. There is one
you could like w hen you u nderstand her.
The other is hateful.15

The insurredtional uprising is a revolutionary energy w ith o u t w hich

there could be no order other th a n bureaucratic didtatorship. If this
threat of violence were defused and ceased to fuel th e conflidt betw een
dominators and dom inated, the com m unity w ould be deprived o f
the radical possibility of the event. Liberty can be continuously
exercised only at the coSt of the possibility of violence— an d m uch
worse. Only the forces of knowledge and creativity can address this
intradtability and by their adtions bring about popular, dem ocratic
emancipation. This is w hat led Gramsci to say th a t th e re w ould never
be a political revolution w ithout the shaping and developm ent o f
intelligences through the pradtice of ideas an d creativity. E m ancipation
of the citizenry is both the raison d’etre and th e prerequisite for th e
permanence inherent in any true political uprising an d th u s for any
transform ation of the relationships involved in produdtion a n d pow er
sharing.
The workshop for insurredtion is the zone of perilous, exhilarating
creativity, for which celebrations and th e carnival are th e sem inal
models.

TH E LEAP

Turnarounds, overtumings, mask dances, and th e pradtice of

confusion: these nourish the uprising’s political energies. Thus h a tred
of ideas and art is w hat drives the wars all didtatorships declare on
ose who Stand Up and those who w rench them selves free of th e
ground solely through their power to leap. This is doubtless w h at m ad e
o fh J T T m ^ ^ "The * “ ■ * foySforious, perhaps dangerous,
perhaps savmg comfort th at there is in writing: it is a leap o u t o f

bbyy ?higher
S h e rtype
Z , " of
‘ 'robservation,
n ' " 1” 6 " *a *higher,
* “ I anot
" f a^ keener type, and th e

19 .
Hesiod, Works and Days, 11-13-
Quoted in Loraux, Divided
City, 89.

56

20.
Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923,
trans. Martin Greenberg
w ith Hannah Arendt (New York:
Schocken, 1988), entry for
January 27,1922,406-407.
21.
Martin Heidegger, Contributions
to Philosophy (of the Event), trans.
Richard Rojcewicz and Daniela
Vallega-Neu (Bloomington,
IN: Indiana University Press,
2012), 232, 241.
22 .
Supra, note 18.
23 .
Alain Badiou, Le S&minaire -
Heidegger. L’&tre 3 - Figure du
retrait ( 1986-1987 ) (Paris: Fayard,
2015).
57
higher it is and the less in reach of the ‘row? the more independent it
becomes, the more obedient to its own laws of motion, the more
ascendant its course.”20
The leap differs from flying in that it needs no oneiric or
thaumaturgical conduit. It is impossible without solid ground, a
base—a launchpad if you like—but the question of the leap remains
inseparable from the movement in which it is completed by fulfilling
(or not) some real or imaginary end or purpose. For Kafka writing is
“a leap out of murderers’rowf the invention of the solid ground on
which life is spared. While not endowing the leap with saving or
redemptive overtones, he effedts it as a gesture towards life and liberty.
This necessarily makes the point of departure tenebrous and criminal.
It is not simply a m atter of escaping the violence of the murderers,
but also of escaping one’s own criminal future. This is why Heidegger’s
use of the leap in his Contributions to Philosophy (of the Event) is
problematical in that for him, one leaps in order to “be projedted”:
“Da-sein as a projedtion of the truth of beyng [sic] ... The task is an
original projedtion and a leap that can draw its necessity only out
of the deepest history of m ankind... The transcendental way (through
a different transcendence) is merely provisional, in order to prepare
the turnaround and the leap.”21Dating from 1937-38, this text raises the
issue of the leap in terms of immemorial truth and thus powerfully
foregrounds the event as a bringer of the truth of being—the truth of
hum ankind itself. The wrenching-ffee is return, refounding, a rooting
in the historical explosion of that which is going to throw the subjedt
out of indifference. Even so, writing has not removed the writer
from m urderers’row. So what leap are we talking about? And how, then,
are we not to return to Stasis and Loraux’s quotation from Hesiod?22
The uprising embodied in the leap muSt resign itself to the loss of
tru th and face the risk of the form that will be given to the movement
not of return but of venturesome encounter and sharing. It is the
encounter with the Other that gives the curve of the leap its firmness.
No point in torturing language to avoid the part of truth that takes
root in the encounter with whatever Other: here violence is spotlighted
by the fadt of the absence, the elision, of what founds the event,
in this case the coming, the arrival of the firSt-comer, of whatever other
wrenches us out of indifference. As Alain Badiou has so neatly
put it, “There is this German inclination ultimately to prefer birds to
people.”23 Badiou continues his analysis by seeking the exit from
indifference not, like Heidegger, in differential evaluation, but in the
“composing of an indiscernible.” Seen in this light the uprising has less
to do with metaphors of breaking free and taking flight, than with
 the m ovem ent th at raises the eyelid o f th e sleeper, opens th e ea r o f th e
deaf person and gives speech to th e m u te person w hen o u r gaze,
M en in g ability, and voice refuse to subm it passively to th e ty ranny
of fear. The “composing of th e indiscernible” it quite sim ply o u r p u ttin g
into adtion of the imaging pow er at work in every encounter. To see
for the firSt time, to hear for the firSt tim e, to speak for th e firSt tim e ...
this is the creative leap, the perilous upsurge o f th e unprecedented.
In Timaeus, Plato suggests the disturbing b u t necessary hypothesis
of a third kind (triton genos) o f existence lurking u n seen in th e m atrix
where every image can be b o m once it takes on th e appearance o f
the underlying idea. In this indiscernible locus are played o u t th e
testing of our discernm ent and the upsurge in o u r adts of th e
unprecedented, the unheard of. The u n h eard o f m aking itself h ea rd
used to be called an annunciation. To those w ho have ears to hear,
an angel says “Hail”; th at is how the image has its arrival an n o u n ced
even before eyes can see it. But to hail is n o t to save. The fable is
beautiful and myStery free: it announces th e arrival o f th e firSt comer,
of one who arrives for the firSt tim e and who, thus, will never cease
arriving. Moreover, in this birth there muSt be th e declaration o f
a birth, that is to say of the inventive program o f every revolutionary
event; nor muSt the fable become a tale for good children a n d for
adults dozing during this seismic annunciation.

W AK E-UP CALL

To preem pt visual, aural, and oral shutdow n on th e p a rt o f m ystery

gulpers, image gobblers, and o ther indiscrim inate gorgers we have to

what Jean Vigo filmed- the eleefnl 1^ ved>w hat hap p en s is

that turns the dormitory info a * eXpI° ; T of Phlows an d eiderdowns
his principal,“And I say to you- s h i t H f t n ^ T ’ ^ ^ PUpU teUin8
T of b W s the floor « h S° ° n <he

- * — ■ -i js s s s r

58
 contemplation of venerated artifadts, against docile grammar,
against established differences and distinctions. Not that he was in the
grip of some hyperbolic, truth-seeking doubt; there was a quite
different hyperbole at work, scandalizing and subverting respectfulness
in the name of the tiny energies that set space imperceptibly seething
with Brownian motion. But enduring patience is required, and time
too, if, colorlessly and noiselessly, the duSty trace of countless, incessant
turbulences is to settle. In 1920, Man Ray photographed the Large Glass
that Duchamp had left to gather duft, and called the result View from
an Aeroplane. Duchamp, the genius of the uprising, called it Duft
Breeding:

A transformer designed to utilize the slight, wafted energies

such as:
the excess of pressure on an eleCtric switch,
the exhalation of tobacco smoke
... sighs,etc.24

This slow accretion of gray matter forms the fuzzy, indecipherable

shadow of time itself. Duft Breeding raises the impalpable subftance
of any event by letting it settle. Duchamp’s meditation on weight
and gravity underpins his conception of the infra-thin—the gravity
of whatever is without weight or thickness. Art of traversal, virginal
uprising of membranes, accretion of the fall. Here the art of the fall
is a redundancy. Thus arises “Song of the revolution of the bottle
of Bened”:

—After having pulled the chariot by its fall, the bottle of

Benedidtine lets itself be lifted off by the hook C; it falls asleep as it
goes up, and is woken with a ftart at dead center, head downwards.
It pirouettes and falls vertically according to the laws of gravity.25

Even more than the leap, the ftart sets the revolutionary refrain
going. No uprising without falling, and vice versa. Duchamp’s
ftatem ents fundtion as annunciations: he ftates the diaphanous divide
separating the visible from the invisible; through the osmotic grace
of a m em branous locus, incarnation becomes the work of a bachelor
m achine and a virgin bride. Diaphanous hymen, intadl screen on
which all images can appear. The visible veils the invisible and
manifefts it w ithout unveiling it. On this osmotic veil the invisible
offers itself to the eye. The Chriftian fable of the Marian birth
of the image draws on Platonift thinking in this osmotic treatm ent

24 .
VI arcel Duchamp, The Writings
j f Marcel Duchamp (Bofton,
VIA: Da Capo, 1989), 191-192.
25 .
Ibid., 61-62 (translation
modified).

59
of the khdra, described by Plato as th e receptacle an d invisible m o th e r
of the visible.26The virginal receptacle brings th e im age into th e w orld
by consenting to be only th e pure screen for th e projedtion of th e
invisible into the visible. The hym en is m fra-thin an d becom es th e
locus of all apparitions of the possible.

The possible is/ an infra-thin... The possible im plying/ th e

becoming—the passage from / one to o th er takes place/ in th e infra-
thin.27

No question, Duchamp is the iconic insurredtional artiSt, signaling in

an utterly radical way th at an artistic adt has no p o int o th e r th a n to
disturb the viewer w ith a problem at once exhilarating an d anguishing.
Uplifted by powerful guSts, the gray, duSty m atter conjures u p
simultaneously the infinite, turbulent life of th e invisible particles th a t
make up the world and the deathly pallor of th e ashes rem inding us of
our duSt. A recent exhibition in Paris featured a trib u te to D uft Breeding
and took as its epigraph a quotation from T. S. Eliot:

And I will show you som ething different from either

Your shadow at m orning Striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to m eet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of duSt.28

Might rising/uprising generate fear? Is it not, rather, a m a tte r of giving

tangible form to what raises the problem and its pow er in every
speaking, desiring subjedt. Raising the Problem dem ands th e sp ectator
advance to meet the enigma of his or h e r ow n visibility, experience
the foundenng of unifying certainties and plunge into th e m ultiplicity
of temporalities, the reversibility of all positionings. To raise th e
problem is to welcome the ever-perilous fecundity o f a loss o f bearings
Infra-thm is one nam e for the place w here this loss o f bearings
happens^Amazingly, in a rem arkable tribute to V idor Hugo by A ndrd
aux 26 .
' " L T “ m^ “ I ofobK llence to th e w inds)— is
i: a Plato, “Timaeus," in Timaeus one
Poflscr"’' “ “ VW . we leam that Critias, ed. and trans. Thomas
kjeller Johansen (London:
d is c o S ^ hd~ ^ °f Penguin, 1977), 70.
27 .
Marcel Ducham p, Notes,
In the silent, unheard, impalpable darkness, ed. and trans. Paul Matisse
I was alone, but no longer myself; (BoSton, MA: G. K. Hall, 1983), 1
28 .
T. S. Eliot, The WaSte Land ( 1922)
quoted in th e exhibition
catalogue A Handful o f DuSt
(Paris: Le Bal, 2015).
29 .
Andr£ du Bouchet, L’oeil tgart
dans les plis de Vobtissance aux
vents followed by Uir\flni et
Vinachev6 (Paris: Seghers, 2001)

60
 Though the shadow and the myStery
Had not broken the threads that bound me to the ground
In my head, laid bare to the winds of terror,
I felt a Strange and terrible oblivion well up,
In the dark shape that I sense myself to be,
That miSt drifting around in the problem .. .30

Darkness, Strange welling-up, drifting, solitude, and doubt: these are

the words that speak to us of what uplifts the speech of poets and,
at beSt, a few philosophers. Things waver when waves are involved,
which is why it is only right to leave the laSt word to Anarchasis,
who supposedly said, “There are three kinds of men: the living, the
dead, and those who sail the sea.”

30 .
/ic':tor Hugo, PoSl scriptum
\e ma uie (Paris: L’Heme, 2015).
Tiis excerpt translated by
erem y Harrison.

d!
Jacques Rancifcre

ONE UPRISING CAN HIDE

ANOTHER

There are words th at seem to have already accom plished w h a t th ey

refer to, and, better Still, th at seem to indicate th e p a th from w ords
to things because they already w ent from things to w ords, because
the breath th at emits th em belongs to th e m ovem ent of universal life.
“Uprising” is one of these words. W hat in th e w orld does n o t rise up?
This is how life is recognized: the beating u n d e r th e skin, th e b rea th in g
that makes a sheet rise up imperceptibly, th e w ind th a t m oves th e d u ft
that is the symbol of nothingness, and of th e wave th a t is th e sym bol
for everything, showing ju ft as m uch th e calm of its regular m ov em en t
as the unleashing of ftorms. How, then, could we n o t include, in th e
great breathing of life th at rises up, th e m o m en t w h en waves of people,
whose breath and whose blood beat silently b eh in d th e walls o f
houses, loudly flood the ftreets behind raised fifts or flags flapping in
the wind? How could we not link the m ovem ents of th e lines o n th e
canvas and the breathing of sentences in books w ith th e great
continuity of life th at rises up? No doubt th e novelift w ho ftrove to
be an ariftocrat would claim th a t m en are no m ore brothers th a n th e
leaves in the woods are alike. “They to rm en t them selves together,
that is a ll.1But the words “th a t is all” which suffice to arouse in h im
a love for a little duft th at rose up u n d er a door, indicates th e p a th th a t
goes from the swirling of the leaves to th e to rm en t of th e souls, a n d
from the ftorms in our skulls to the insurredtion in th e ftreets. For th e
visitor to the Phillips Colledtion, the raised fifts in D aum ier’s The
Uprising naturally occupy their space betw een those little children
o Soutine that run on the path after th e ftorm , th e waves th a t have
m en up in The Mediterranean by Courbet or The Wake o f the Ferry II

or the J V * . d a tl0 n ° f R e n 0 ir ’S Lunche°n o f the Boating Party,

or the abftradt volutes in the Equivalents by Stieglitz

he t0 C°me’^ natUraUy’t0 ^ reader’s when

to Z ™ ^ in WhiCh Gea^ a Didi-Huberman returns
quences in Battleship Potemkin, to which Eisenftein himself

1.
G uftave Flaubert, letter
to Louise Colet, May 26,1853,
in Correspondence 2
(Paris: Gallimard, 1980), 335

62
returned so often that we no longer really know if it is the images
on the screen that we see or those that are bom from his words.2
The erudite and scrupulous analysis by Didi-Huberman focuses the
reader’s attention on every articulation of the montage and editing,
and on the jum p that occurs at every moment. Yet, the reader feels
carried off on the compelling movement of a continuous flow. On the
Odessa bridge, there is the morning mift that already contains the
bright daylight in its sails; there are refledtions dancing on the waters
that prefigure the ftorms of emotion: the tears of a lamentation called
upon to become a plaint againft the murderers; the emotion of the
crying that becomes a movement of fifts, clenched tightly againft the
waift before rising up and calling for the uprising of the bodies; the
pain of the individuals that is transformed into the adtion of the crowd.
Thus, the ftases of emotion are transformed into the ecftasy of revolt,
thereby refuting the doxa that always pits the passivity of the firft
againft the adtive energy of the second. In the same way, the montage
that links everyone’s emotions in a sequence, and that turns this
sequencing into the potency of a colledtive, rejedts the facile
oppositions between identifying passivity and refledtive diftance,
or the platitude of the obvious sense and the poignant singularity
of the obtuse sense. From the movements of clouds or waves flowing
with the mobilized crowd, through the tears that fall from the faces, it
is the same uprising th at seems to transform the pathos into praxis and
to bring revolutionary dialedtical adtion into the continuity of ancient
forms of pathos. And this uprising seems to continue in the phrases
of the comm entator where, in order to speak of the uprising of images,
the words conftantly lean, as though pushed by the movement they
intend to extend and transmit.
Yet, the old problem of the adtive and the passive is not so easily
solved. One m uft firft of all know ju ft who m uft be made to rise up
and for w hat adtion. This is the queftion asked by Eisenftein, who was
not concerned with becoming the passer of emotions from the depths
of the ages, but was concerned inftead with representing himself as the
inventor of attradtions deftined to produce the emotions of a specific
crowd, a cinema audience. He was able to imagine above all
during the years in which the writing was a compensation for the
impossibility to film—a thousand models for his work, from the
calculation of the Golden Sedtion to primitive rites of passage, the
architedtures of Piranesi to Japanese theater or to the Chinese musical
landscape. But during the period when he filmed Battleship Potemkin,
he emphasized th at the im portant emotions for him were not those
th at belonged to the screen but those to be felt by the spedtator who
 m uft be “created in the desired direction thro u g h a series>oi calculated
pressures on [their] psyche.”3 The tears as well as th e raised fifts,
rifles th a t descend in a line, a m o th er coming back u p carrying h e r
dead child, hanging eyeglass frames, or a p ram h u rtling dow n th e ftairs
are all stimuli intended to work on th e b rain o f th e sp e d ato rs, w ho are
all too ready to believe th e w ar ended w ith th e defeat of th e W hite
armies. Battleship Potemkin is a film from th a t tim e of th e NEP w hen
the watchword was to fight the bourgeois w ith th e ir ow n w eapons.
Eisenftein calls, therefore, upo n the activity o f th e co m m unift
producers by using “all the procedures of passive art: doubt, crying,
sentimentality, psychology, m aternal sentim ent, etc.”4 You never know,
of course, to w hat extent the film m aker’s provocative declarations are
to be taken seriously. But one p attern rem ains co n ftan t throughout:
it has to do with producing an effed (adivity) by m eans o f its opposite
(passivity), and this assumes th a t the opposites, even if they m u ft
overturn each other, are indeed opposites. This is w hy th e in ten d ed
effed of the m ontage of images can be said ju f t as easily in term s
of a consciously m anipulated contagion of “bourgeois” em otions or
of formal use of the M arxift logic o f opposites. In b o th cases, th e
ftraight line from the tears to the w eapons is broken. The ftr u d u r e
of the “third a d ” illuftrates this perfedly, b u t so does th e overturning
that it undergoes in th e following a d . The m ovem ent of th e crowd
that culminates in the red flag being raised to th e top o f th e ship a t th e
end of this a d m uft be the opposite o f th e m orning la m en tatio n of
the old women and not merely its transform ation. But in th e following
a d the contradidion works in the opposite way. The m obilized people
is not a people up in arms. It has become, on th e contrary, a crowd
of spedators in their Sunday beft, greeting th e battleship from th e
aircase fteps. And the dialedical inversion o f re ft into a d io n is th e
work of the guards, who make them rush dow n th e fteps, to throw
them into the arm s of the Cossacks.
An adion, then, is always needed; a m a fte r o f operations to
transform the pathos into ad io n . But the problem is n o t only th a t
this m after describes not the effed of this m anoeuver, b u t m erely th e

Z ceT ° f U' “ h3PPenS th a t therC 816 several ^ r e n t ways to

the passive and the adive in d iftin d . The uprising is perhaps
5 T te H '' T ? ° f Pa,h0S th a n * “ “V to u nite m o v e m e n ta n d

fr°m <h. of passa8e

S. M. Eisenftein, Au-del. des

ttoiles, trans. Jacques Aumon
(Paris: UGE-10/18,1974), 127.
4.
Ibid., 35.
5.
S. M. Eisenftein, La Non-
indiff&rente Nature, vol. 2, tran:
Luda and Jean Schnitzer (Pari
UGE-10/18,1975), 69.

64
 formulated the paradox of inadtive activity or of adtive inadlivity
when he described the muscles of Hercules of Belvedere, headless and
without arms or legs, melting with each other like waves rising up
and falling. The perfedtion of this immobile movement is, he said, the
fruit of another perfedtion; it expressed the freedom of a people. The
freedom of a people is its capacity to depend upon itself alone, which
does not m ean merely to be independent of any exterior domination
but rather to be the always renewed source of its own movement.
It is in this way that the wave can be a symbol of freedom: not by
its ecstatic impetuosity, but by falling and rising endlessly, by the
repetition th at removes its movement from the opposition between
the adtive and the passive, because it takes it away from what normally
commands the adtivity of the adtive and bases its privilege on the
passive, in other words the pursuit of an end. It is not unimportant
th at this freedom of the wave, which would seem more suitable to
Apollonian nobility, should appear on the back of the hero of the
Twelve Tasks. The Hercules that symbolizes Greek freedom is not only
a fighter at reft, a worker who completed the cycle of his tasks. He is
also a hero who ftopped wanting. He went over to the side of the gods;
more precisely to those antique gods that the modem age invented:
gods th at w ant nothing and that, for this reason, are ready to embody
the freedom of a people that wants nothing—for every want reveals
a lack—but merely deploys the potency which makes it be: a playful
people, as Friedrich Schiller would say, rediredting the ancient
opposition between paidia and spoud£ to make the game the sensible
ftate in which the opposition between the form that commands and
the m atter th at undergoes is voided. The charadteriftic of the game,
like th at of the wave in movement, like that of freedom, is that it has
no end beyond itself. That freedom, which neither imposes nor submits
itself, has disappeared from peoples’lives. But its idea is preserved
in the indifference of these ftone faces that emotion can ftir up and
which force no one to look upon them with any determined emotion.
And this freedom of the gaze th at neither exerts nor suffers any
m aftering is perhaps, says Schiller, the principle of a new art of living
and of a new sensible community.
In this way the uprising is divided into two: the wave of freedom
th a t rises up is opposed to the ends of the enterprising will. This
paradox is not only the preoccupation of an artiSt or a philosopher
who dream s of new communities by contemplating ancient marble
Statues. We find it everywhere the acting of freedom is at Stake
and therefore at the heart of the uprisings of the people, or rather o
the uprisings th a t make a people be. It is not enough to be numerous

55
 and aCtive. Some inactivity, som e finality w ith o u t e n d m u f t also com e
into play. The ftones o f th e Parisian barricades w ould seem to have
nothing to do w ith the torso in th e R om an m useum . A nd yet, th e y to o
assume a certain ftandftill. At th e end o f Ju n e 1848, th e Illustrated
London News offered its readers an im age o f th e in su rrectio n th a t h a d
just pitted the workers againft th e R epublican power. The engraving
shows the great barricade obstructing th e en tran ce to th e Faubourg
Saint-Antoine. But it looks m ore like a scene from a n opera. At th e
sum m it of the barricade, the workers seem to pose in fro n t o f a n a rtift,
ju ft as m any of the com batants were to later pose for th e
photographers of the Commune. On each side of th e barricade, tw o
groups of three com batants are arranged symmetrically. B ehind o n e o f
these groups, a kind of organized cave b etw een th e ftones reveals
another trio th at look like conspirators in a n operetta. A nd, a t th e to p
of the barricade, at the feet of th e m a n w ith his arm s o u tstretch ed a n d
holding a red flag, we read on a placard th e w ord Complet— “full.”
Did the artift really see this placard? In any case, th e m essage th a t it
transmits to readers is clear: these terrible insurgents, w hose im a g i n a r y
atrocities are recounted by the new spaper, are false m e n o f aCtion,
aCtors in the theater. This is b oth correct an d incorreCt a t th e sam e
time. The link between the workers’ uprising a n d th e th e a te r is n o t a
m atter of spectacle, b u t rath er it touches u p o n th e division o f tim es
and spaces. The faCt is th a t these m en have n o th in g to do a t th is tim e
in this place. Plato said it clearly: th eir place is in th e w orkshop w here
the work does not wait; and even if work in those tro u b led tim es w as
mftead waited for, this was undoubtedly n o t th e place to find it
In 1848, like in Plato’s city, th e Republican o rd er w an ted everyone to be
m the place th at their work dem anded an d to w hich th e ir capacities
sent them: the workers in th e workshop, th e legislators a t th e Assembly,
and the guards where the defense o f th e com m unity called th e m

w t o Z f ’'"Tr “ a Pla“ ~ a place ,hat iS mattrlal “ d svmbolic-

„ ’" f nd ldentltles “re mixed, for the work consists in making

e x Z r t e l h a r 1” 6? 11" 8 0 th er ™ S P‘1Ce “ caUed th e a ttr' 11 * «»

rolTofthf™ T ” t0 bUiU scena to whid' Orey Play the
^ 1 taSZ r 5"fUn8^ "-r ted0m-Bef°re
M rsCiht ! r c„t watadkonier°fpiac“ ^ >«•
later described the barric^d n8USh ne” Spapar' Viaor Hug0
were piled -.S t a g 5 T T ? “ “ m ° n S a ° aS h'‘riybudy UP»" which
wall-paper window eatreB with their coloured
nibble ” thHPr S ta ,a a * * “P tieh t... amid the
clamouring dimrder a thr^ ’ tables, benches piled in
» dtsorder, a thousand beggarly objects disdained even

66

6 .
cl or Hugo, Les Mis&rables, part
'e ; book one,trans.Norm an
'n n y (London: Penguin
•assies, 1976), 989.
7.
:u is Augufte Blanqui,
i£trudtion pour une prise
li mes” (Paris: Sens & Tonka,
U >8-69] 2000), passim
by beggars, the expression of fury and nothingness.”6 More than juSt
Hugo’s ritual fraternity between Olympus and the cloaca, the disorder
of the barricades is made of an upheaval in the distribution of places
and occupations. It is built with Stones that normally pave the Streets
and that turn them into a space of circulation, with carts used to
transport goods, with furniture and mattresses used for family life.
The workers’uprising is neither the wave of emotion that swells up,
nor the earth that moves and projedts into the daylight the chaos of its
underworld. If it refutes the share of the adtive and the passive, as did
the workers’recently invented adtion, the Strike, it is because it undoes
the normal order that assigns adtivities to specific places and times.
It is because with this very disorder it conStrudts the time and the
places for the appearance of a people that is different from that which
was incorporated in the existing order of occupations.
However resolved this might be, the people’s rising up in arms is
also, in its way, a suspense. The revolutionary Strategist does not make
a mistake here. The adtion of the people of the barricades is, for him,
an inadtive adtivity, disconnedted from the calculation of ends.
What then, he asks, is a movement that begins by barring the ways for
movement of traffic? Is it not a wave rising up simply to fall until the
troops—who do not at hesitate to move—end it? Seventeen years later,
while assessing the June insurredtion, Blanqui denounced the anarchy
of these uprisings in which a few dozen men, united by chance
on a Street comer, overturned wagons and piled up the paveStones
whichever way they wanted in order to build these barricades that
“waSte time, obStrudt the roads and impede the traffic necessary for
all parties.” He commanded that the lesson of the defeat be learned.
It was no longer tim e for the pandemonium of chance combatants
or of motley conStrudtions. In order to defeat the enemy, it was enough
to no longer “shut oneself away in one’s own part of town” but to create
an organized, trained and disciplined army like any army and to “adt
with the whole apparatus of a governmental force:’7This reasoning has
no reply: only an organized army can beat an organized army.
Regrettably, the people that have risen up are not an organized army.
And it is not merely question of means. It is the vey relation between
m eans and ends th at is in question. If the popular uprising prevents
traffic on the Streets, it is not merely the result of a lack of knowledge
of military art; rather, it is because it is that Stopping of the traffic,
th at re-appropriation of places that constitutes an adt of uprising
and creates a people. The moSt difficult thing is not to go from tears
to arms, but rather to go from arms to an army. There is no Straight
line from the people risen up in arms to the vidtorious army.
 Five years later, the Communards were to verify this w hile Blanqui
meditated in prison on the eternal return: the recovery o f the
cannons from the Montmartre hill is not the “taking up o f arms” by
a revolutionary Strategist. If in 1925, it was necessary to make a film
about the vidtory/defeat o f 1905, it was also because the taking o f
the Winter Palace by a detachment o f revolutionary soldiers was not
yet the vidtory of the people, and that the latter was yet to come,
even if it was for artiSts to inscribe it into the order o f the sensible.
Behind the idea of th e line, albeit a broken line, d ra w n from
pathos to praxis, there is the gap betw een tw o form s o f revolution
of the sensible world: th a t w hich suspends th e o rd er o f places a n d
of identities, and th a t which m akes forces converge tow ards a cen tral
point or a paroxysmal m om ent. Reconciling Schiller (the aesthetic
revolution th at delivers h u m an adtion from th e su b o rd in atio n o f
means to ends) and Blanqui (the Strategy th a t m eticulously p repares
the means of the end and chooses th e right m o m e n t to p u t th e m to
work) remains the impossible program o f th e M arxist revolution.
It is true th at w hat is impossible in politics is frequently w h at is
possible in art. And conciliations exist apparently for th o se w ho ad d ed
to the Study of German philosophy th e Study of th e philosophy o f th e
Streets of Paris, and who discovered th a t th e theo retician for taking u p
arms was also the dream er of eternal retu rn. “Dialedtics at a Standstill”
and “dialedtical image” are th e notions th ro ugh w hich W alter B enjam in
attem pted to think about th e explosive potency o f th e Standstill,
a potency th at Georges Didi-Huberman attem pts, in tu rn , to com bine
with the survival of Aby W arburg’s Pathosformeln. But th e artiSt w ho
organizes the images of popular uprising in o rder to m ake public
emotions rise up knows that, on cinem a screens as o n m u se u m w alls

™ T ? 0"8 There ™ only ta a 8 e s- And t a * * * d° "°> rise

P enaem had imagined the premiere at Battleship Potemkin

“ ° * e" d ° f th e th e of ^ ba« " * “ P

mean, tha, X C w tE J t e 1* the technological

they follow each othp ■ ° T \ ^ aft6r ° ne an o th er Ju * as m u ch as

spedtator synthesizes t h m T k n o w s h o w th e
from the comparisons J S r t T * Pr°duces. This can be seen
makes a comparison b e t w e e n ^ h ! ^ ^ 015 o f Elsenftein: h e som etim es
muSt work of sh°<* ™ ages th a t
Yet we know how m uch our e x h ^ r ^ Caipet m ade o f ^ g l e d wool,
m which the images of violence

68
 fig-1
The great barricade at the entrance of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Illustrated London
News, July 1,1848.

9
 brought together in a harmonious calm. And, on the contrary,
the “Chinese musical landscape”of mids, of rowboats floating on a
calm sea, and seagulls flying around the buoys that open P otem kin’s
“third ad”can have an effed, not by anticipating the unleashing
of the passions of pain and revolt, but on the contrary, by didancing
reality, in the same way as the ancient chorus as Schiller saw it:
not the people intervening on the dage but the ideal barrier
separating the audience from the play. The crying and the raised fids
have an effed, then, insofar as the spedator who is separated from
them by the chorus of mids is not forced to respond to their
solicitation and that the suspense forges a gaze that is generally free
to respond or not to the solicitations that educate the ordinary
way of seeing and of inhabiting the world. To raise up and to rise up,
to move physically and to move emotionally, and to mobilize,
all of these things can be said in different ways, the alignment of which
is always problematic. It may be useful, therefore, to rethink their
interlacing and to sugged hitherto unseen figures for applying
attention anew, for displacing the gaze, the thoughts, and the gedures
that they induce, and to remember that the order of things is no more
necessary today than it was yederday.

70
Nicole Brenez

COUNTERATTACKS
Images of uprising in the history of class Struggle

The m ain challenge in political cinema is historical effectiveness:

there are three facets to this, and each individual film overlays them
according to the requirements of the specific combat. The short-term
concern is to Strike in the present of the assault. Rend Vautier used
the term “cinema of social intervention” to describe this performative
immediacy, which aims at the success of the Struggle in question
and the concrete transformation of a situation of outright conflict
or Structural injustice.
In the m edium term, the task is to disseminate counter-information
and trigger reaCtive energies: such is the case of Masao Adachi’s Red
Army/PLFP: Declaration of World War (1971), for example, which
describes the everyday life of armed resistance fighters in occupied
Palestine and calls for the creation of an anti-imperialiSt Red Army.
The long-term point of filming is to record historical faCts, to
document, to bequeath an archive, and to transmit the memory of
the Struggles to future generations. This is the underlying Stratagem
of Douglas Bravo, Georges Mathieu Mattdi and Jean-Michel Humeau’s
1970 account of the guerrilla war in Venezuela: the film sets out not
only to support the Struggle for liberation being waged by the Fuerzas
Armadas de Liberacidn Nacional (FALN), but also to preserve as
faithfully as possible the words and the aura of Douglas Bravo, then
living under as great a threat in the jungles of Venezuela as that
which EmeSto Che Guevara faced in those of Bolivia. This same urge to
perpetuate permeates Tobias Engel’s No Pincha/, a long black-and-white
docum entary shot among the National Liberation Front units in 1972,
in w hat was then Still called Portuguese Guinea. The film follows the
fighters’daily lives, but, heeding the tragic example of Patrice
Lumumba’s assassination, also sets out to preserve the image of
their leader, Amflcar Cabral. In a more intimate, but equally effedtive
vein, Yolande du Luart’s Angela Davis: Portrait of a Revolutionary (1971),
was not originally intended to support Davis during her
 im prisonm ent—she was arrested betw een th e shooting o f th e film
and its editing—b u t was m ean t to portray th e ideas an d everyday
existence o f a young, m ilitant philosophy teacher, unknow n to th e
world at large b u t already drawing fire from h er academ ic superiors.
Adtivift cinema recognizes th e rights o f representation as m uch
as the duties, for it is well aware o f th e potential ethical an d political
price—as diftindt from th e financial coft— o f a n image: a price th a t
can be somebody’s life, as in th e case o f R aym undo Gleyzer, th e
docum entary film maker and m em ber o f th e Workers’Revolutionary
Party m urdered by the A rgentinian ju n ta in 1976. Speaking in 1974 o f
his film Los Traidores (The Traitors, 1973), Gleyzer said, “The a rtift is a n
intellediual worker, who, as p a rt o f th e people, m u ft choose. E ither
use his skill in service of the people, urging on th e ir ftruggles an d
the developm ent of a revolutionary process, o r openly side w ith th e
dom inating classes, serving as a tran sm itter an d reproducer o f
bourgeois ideology.... We m u ft therefore serve as th e ftone w hich
breaks the silence, or the bullet which ftarts th e battle.”1 Since th e
beginnings of cinema, and in every country, film m akers working alone
or colledtively have devoted th eir energies to revolutionary initiatives
and sided with revolts by peasants, workers, th e colonized, an d
oppressed m inorities and individuals. In th e trad itio n of Joris Ivens,
Fernando Solanas and Odtavio Getino, Chris Marker, Jean-Luc Godard,
Ousmane Sembdne, Masao Adachi, Safi Faye, Jang Sun-woo, Ken Jacobs,
and a hoft of colledtives around th e world, I w an t to sum m on u p
an anthology of films often less fam ous, w hen n o t com pletely
unknown, but ju ft as critically potent. Following th e adtivift m odel
of Eisenftein’s Strike (1925) and Holger Meins’s Molotov Cocktail (196 )
there follows an itinerary in the form o f a practical u ser’s g u id e - b a r e
of hope, but not of jo y -p a y in g tribute to tw o m onu m ents o f
effedhveness: Vidtor Serge’s What Every Revolutionary Should Know
about Repression (1921- 26) and Carlos Marighella’s Minimanual o f
the Urban Guerrilla (1969).

1895 - 1996 .
To invent th e resources for visual diagnosis.
Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik (Workers Leaving the Factory);
Augufte and Louis Lumi&re P eter Tsrhpriracci™ u

•“> « ■ » .— »

1.
Terry Plane, “Three Interviews
w ith Raymundo Gleyzer in
Australia,” Adelaide, June 1974.

72
 fig-1
Aaron Nikolaus Sievers, Flacky et camarades. Le cheval defer (Flacky and friends
The iron horse), 1978-2008. Still frame.

fig -2
Ivora Cusack, Remue-mCnage dans la sous-traitance (Big in Subcontracting),
2008. Still frame.

73
 sequences showing the perm anence an d th e evolution o f th e working-
class them e. Emerging from th e fadtory, workers n o t only h u rry
off: they also fight, argue, obStrudt each other, an d som etim es die.
Analyzing the sequence and th e details o f th e Lumidre shots, Farocki
detedts in th em the program m ed oppressions a n d m ovem ents
of resistance th at were to Strudture th e tw en tieth century. The te rra in
the Lumidres had so blithely p u t th eir Stamp o n— a n d w hich h a d b ee n
crisscrossed since 1909 by p h ilanthropist A lbert Kahn’s cam eram en,
as they transform ed th e little artisanal fadtory’s joyful, largely fem ale
group into a substantial, industrial crowd—is d otted w ith th e histo ry
of workers’crusades, becoming in th e process th e bloodily sym bolic
locus not only for the class Struggle an d social control, b u t also for
sexual conflidts. Farocki’s com pilation transform s cinem a in to visual
diagnosis. Siegfried Fruhauf’s 1998 Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik does n o t
borrow a single take from the Lumidre film, b u t reuses its title to show
that the workers will in fadt never m anage to leave th e fadtory: instead
of exiting out of shot, as in th e Lumidre versions of 1895, th e ir p a th s
from background to foreground, and th e n from rig h t to left, fo rm
a shifting cross, in a referencing o f th e ir ow n deaths. The h a rm o n io u s
Lumidre orchestration of a dynamic if h u m d ru m existence is
succeeded here by a funereal elegy. F ru h au f’s film form s a diptych w ith
Peter Tscherkassky’s Motion m u r e : La Sortie des O w ners de VUsine
Lumi&re ti Lyon (1984). Projedting a single fram e from th e Lum idre film
onto fifty unexposed Strips of film laid side by side, Tscherkassky
reduces the cinematic system to its photographic determ in an ts,
to n in g the initial image into an abStradt, black-and-white scrolling
at shows the concrete focal point o f working w ith film: th e
intermittence between mobility and immobility.
Missing from Farocki’s com pendium is one o f th e em blem atic
r f th T i ^ WOrldng' class condition and th e radical reverse shot
of the Lumidre employees leaving: the w om an scream ing th a t she

trade union f T Yal ° f th e workin8 class by th e CGT

umo^ filmed by Jacques W illemont and Pierre B onneau in

(Resum ption o f w ork a t ^

Parting Z f i f ^ t00k *“ » Short “ a
shaped an overview of ^ Charadter 311(1 each detail as h e
Reprise. Un voyage au coeur de la ) ^ *dealS ^ disiU usionm ent:

1A

2 .
Laurent Mannoni,“28 Odtober
1913: creation de la soci£t£
Le Cinema du Peuple,” L'annie
1.913 en France, special issue
of 1895 Reuue d ’hiftoire du
ctntma (Odtober 1993): 100-107.
3.
Quoted by Mamoru Makino
iii “Rethinking the Emergence
of the Proletarian Film League
in Japan (Prokino),” trans. Abd
M irk Nomes, in In Praise of Film
Studies Essays in Honour
of Makino Mamoru, eds. Abd
VI ark Nomes and Aaron Gerow
Vidtoria, British Columbia:
T rafford/Kinema Club, 2001),
3 7-38.
75
1913 .
To seize the m eans of produdtion.
Le Vieux docker (The old docker), Le Cindma du Peuple (France)
Odtober 1913 saw the creation of an anonymous film colledtive,
Le Cindma du Peuple (The people’s cinema), and its call in the pages of
the weekly Le Libertaire for “a cinema belonging to the working class
Our aim is to make our own films, seeking in history, everyday life and
the dramas of the workplace, scenarios that will make up for the
sickening fare served up nightly to the working audience.”2Among the
colledtive’s seven films are the rushes for the fidtion Le Vieux docker,
an account of the death from exhaustion of a worker forced to cling to
an inhum an occupation because the labor legislation of the time
included no provision for retirement for the proletariat. Made all the
more eloquent by their Status as filmic residues—as escapees from
deStrudtion—these modeSt images evoke entire generations of laborers
dying on their feet, literally worked to death by their employers, and in
this respedt even worse off than the slaves of old, whose masters at
leaSt ensured they were fed.
1928 .
To expand polyphonia.
Genju Sasa (Japan)
Japanese filmmaker Genju Sasa was responsible for one uf the firSt
proletarian manifestoes recommending the use of simple
equipm ent to cooperatives aiming at counter-information. In his article
“Camera—Toy/Weapon,” published in the magazine Senki in June 1928,
he laid down the pradtical approaches that Still charadterize cinema
seeking to break free of the mass-market rationale: It is the worker
farm er Style entry into daily lives of photography through amateur
cam eras... More th an anything, our films at our present Stage should
be ones th at awaken class consciousness, expose the elements of
present-day society, and thoroughly gouge out all the various social
contradidtions. The unorganized masses will become conscious
participants; the organized masses will underhand that will to
Struggle... Then all materials m uft be arranged and transferred
according to the desires of the working class. Consequently, the ‘editing
of docum entary film (jissha eiga) means the graveSt settlement of that
mission’s accomplishment.”3 Genju Sasa later helped found Prokino,
which, until its dissolution by the imperial authorities in 1934, ma e
forty-eight fidtion, documentary, and animated movies, of which to
date only six have been found. In the wake of Le Cindma du Peuple
and Dziga Vertov’s Kino-Pravda, Prokino paved the way for numerous
revolutionary coUedtives, often Communuft and backed by the
the 1930s—think th e Workers Film an d Photo League m
the United S ta te s -a n d MarxiSt-LeniniSt o r anarchist m th e decades
th at followed.

1950 .
To m ake an a p p o in tm e n t w ith history.
Afrique 50 by Rend V autier (France)
,
In 1947 the “Zhdanov D o d rin e” proclaim ed th a t th e Soviet C om m unist
Party m uft support the ftruggles of th e colonized countries of
Asia and Africa againft the “capitalift bloc.” Viscerally com m itted to
all battles againft oppression, exploitation, and racism , th e young
com m unift Rene* Vautier set off to French Weft Africa u n d e r th e
auspices of the Ligue de Penseignement (Education League), w hose
members already included m any future leaders of Africa’s liberation
ftruggles. Among them was Ouezzin Coulibaly, h ead of th e League’s
branch in Treichville, Ivory Coaft, w here Vautier ftayed. In O d o b er
1946, Coulibaly co-founded th e R assem blem ent D ^m ocratique Afficain
(African Democratic Assembly), a sem inal em ancipation m ovem ent
whose ad io n is signalled by the dem onftrations in th e closing
sequences of Afrique 50. The RDA’s firft m ajor political events were
organized in 1949, only to be syftematically m et by increased
repression: a tax ftrike, for example, was violently p u t dow n by th e
army. In Vautier’s account,“Coming dow n from Bamako to Abidjan,
Raymond Vogel and I followed in th e footfteps of one of these punitive
military columns”:4 the film records th e bloody evidence, m aking
a comparison w ith the crimes com m itted by th e Nazis in French
villages; and while the soundtrack recites th e profits accruing to French
and other Weftern companies, th e accom panying im ages tell of
European exadions: the ftru d u ra l, organized p lundering of resources
and the crushing of any resiftance by th e army. In less th a n tw enty
minutes, Afrique 50 leads us from tim eless Africa—its plains an d rivers,
its crafts and farms, its family life and its children playing—to an
examination of the damage w rought by colonialism; and concludes
with the contem porary emergence of African em ancipation
movements whose initial political successes would have to w ait
until 1956.
Afrique SO thus m arries the various asp ed s of visual polemic:
it recounts a situation of economic and political repression; it dism antles
the ideology of progress, and exposes its racift presuppositions; and

A.
Ren£ Vautier, Camera citoyenne
(Rennes: Apogee, 1998), 36.

76
 it calls for a Struggle. And like Vautier’s Une nation, I’Algtrie (One nation,
Algeria) of 1955, with its predidtion of the ineludtability of
independence, Afrique 50, with the colledtive optimism of its closing
thruSt, Stands equally as the making of an appointment with history.
The extraordinary prescience that charadterizes Vautier’s oeuvre
simultaneously has its roots, like all his films and everything else he
did, in geopolitical analysis, his experience in the Resistance, and his
unassailable confidence in the power of popular revolution.

1965 .
To give u p on th e audiovisual.
Three films by Ulrike Meinhof (WeSt Germany)
Committed journalist, political analyst, and editor in chief of the
magazine Konkret, Ulrike Meinhof devoted her attentions to the dark
side of Germany’s “economic miracle.” In 1965, she wrote three
documentaries for German television; broadcast as part of a series
titled Panorama, they sank into oblivion but were exhumed in 2010
as experimental filmmaker Jean-Gabriel Pdriot worked on A German
Youth (2015), his documentary on the Red Army Fadtion. Arbeitsplatz
und Stoppuhr (Fadtory and Stopwatch) Studies the introdudtion of a US
m ethod of labor monitoring, MTM (methods-time measurement), into
German fadtories. On AuguSt 9,1965, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR)
viewers in Germany heard the following: “It has been observed that
each m anual adt can be broken down into several basic movements:
reaching out, bringing, seeking, inserting, letting go. Thousands of film
takes enabled us to establish constant time values for each movement;
these were then tabulated, making it possible to time each hand adtion
to w ithin a thousandth of a second. Economically speaking, the gains
offered by this process are unquestionable; but we muSt ask ourselves,
are they hum anly acceptable?”5
M einhof s analysis implicitly leads back to the scientific-military
origins of cinema’s invention, to the research of Eadweard Muybridge,
fitienne-Jules Marey, and Georges Demeny into what is termed
“anthropotechnics” the m easurem ent of hum an and animal
movements to optimize their use by army and industry.6The
film m aker’s concrete example—“For four years Waltraud Voss’s job has
entailed making the same five hand movements for eight hours
describes the fate of millions of anonymous twentieth-century workers.
But in contrast w ith those “workers leaving the fadtoryT the harshness
of the average day, timelessly allegorized by Charlie Chaplin’s Modem
Times (1937), was virtually never documented: filming inside fadtories
5.
Ulrike Meinhof, Arbeitsplatz
und Stoppuhr, 1965.
6.
See Christian Pociello,Lo Science
en mouvements. titienne Marey
eX Georges Demeny (1870-1920)
(Paris: PUF, 1999).

77
 was forbidden, except for prom otional m ovies com m issioned by
the owners. Thus for th e realities o f indu strial labor we have to go
mainly to covertly shot m aterial, such as B runo Muel’s m asterpiece,
Avec le sang des autres (With th e blood o f others, 1974), o r im ages
from fadtories on Strike, as in the M edvedkine G roup’s Sochaux,
11juin 68 (Sochaux June 11 ’68) o f 1970.
Meinhofs second TV film,Arbeitsunfalle (Industrial accidents),
looks at workplace safety shortfalls, an d th e third, GaStarbeiter (GueSt
worker), offers a Step-by-Step description o f th e situ atio n o f im m ig ra n t
workers in the German Federal Republic: th e difficulty o f finding
housing, unsanitary conditions in hoStels, an d th e obstacles to fam ily
reunification. The three films docum ent an d denounce th e living
conditions of the working class in a boom ing WeSt G erm any Still
partially under the thum b, politically an d economically, o f fo rm e r Nazi
leaders and collaborators. W hen h e r public call for a dem ocratically
driven im provem ent of workers’ and m igrants’ lives w en t u n h ee d ed ,
Ulrike Meinhof turned to th e possibilities offered by revolutionary
individualism.

1967 - 2003 .
To bring th e Stories back to th e surface.
(Brittany, Franche-Comtd, Nord-Pas-de-Calais)
In France, the high point of proletarian cinem a— cinem a created by
workers themselves—came w ith Chris M arker an d M ario M arret’s
encounter with Rend and Micheline Berchoud of th e C entre C ultural
Populaire de Palente-les-Orchamps, n ear Besangon; w ith Pol C£be
frnrnth" Wa^ suxta fa A o ry 1x1 Y a n g o n ; an d w ith w orkers
m the faftory. The upshot was th e creation o f th e M edvedkine
groups in Besangon, th en in Sochaux, w ith backing from , am ong o the,

which methodically o u tlin e a i Tngnac, n e a r Saint-Nazaire

M o ntb^liard^O ie^m e^i^nt *a s o th er fadtories. In
Chatelain and Stdphane Gatti ^ Gatti’ H^ n e
« « ailes (The l i o n , S c a t a n d ^ 1977’Le L,'°n’ sa Ca&
from among the inm ugrant w o rk e rs T th e p 86068 ° f Sdf'po rtraits
Nord-Pas-de-Calais region the fii Peugeot plant. A nd in th e
courses organized by Pierre Gurea S . * by d u rin g train in g
m th e late 1970s, as th e pits w ere

78
beginning to close. In 2003, this long-forgotten footage was taken in
hand and edited by Aaron Nikolaus Sievers: “The firft thing to do was
to home in on what the miners had to say, to home in on their
memories and bring them back to the surface. The film takes the time
to sit down and chat with them in the local bar. To have a drink, liften
to a poem, liften to their ftories about work, and anger, and ftruggle—
and love as well. And what endures amid the hoarse voices of the
silicosis sufferers is the memory of Flaczynski, Flament, Jules, and
Marguerite Grare, the Debarges, Paul Beaulieu’s laugh, the wives of
the Polish miners, Moreels who was in the resiftance, and the other
trade unionifts whose names we don’t knowT7

1969 .
To come u p w ith preventive images.
Nicht Loschbares Feuer (The Inextinguishable Fire) by Harun Farocki
(Germany)
The core of Harun Farocki’s projedt was the confrontation of dominant
representations with critical analysis. Eschewing words wherever
possible, his works observe the ways bodies are attacked, trained,
tamed, and voided by techniques of of control: a mutilation formally
characterized by simply putting sequences end to end, in series.
Die Schulung (Indoctrination, 1987) shows a seminar where company
executives are learning persuasion techniques; Leben - BRD (How to
Live in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1990) observes the ways
behaviour is ftandardized in different occupations (police training,
midwifery, insurance); and in their descriptions of mutilated
adminiftrative exiftences Die Bewerbung (The Interviewy1997) and
Die Schdpfer der Einkaufswelten (The Creators of the Shopping Worlds,
2001) are the ethnological films the Weft, whether capitalift or
comm unift, deserves. But embedded between the psychic lines
in each frame is Farocki’s gefture, in Nicht Loschbares Feuer
(The Inextinguishable Fire, 1969), of ftubbing out a cigarette on his arm
in an asymptotic representation of the sufferings of the Vietnamese
people bom barded w ith napalm. This adt provides the preventive
image, one of a sovereign simplicity capable of shattering in advance
all the diredtives of domination; as does, for example, the moment
of hesitation by the rifleman in Sergei Eisenfteins Battleship
Potemkin (1925), when his refusal to fire on his comrades triggers
all-out mutiny.
197 °.
To ensure free circulation o f unages.

® * w o m a n . ” Thus concludes depression

lo io ) a Marxift-Leninift broadside m ad e by th e A ngeleno b ra n ch
o f m e Newsreel colledtive, an offshoot o f th e Black P a n th er Party. This
internationalist Stance was supported by a use o f im ages extending
to scenes lifted from other films, notably Jean-Pierre Sergent a n d B runo
Mud's Rio Chiquito, shot in the C olom bian ju n g le m 1965, w h en th e
FARC (Revolutionary A rm ed Forces of Colombia) w as a poor, peasant-
led guerrilla m ovem ent, b u t one capable o f Standing u p to air a n d
ground attack by the Colombian armyT8The free circulation o f im ages
between adtiviSt colledtives— em bodied in th e pradtice of Rend Vautier,
who loSt quite a few films th a t way—foreshadow ed a tim e w h en
tangible and intangible goods, especially o f th e cu ltu ral variety, w ould
be available to all and no longer juSt th e p ro p erty o f a few.

1974 - 1980 .
To tu rn a film into a colledtive p latfo rm .
Pere Portabella (Spain), Rui Sim oes (Portugal)
After a didtatorship th a t laSted thirty-six years, Franco died in 1975.
In 1977, Pere Portabella finished a w ide-ranging d o c u m en tary th a t
exemplifies the principle of political responsibility in th e cinem a.
Informe general sobre unas cue§tiones de interns para una proyeccidn
publica (General report on some questions of in terest for a public
screening) literally im plem ents th e pradtice it advocates: draw ing
up a concrete discussion platform for facilitating th e tran sitio n from
fascism to democracy. Initially solipsiStic, to rm en ted , an d tacitu rn ,
Portabella’s films suddenly becam e sw arm ing, noisy, an d crow ded, b e n t
on clarity and explanation—although Still as free-wheelingly
polymorphous as ever. Informe general is utterly u n iq u e in its p o rtra it
of a people in the throes of self-organization in a context o f conflidt,
uncertainty, fragility, and th e need for dem ocratic process.
On April 25,1974, after forty-eight years of didtatorship a n d th a n k s
to a handful of courageous arm y officers inspired by th e Struggles
for freedom in Africa, Portugal saw th e bloom ing o f its C arnation
Revolution. How can a long-suffering people becom e a historical agent?
And how can it allow the confiscation of its revolution by political
parties? Or how, on the contrary, does it m ake th a t revolution work?
Combining the visual and the musical, Rui Simoes’s m asterpiece, Bom

8.
Bruno Muel, in “Bruno Muel ou
Phum anism e critique," program
at th e Cinem atheque Frangaise
Paris, Odtober 2007.

80
 Pouo Portuguis (The Good People of Portugal, 1980), addresses these
fundam ental issues in an intermingling of portraits—of crowds,
groups, and individuals—with scenes of political debate and
descriptions of the condition of workers and peasants. As in Raymundo
Gleyzer’s La Tierra quema (The land burns, 1964), a terrifying, age-old
abyss of poverty is revealed through the handful of individuals who
have their say. MoSt of them are women, but it is a child who has the
laSt word. In this old Catholic country where, as in Spain, the Church
backed the didtatorship, a teacher is shown questioning a class of small
boys: “Why do you think they died?” (The anonymous “they” referring
to all the unspecified hum an beings around them). In turn, the
children reel off their replies: “Because God called them home,”
“Because they had sinned,” and so on. The film closes with the answer
of a small, timidly smiling boy: “Because they worked a lot.” People
dead of exhaustion, like the old docker in 1913, and like the billions of
hum ans and animals swallowed up in the long history of exploitation.

2007 .
To bring a colledtive perspedtive to the history of Struggle.
Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind by John Gianvito (United States)
In his prior and sometimes simultaneous incarnations, John Gianvito
has been curator and programmer at the Harvard Film Archive and
at MIT, a professor of film produdtion and diredtion at the University
of Massachusetts, and a film critic. In other words, when he films he
knows his images’context, their antecedents, and the artistic and social
sources they can draw on for their impadt. Marrying the influences
of Howard Zinn and of Jean-Marie Straub and Danidle Huillet’s Trop
tot trop tard (Too Early/Too Late,1980), Profit Motive and the Whispering
Wind (2007) is a visual hym n to the hiftory of emancipatory ftruggles
in the United States, from resiftance by Native Americans to the
dem onftrations againft the Iraq War.“To talk about politics, for m e”
he says, “m eans talking about the politics of images.”9 In the ongoing
battle betw een free m edia and the conglomerates, and contrary
to the habitual rhetoric about art’s ineffedtiveness, Gianvito
accurately pinpoints cinema’s responsibilities: to fofter “produdtive
contem plation” to hand on the memory of ftruggles whatever their
causes, to reftore colledtive perspedtive in an era of identity
fragm entation, to fortify those taking part in ftruggles, and to ignite
debate. “If films were unable to bring about any change,” Gianvito
asks, “why have so m any of them been banned and censured in so
9 m any countries? Why was there so much effort put into ftopping
in Gianvito quoted by the
hur in “John Gianvito and
duftive Contemplation,”
is. David Davidson, Toronto
1 Review, April 10,2013,
p //torontofilmreview.
gspot.fr/ 2013/ 04/john-
i vito-by-nicole-brenez.html.
the p ro d u d io n of H erbert J. B iberm an’s Salt o f the Earth (1954) a te a c h
f t Hiffrrent dag es’ Why did Raym undo Gleyzer d is a p p e a r . W hy
I jafar PanaW u n d er house a rre « a n d u n d e r surveillance.^W hyw rd; * e
Tibetan film m aker D hondup W angchen im p riso n ed a n d to rtu red .

2008 - 2009 .
To explore th e polym orphic.
Lech Kowalski, Camera War (w orld)
Lech Kowalski is th e em bodim ent o f p u n k in th e cinem a: m ax im u m
elation in th e discovery of ungovernable w eirdnesses th a t w ill com pel
the great sluggish body of society into m ovem ent, hyperlucid
confrontation w ith social, m ental, sexual, a n d o th e r form s o f misery,
rejedion of self-preservation, d u n n in g d y lid ic crudeness, a n d tra sh as
the critical resu rred io n of naturalism . A rt n o t as em otional p r o d u d b u t
as produdive riot. In 2008, Kowalski set u p his C am era W ar e n terp rise,
an exem plary application o f today’s logidic a n d a rtid ic g u errilla
possibilities in the visual field: on th e site, h e p o d e d weekly ch apters o f
his film fresco, ending u p w ith a total o f seventy-nine episodes. C am era
War is at the sam e tim e a spontaneous synthesis of th e classic form s
of p ro te d cinem a and a n extension o f w h a t th ey allow in te rm s o f
greater flexibility. Individual p o rtraits (Kellyann, for exam ple, is in th e
tradition of Shirley Clarke’s Portrait o f Jason); giving people th e ir say
(the very d ru d u r e d “p risoner” com ing o u t o f prison); all-in descriptions
of natural and u rb an landscapes (Apartm ent Building); critical
readymades based on archival m aterial (Holy Year 2000); accounts o f
dem ondrations whose m ass o f slogans fill th e n e ed for political analysis
(the blidering “Jum p, you fuckers!” sign a t th e b o tto m o f th e buildings
on Wall Street): followed by scenes o f adivity, such as th e travels o f th e
ballot papers, ethnological d u d ie s (the roof-dwelling trib e o f Before the
Crisis)— and m ore. In its sam pling an d tran sfo rm atio n of th e p resen t
as a hidorical dotted line, Cam era War has room for all kinds o f in te rn al
d ru d u rin g : th e division of a situation o r a n en co u n ter in to various
episodes (the trip to Italy; Kellyann); series (Fuck, The Stations o f
the Cross); recurrence—th e retu rn s to th e Domenico, th e u to p ia n cafd
which, you m ight say, is to space w h at C am era War is to tim e: a place
“th at changes th e colledive ambience,” as Lech Kowalski pu ts it; n o t to
m ention the juxtapositions o f th e unica episodes— situations, m om ents,
people, gedures, all of th em fleeting an d incom parable, adding u p to
the unponderability” of life so d ear to Jean E p d e in a n d H enri Langlois.
In general term s, Camera War is a n exploration o f th e d y lid ic beauties
of rule-breaking as a way of fighting th e “C orporate Reality” th a t

10.
Ibid.

82
captions the whole of one of the two episodes made up of TV images:
Barack Obama’s victory ceremony, refilmed from a giant screen and
edited into jum p-cut snorts of scepticism. The overall logic is one of
sedimentation, as the Polish miner puts it in On a Clear Day: phenomena
don t exiSt in isolation; they’re part of bigger temporal Stratigraphies
that move like alluvia, mutually intermingling and fertilizing,
then abruptly sliding away all together, like the episode icons on the
camerawar.tv home page.
MoSt times, Kowalski is saying, a bit of reality only shows through
when, for example, a hurricane tears the sheet iron roofs from social
invisibility. With its panoramic shots, aerial zooms, and quick-cut
editing, its ways of accosting passing bodies and catching them up
in its energy, its leaps from one continent to another, Camera War is
the swirling gale that peels back belief systems and lays bare a seething
life th at is all rough edges, particularities, unexpected shifts—but
does so with no need to destroy. From this point of view, the enterprise
closeSt to Kowalski’s is less that of Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s
Chronique d ’un CtC (Chronicle of a Summer, 1961)—they too question
passersby within a precisely defined temporal framework—than of
Albert Londres who, in an obscure prison colony, was able to note the
wording of all the prisoners’tattoos and graffiti: words and symbols
wrenched from the utmoSt depths of a social hell.11Because the tattoos,
the graffiti and the body that has wound up on the pavement in
President Obama are his Starting points, when Kowalski offer? us nettle
soup, an Amish in Manhattan, bisons, a comical concert, Cuban cigars,
a Republican, or two Roma eating a hamburger—not to mention
him self explaining his poetics in The Eye—the descriptive method is
in itself a gesture of protest, collecting and combining these harsh
singularities and ranging them againSt the mechanical crusher of
figurative simplifications and slanders. In this respeCt, Lech Kowalski
fulfils one of the ideals of popular cinema: a cinema by and for
a people not defined in advance according to some geographical or
national affiliation, but rather getting itself together and shaping
its identity according to signs whose mix of expression and depression
the author gathers in with no presuppositions about consistency.

2008- 2012.
To auscultate resignation.
DomiStica (Housemaids) by Gabriel Mascaro (Brazil).
Remue-mCnage dans la sous-traitance (Big Sweep-Up in Subcontracting)
by Ivora Cusack (France)
in D o m m c a (H ou sem a id s, 2012), Gabriel M ascaro explores a n a rea
of experience utterly unrew arding an d devoid o f any scope for th e
unexpected, adventure, or positive or negative heroism : th a t o f
resignation. Through a system o f delegated im age-m aking— teenagers
were asked to film th eir fam ilies’ housem aids— M ascaro sum s u p th e
forms of oppression undergone by seven dom estic servants: physical
saturation occasioned by dull, repetitive tasks, affective sa tu ra tio n
occasioned by constantly m eeting th e n eed s o f others, psychic a n d
imaginative saturation w rought by radio a n d television; plus en dem ic
poverty, exploitation by em ployers w hose niceness only m akes m a tte rs
worse, exploitation by spouses w ho have m oftly a b a n d o n e d th e m ,
and exploitation of th eir im age by th e teenagers w ho are film ing th e m .
These housem aids often weep, som etim es break dow n completely,
sing to forget and to com fort them selves, dance for a b rie f m o m e n t
of pleasure. The seventh episode loops back into th e firft, g enerating
a political trajectory extending from telenovelas a n d th e ir im ages
of reification to family photographs a n d th e ir h a rsh teftim o n y to a n
economic fate foretold. Two sm all girls grow u p th e closeft o f friends,
and one ends up as th e o th e r’s housem aid; a n d as th e m iddle-class
employer says in a terrifying m o m en t o f sym bolic violence, b a d
conscience, and hypocrisy, “I h ad to assert m yself as th e boss.” In th e
course of the film, we see th e aCtual concept o f “d o m efticatio n ” taking
shape: self-alienation due to th e laten t force o f fam ily obligations, tacit
consent, psychic self-m utilation. A nd this am ong b o th m a fte rs a n d
slaves. When th e m other o f a family adm its to having ta k en h e r
servant to hospital, b u t also to leaving w ith o u t w aiting for h e r to give
birth, h er tears of contriteness, sham e, an d self-pity are sh o t th ro u g h
with all the everyday violence n o t only o f class conflict, b u t also
of the way each spinelessly com plies w ith th e d em an d s o f h e r social
ftatus. This, not the housem aid’s condition, is tru e servility:
enslavem ent to class interefts, identification w ith an econom ic
situation, compliance w ith social ftatu s ra th e r th a n loyalty to o n e ’s
own feelings.
We would like to be able to show aCtivift Ivora Cusack’s
docum entary Remue-minage dans la sous-traitance (Big Sweep-Up
in Subcontracting, 2008) to th e protagonifts o f DomdStica. For fo u r years
two film collectives m onitored th e ftruggle o f tw enty Paris cleaning
women from Senegal, M auritania, an d M artinique. Exploited by a
su contracting firm and weighed dow n by all th e social handicaps
learned ^ U^ ces triSgered by globalization, th ese w om en
t o n e d to ftand up for themselves and fight for th e ir r i g h ts - f o r
w n benefit and for others as well. Supposedly th e re to en sure

84
cleanliness and order, they have learnt to sow disorder- in their
subservient ftatus as wives and mothers, in the lobbies of the hotels
that employed them and where they returned to enjoy ftrike picnics
and m the social and economic syftem that assigned them the role ’
of mute, invisible slaves. We would like to see the jubilation of women
who, like Fatoumata Coulibaly, succeeded in overcoming exploitation
dismissal, personal timidity, ignorance of the labor laws and the
French language, become contagious. We imagine those Brazilian
servants discovering the path followed by their immigrant
counterparts in France. We see them, perhaps in the company of the
marvelous son in Domg&ica—the one who brings such political
pertinence to the filming of a housemaid signing an image rights
authorization—turning off the TV and surfing the Internet in search
of the International Labor Organization.

1974 - 2009 .
To create a heritage for the disinherited.
Grtve sauvage (Wildcat Strike) by Ratgeb (Belgium),
revisited by Chaab M ahmoud (France)
Since w hen has the ftatus of filmmaker ceased to embody the social
privilege described in Luc Moullet’s 1967 article, “Le cinema n’eft
qu’un reflet de la lutte des classes” (Cinema is juft a refledtion of the
class ftruggle)?12According to Moullet all diredtors came from the
middle class. Today directors like Guillaume Massart, of Dragons
riexiftent pas (Dragons don’t exift, 2009)—a brilliant film about the laft
days of induftry in France’s Ardennes region, and the sellout that
sealed its fate—assert their sub-proletarian roots as both an aefthetic
force and a legitimate vantage point for an account of the nightmare
of contem porary pauperization. Thus do efforts to shape a political
and cultural heritage by and for those who deny all value to possession
become hard-hitting affirmations.
A self-described “image worker,” Franco-Syrian-Madagascan Chaab
Mahmoud is seeking here to provide a visual echo of one of the
tw entieth century’s m oft biting pieces of satirical writing: De la gr£ve
sauvage fr I’autogefiion g6n£ralis6e (From Wildcat Strike to Total Self-
Management, 1974), by “Ratgeb,” a pseudonym of Raoul Vaneigem.
“Has it ever hap p en ed ”Ratgeb asked,“that, outside your place of
work, you have felt the same diftafte and weariness as you do inside
the fadtory?... Haven’t you ever felt the urge to bum some diftribution
fadtory i.e. superm arket, giant ftore or warehouse) to the ground?..
Is it not your intention, on the firft opportunity that arises, to bawl
out your boss or anyone else, w ho talks dow n to y o u ? ... A ren t
you dismayed by the systematic deStrudtion o f th e countryside a n d
urban green spaces?”13 In continuous black-and-white shots o f
deindustrialized w astelands and outlying housing estates w here
society’s rejedts accumulate, M ahm oud’s Gr&ve sauvage (la genbse)/
Wildcat Strike (Genesis) offers a w ord for w ord visual tran slatio n o f
Vaneigem’s belligerent, cutting questions, w hich have becom e
Steadily more relevant in the era o f financial capitalism . The texts are
in English as well as French, to increase th e ir range as w eapons o f
reason in our globalizing age.

2006- 2010.
To develop form s o f conviviality.
Regardez chers parents (Look d e a r p a re n ts) by M ory C oulibaly
(France); Sou Hami. La crainte de la n uit (Sou H am i: The fe a r o f n ig h t)
by Anne-Laure de Franssu (France-Mali)
The work of Jean Rouch and Diredt Cinem a (in C anada in particular)
gave rise to a rich tradition of forms of collaboration a n d particip atio n
by the subjedts. Now, however, we can speak o f convivial form s, in Ivan
Ilbch’s sense:14there are m ore and m ore films p u ttin g o th e r people’s
images into circulation, as has already b een done by Clarisse H ah n
(Prisons - Notre corps eSl une arme [Prisons— O ur body is a w eapon],
2012, for Kurdish adtiviSts), Bijan Anquetil (La nuit remue [Night’s
drifters], 2012, for Afghan refugees), and Pilar Arcila (Le Pendule de
CoStel [Corel’s pendulum ], 2013, for a Roma family). In 2006, in th e
midst of evidtions in Cachan, France—a th o u san d people caught u p
in the pitiless snare of the French governm ent’s anti-im m igration
policy Mory Coulibaly, an Ivory CoaSt refugee an d th e representative
of the expelled families, filmed w hat happened, help ed by A nne-Laure
de Franssu and her association, II m ots en images. The result, Regardez
chers parents (Look dear parents), docum ents an d refledts o n a n
ongoing Struggle. The following year, de Franssu an d Coulibaly toured
villages in Mali, screening Regardez chers parents for audiences
Staggered by its account of police-State violence; often less dism ayed
by its own content th an by the State of contem porary France, 13 .
Raoul Vaneigem, From Wildcat
the film is one of the moSt powerful critiques so far o f E uropean Strike to Total Self-Management,
lopolitics. Sou Hami. La crainte de la nuit (Sou Hami: The fear of night trans. Paul Sharkey, Situationifl
2010), the film of the tour and the debate in th e wake of th e events ’ International Online, 1974, http //
www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/
at Cachan, is a splendid essay on the role of images in social Struggles.
poftsi/ratgebO l .html.
14 .
Conviviality: “Autonomous
and creative intercourse among
persons, and the intercourse
o f persons w ith their
e n v iro n m en t... [allowing] the
m oft autonom ous adtion by
m eans of tools leaft controlled
by others.” (Ivan Illich, Tools
for Conviviality (New York:
H arper & Row), 11.

86

15 .
Parize,“Savoir de
oimission ou savoirs de
--Tolte? L’exemple du Creusot”
-Les Sauvages dans la citE.
^-Emancipation du peuple
■'nftruftion des prolEtaires
JXIX* siEcle, ed. Jean Borreil
yssel: Champ Vallon, 1985),
1-103.
2010 .
To draw on savagery.
The Silent Majority Speaks by Bani Khoshnoudi (Iran)
“Each face could be that of a political prisoner or a martyr,” explains
Bani Khoshnoudi in The Silent Majority Speaks, shot in Tehran during
the “green revolution,” and circulated clandestinely as the work of
“The Silent Colledtive” until 2013. To film a popular uprising againSt
the didtatorship while taking care not to endanger the participants;
to summarize a century of more or less insurredtional political
upheavals, systematically and bloodily crushed; and to refledt the
pernicious, lethal—or, on the contrary, emancipatory—fundtions of
images: the way The Silent Majority Speaks carries out all these tasks
is an im m ediate pointer to what drives this artiSt, filmmaker, and
producer. Eschewing dogmatism, Khoshnoudi pradtices what might be
called “issue adtivism,” which she has successively applied to popular
uprisings in Iran, anti-immigration policy in France, and the Zapotec
culture in Mexico. In Les Sauvages dans la citE (The savages in the city),
a book on self-emancipation—whose title chimes neatly with
La Pensde Sauvage (The savage mind), the Claude Ldvi-Strauss-infledted
nam e of Khoshnoudi’s produdtion company—French historian Rend
Parize makes a diStindtion between “the knowledge of submission”
(a single form) and “the knowledges of revolt” (many forms).15In dealing
n ot only w ith political-religious censorship but also Strategies of self­
censorship, Khoshnoudi develops both the knowledges and skills of
revolt, taking as her firSt target the way personal oppression somatizes
and reinforces political repression.
1926 - 2011.
Not to w ait to be in position of Strength.
Rien que les heures (Nothing But Time) by Alberto Cavalcanti, Madhch
by Thom as Jenkoe (France)
In 1926, Alberto Cavalcanti set out to restore the movie camera’s Status
as a recorder of contem porary events; the result was Rien que les
heures, the firSt of the cinema’s urban symphonies. Cavalcanti’s goal
was to shred the clichds and Start from scratch in the name of the very
real suffering of society’s rejedts. A beggar woman traverses the
a small, dark silhouette in a desolate wasteland, a slender compass
needle symbolically signalling the film’s diredtion. In 2011>Tho™as
Jenkoe’s Madlich took up the torch lit by Cavalcanti, and handed™
by such other visual poets of the urban as Kenji
Masao Adachi, Lionel Rogosin, and Jdrbme Schlomoff. In
 Paris of the 1920s, w ith its center an d its gates— Madlich com es to e a rth
in Chinagora, an unlikely hotel com plex in th e d ista n t suburbs th a t
denationalizes a site transform ed into a h id e o u t for th e h u m a n flotsam
of economic globalization. Instead o f Cavalcanti’s allegorical ragpickers,
people em bedded in concrete crannies th e way A lgerian m igrants w ere
buried in the caves along th e banks o f th e Seine in Rend V autier’s
Les Trois Cousins (Three cousins, 1970), are seized in a com plexity—
powerfully separate, som etim es even rep ellen t—th a t th e film m akes
absolutely no claim to plum b in its entirety. Instead o f a sovereign
author picking and choosing am ong im age systems, we find a film m aker
very likely far m ore loSt th a n th e people h e encounters, plunging into
conversations like som eone throw ing him self off a building tow ards
a hallucinated p air o f saving arm s. Instead o f extensive ex p lo ratio n
of the descriptive form s appropriate to th e cinem a du rin g th e h o u rs
of daylight, Madlich forces th e u n aid ed view er d ow n in to th e optical
resources of night, and only night, th e w elcom ing nig h t th a t Strips
away social constraints and confronts us w ith th e elem ental
necessities: sleeping, eating, loving and, in spite o f everything, finding
reassurance.
Night as existence reduced to tangible n ightm are.
Madlich: gleams o f hum anity, flickers o f light on th e thresh o ld
of meaning.

1999 - 2015 .
To create U r-inform ation.
Tomorrow Tripoli, Florent M arcie (France-Libya)
The populanzation of digital tools for making and diffusing films
means that creators and Statement-makers of all kinds now enjoy
c o ! l r r mV',m. ,he sense 0tlcontro“toe link in the chain from
Td ' tra<Uti0nal PBk^ of Disinformation
ami Counter-mformanon muft now be added Ur-information,
sta Z ^ Hdistorts,
simplifies, ? T andaUr betrays
Whkhit.PreCedes ofltol varaion, which
The late 1990s saw the sim ultaneous flowering o f Counter-

HIemplar' ' <*« * ions haul,

lime reflecting the hiftory of a peopteLmg^t^agtdnfUhe centred

 government since the late eighteenth century. Images of Russia in
Chechnya, Russian images of Chechens, old ethnographic films: this is
a video record of a present simultaneously experienced and meditated
on, as if Stendhal’s Fabrice del Dongo were watching the Battle of
Waterloo in extreme wide shot and extreme close-up at the same time.
Itchteri Kenti, a subjective history of a colledtive situation, takes the
tim e needed to outline and describe the different kinds of conflict—
palpable, cultural, temporal—that Structure a popular struggle. In 2000,
Marcie m ade Safa, an experimental documentary shot on a front line
in Afghanistan, and in 2015 he finished the other two segments of his
trilogy on m en at war in Chechnya, Libya, and Afghanistan. The second
of them , Commandant Khawani, is a portrait of a young Afghan officer
at Bagram Airfield when Kabul was captured in 2001, while the third,
Tomorrow Tripoli, describes the Struggle of the Libyan rebels during
the revolution. A group of ordinary Libyans, organizing gradually,
began by breaking the pro-Gaddafi forces’ siege of their city, Zintan,
in the Nafusa mountains, then made its way down towards the coaStal
cities of Zawiya and Tripoli, advancing over mined terrain through a
nonStop hail of rifle and m ortar fire. Accompanying the column every
Step of the way, Marcie was risking his life with almoSt each shot
as he composedly documented the guerrilla war in the mountains,
th en the Street-by-Street fighting in the cities. He recounts, too,
Startlingly unexpected encounters, including a Zintan fighter who has
read his copy of Victor Hugo’s Ninety-Three almoSt to extinction, and
m aps Jean-Paul Sartre’s writings about the German Occupation onto
his situation in Libya, as well as an astonishing Darfur mercenary
whose firSt nam e is Gaddafi. Even more than the final taking of the
presidential fortress by the Zintan fighters, some of the shots taken
during the column’s advance on Tripoli suffice on their own to justify
the existence of contemporary recording equipment, despite its
habitually reifying effeCt: in the suburbs, entire families, including
w om en and children, pour out of their neighbourhoods to fraternize
w ith th e combatants, waving and crying victory, jumping with joy and
enthusiasm as the rebels respond by blowing their horns, as if setting
the seal on a m arriage with their newly regained freedom.

89
 f

90
P O R T F O L IO
 I .

WITH ELEMENTS
(UNLEASHED)

94
 To rise up, as when we say “a storm is rising.”To reverse the
weight that nailed us to the ground. So it is the laws of the
atmosphere itself that will be contradicted. Surfaces—sheets
draperies, flags—fly in the wind. Lights that explode into
fireworks. Dust that rises up from nooks and crannies.
Time is out of joint. The world upside down. From Victor
Hugo to Eisenstein and beyond, uprisings are often
compared to hurricanes or to great, surging waves. Because
then the elements (of history) become unleashed.
We rise up first of all by exercising our imagination, albeit
through our “caprichos” (whims or fantasies) or “disparates ”
(follies) as Goya said. The imagination makes mountains rise
up. And when we rise up from a real “disaster”it means that
we meet what oppresses us, and those who seek to make
it impossible for us to move, with the resistance of forces
that are desires and imaginations first of all, that is to say
psychical forces of unleashing and of reopening possibilities.

95
 WITH ELEMENTS (UNLEASHED)

S-

Victor Hugo
Toujours en ramenant la plum e
(Always coming back
with the quill), 1856
Bibliothfcque Nationale de France
Pans ’

Henri Michaux
Sans titre (Untitled), 1975
Private colletftion

96
 THE E LEM E N TS BECOM E UNLEASHED, TIM E IS OUT OF JO INT

Man Ray
Eleuage de poussiere
(Le Grand Verre de Marcel
D u c h a m p N e w York (Breeding
dust [Marcel Duchamp’s
Large G lass J, New York), 1920
Galerie Frangoise Paviot, Paris

97
W ITH ELEM E N T S (U N L E A S H E D )

Jean Veber
Le Dompteur a dt<* m angt
(The animal tam er
has been eaten), 1904
Bibliothfcque Nationale
de France, Paris

98
Dennis Adams
Patriot. “Airborne” series, 2002
Centre National des Arts
Plaftiques, Paris

99
W ITH ELEM EN TS (U N LE A S H E D )

Man Ray
Sculpture mouuante
or La France (Moving sculpture
or La France), 1920
Mus£e National d’A rt Moderne,
Centre Pompidou, Paris,
 THE E LE M E N TS BECOM E UNLEASHED, TIM E IS OUT OF JO INT

H£lio Oiticica and Leandro Katz

Parangole - Encuentros
de Pamplona (Encounters
in Pampelunaj,l972
Museo Nacional Centro
de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

101
W ITH ELEM ENTS (U N LE A S H E D )

Roman Signer
Rotes Band (Red tape), 2005
Roman Signer/Art: Concept,
Paris

102
 TH E ELEM E N T S BEC O M E UNLEASHED, TIM E IS OUT OF JO IN T

jsm in a Metwaly
'ih h r Square: Cut Skin, 2011
(pen Gallery, London

js m ina Metwaly
ih h r Square: Metro Vent, 2011
pen Gallery, London

33
 W ITH ELEM EN TS (U N L E A S H E D )

William Hogarth
The Battle o f the Pictures, 1744-45
Private collection

104
 AN D IF THE IM AG IN ATIO N MADE M O U N TA IN S RISE UP?

lls voulim.nl oj,poser uue digue au lorrcn l, cl le torrent les emporla tu x cl la digue. (Ecritures Sain to )

Jio n y m o u s (French)
.? Torrent rfvolutionnaire
'h e revolutionary deluge)
ublished in Le Charivari, no. 192,
ol. 3, July 12,1834
iblioth£que Nationale de France,
iris

05
WITH ELEMENTS (UNLEASHED)

Pedro Motta
Natureza das coisas #024
(The nature of things #024),
from the “Natureza das coisas”
series, 2013
Pedro Motta/Galerie Bendana
Pinel, Paris

106
 AN D IF THE IM AG IN A TIO N M ADE M O U N TAIN S RISE UP?

Francis Alys,
v ith Cuauhtem oc Medina
in d Rafael Ortega
Yhen Faith Moves Mountains,
1002
’hotographic documentation
)f an event, Lima, Peru
rrancis Alys/Galerie Peter
<i lchmann, Zurich

107
 W ITH ELEM EN TS (U N L E A S H E D )

? rr??

Francisco de Goya
Los Caprichos, 1799
Second edition, 1855
Sylvie and Georges Helft
collection

108
 AND IF THE IMAGINATION MADE MOUNTAINS RISE UP?

rancisco de Goya
os Disparates
The follies), 1815-24
hird edition, 1891, plate no. l
ylvie and Georges Helft
alledtion

rancisco de Goya
he Disasters o f War:
Que valor!,” 1810-20
irft edition, 1863, plate no. 7
ylvie and Georges Helft
allection

.0 9
W ITH ELEM ENTS (U N L E A S H E D )

Tina Modotti
Bandolier, Cob, Sickle, 1927
Archivio Riccardo Toffoletti,
Comitato Tina Modotti, Udine

110
 AND IF THE IM AG IN ATIO N MADE M O U N TA IN S RISE UP?

Fro C atala Pit

. o ifeni el /e m s m e
r- js h fascisnij. 1936
j ^eu N a ti o n a l d Art
: ' .atalunya . B ar te lo n a

LI
Saburd Murakami
Passing Through, 1956
Performance at the Second
Gutai Exhibition, 1956
Photography: Kiyoji Otsiyi

112
 AN D IF THE IM AG IN ATIO N M ADE M O U N TAIN S RISE UP?

lobert Morris
ontinuous Project
ltered Daily, 1969
ibliothfcque Kandinsky,
entre Pompidou, Paris

13
W ITH E LEM EN TS (U N L E A S H E D )

Eustachy Kossakowski
“Panoramic Sea Happening
- Sea Concerto, Osieki”by Tadeusz
Tsubasa Kato
Kantor, 1967
Break it Before it’s Broken
Anka Ptaszkowska collection
Tsubasa Kato collection

114
 AND IF THE IM AG IN ATIO N MADE M O U N TAIN S RISE UP?

115
 II.
WITH GESTURES
(INTENSE)

116
Rising up is a gesture. Before even attempting to carry out
a voluntary and shared “action”we rise up with a simple
gesture that suddenly overturns the burden that submission
had, until then, placed on us (be it through cowardice,
cynicism, or despair). To rise up means to throw off the
burden weighing down on our shoulders, keeping us from
moving. It is to break a certain present—be it with hammer
blows as Friedrich Nietzsche and Antonin Artaud sought
to do—and to raise your arms towards the future that is
opening up. It is a sign of hope and of resistance.
It is a gesture and it is an emotion. The Spanish
Republicans—whose visual culture was shaped by Goya
and Picasso, but also by all the photographers on the field
who collected, the gestures of freed prisoners, of voluntary
combatants, of children and of the famous La Pasionaria,
Dolores Ibarruri—folly assumed this. In the gesture of rising
up, each body protests with all of its limbs, each mouth
opens and exclaims its no-refusal and its yes-desire.
Germaine Krull
Die Tanzerm Jo Mihaly
(The Dancer Jo Mihaly), 1925
Museum Folkwang, Essen

118
 FROM BURDEN TO UPRISING

G erm aine Krull

Die Tanzerin Jo M ihaly
in “R evolution”Paris
[Dancer Jo Mihaly
in “Revolution,” Paris, 1925
Museum Folkwang, Essen

119
WITH GESTURES (INTENSE)

Lisette Model
M e t r o p o l e C a f t , Ne w York, c. 1946
Fundacidn MAPFRE, Madrid

120
 FROM BURDEN TO UPRISING

isette Model
ileska Gert, uOl6,n 1940
a tional Gallery of Canada,
tl awa

21
WITH GESTURES (INTENSE)

Kathe Kollwitz
Losbruch (Assault), 1902-03
Kathe Kollwitz Museum Koln,
Cologne

122
 FROM BURDEN TO UPRISING

va the Kollwitz
iufru h r (Riot), 1899
ira th e Kollwitz Museum Koln,
.ologne

.2 3
 WITH GESTURES (INTENSE)

Tina Modotti
Worker, Mexico, 1928
Archivio Riccardo Toffoletti
Cormtato Tina Modotti, Udine

124
 FROM BURDEN TO UPRISING

Ti na Modotti
V fjm an with Flag, Mexico City, 1928
Vr chivio Riccardo Toft'oletti,
j >mitato Tina Modotti, Udine

1OR
WITH GESTURES (INTENSE)

wmy Romer
LaRevolution uC
de nuuemore.
novembre.
Entree des troupes de premiere ligne
revenant de la guerre sur la Pariser
Platz (The November Revolution:
Front-line troops returning from
the war enter the Pariser Platz) w ir
Kunftbibhothek, SMB, Photothek
Willy Romer, Berlin

126
 FROM BURDEN TO UPRISING

t9 U

y Q T ’V T '

l'erto Korda
luijote de la Farola, Plaza
ta Revolucidn, La Habana,
- a (Don Quixote of the
^etlam p, Plaza de la
f o lucidn, Havana, Cuba), 1959
£cia and Stanislas
uatow ski collection
WITH GESTURES (INTENSE)

Claude Cattelain
Claude C attelain
Video H ebdo 41
Video Hebdo 46
(Weekly video 41), 2009-10
(Weekly video 46), 2009-10
Claude Cattelain colledtion,
Valenciennes Claude Cattelain colledtion,
Valenciennes

128
FROM BURDEN TO UPRISING
WITH GESTURES (INTENSE)

Hammer used by Antonin

Artaud at Ivry for “trying out”
bis texts and Stressing
his didtion, 1947
Biblioth&que Nationale
de France, Paris

130
 W ITH H AM M ER BLOWS

i y

loseph Beuys
Jnbetitlet (Untitled), 1971
iayerische
)taatsgemaldesammlungen
- Sammlung Modeme Kunft in
ler Pinakothek der Modeme
A unchen. Leihgabe Sammlung
(1 user, Munich

131
WITH GESTURES (INTENSE)

Jack Goldstein
A Glass o f Milk , 1972
The Eftate of Jack Goldstein/
Galerie Buchholz, Cologne

132
 AR M S RISE UP

M aria Kourkouta
Remontages, 2016
Production: Jeu de Paume, Paris

133
 WITH GESTURES (INTENSE)

Gustave Courbet
R&volutionnaire sur une barricade
projet defrontispice pour
“LeSalut p u b lic” (R evolutionary
on a barricade: draft frontispiece
for “LeSalut public”), 1848
Mus^e Carnavalet - Hiftoire
de Paris, Paris

134
 AR M S RISE UP

-\ rtonh
* /bhner. ureee aux usines
■Citroen Rose Z e h n e r
i 'c a sin g Strikers at
. J; ivel-C itroen pla nt;. 1938
.:i a th e q u e de l'A rch itectu re
j Pa tr im oin e. Paris
WITH GESTURES (INTENSE)

Marcel G autherot
Sondhjaire diocesam du Bon Jdsus
de Matosinhos (The shrine of
BomJesus de Matosinhos), c. 1947
Institute Moreira Salles, Sao
Paulo

136
 A R M S RISE UP

in a r d Freed
rdents of Guernica in front
mural replica of Pablo
csso’s painting, 1977
l^num Photos, Paris

7
 WITH GESTURES (INTENSE)
Gilles Caron
Manifestation paysanne d Redon
(Farmers demonstrating
in Redon), 1967
Fondation Gilles Caron
Gilles Caron
Manifestation paysanne Redon
(Farmers demonstrating
in Redon), 1967
Fondation Gilles Caron
138
Manifestations anticatholiques
(t Londonderry (Anti-Catholic
dem onstrations
in Londonderry), 1969
Fondation Gilles Caron
Gilles Caron
M anifestations anticatholiques
d Londonderry (Anti-Catholic
dem onstrations in
Londonderry), 1969
Fondation Gilles Caron
AR M S RISE UP
WITH GESTURES (INTENSE)

Julio Gonzalez
Julio Gonzdlez
Mb dreta aix ecad a
Mb esqu erra a ix ec a d a
(Right hand raised), c. 1942
(Left hand raised), c. 1942
Museu Nacional d’A rt
Museu Nacional d’A rt
de Catalunya, Barcelona
de Catalunya, Barcelona

140

Pascal Convert
Soulevem ent (Uprising)
le ft to right: Paul Vaillant-Couturier,
Charles Michels,
Jean-Pierre T im baud, 2015
Pascal Convert/Galerie
Eric Dupont, Paris
Paul Vaillant-Couturier was bom
in 1892 into a family of lyric artiSts:
his mother, Marguerite Vaillant,
was a famous opera singer.
Decorated five times during the FirSt
World War, he later became a pacifist
and socialist. A lawyer, journalist,
writer, and politician, he helped
found the French Communist Party
and became editor in chief of the
Communist daily, L’HumaniU*.
On February 2, 1937, he survived
an assassination attempt, but a
few months later he died suddenly,
at the age of forty-five.
141
Bom in 1903, Charles Michels,
the eldeSt of four children, loSt his
father at the age of eleven. Later,
while working as a labourer, he
made ends meet as a boxer at the
Folies-Belleville cabaret. He was
eledted perm anent secretary of the
CGTU trade union in 1929 and as
a Communist m em ber of parliament
in May 1936. Deprived of his seat on
January 21,1940 because of his
membership of the Communist Party,
he was interned in May 1941, in the
camp at Choisel, Brittany. After the
execution of a German officer by the
ARM S RISE UP
Resistance, General Stiilpnagel ordered
the shooting of 50 hoStages: Pierre
Pucheu, the Vichy minister for the
interior, chose 27 internees from
Choisel, all of them with trade union
and Communist Party connedtions.
Charles Michels was firSt on the liSt,
and was shot on Odtober 22,1941.
His comrade Jean-Pierre Timbaud,
born in 1904, a bronze worker and
secretary of the CGTU Metalworkers
Federation (1931-34), then of
the Paris region CGT trade union
(1936- 39), was shot alongside him.

David "('.him" S e y m o u r
led cn co (,(ircici Lorai.
Dolores Ibdrruri, 1936
M ag n u m Photos, P a n s
1 ^
Elie Faure
“P o rtra it d e p a s s io n a r ia ”
(P o rtra it o f La P a s io n a ria )
in Regards, n o . 134, A u g u st 6,
1936, p. 9
Private collection

(tip s e s t r e v e n u d e p a r l e r d ’elle. H ier. e lle
■ p a r te n a it a la le g e n d e . E iu e d e p u te e
O v ie d o , le c e n t r e d u m a s s a c r e d e s A stu -
es o u elle a c o m b a t tu d a n s le s r a n g s <iu
, u p le , e lle e n tr e a ,u jo u r d ’h u i d a n s m i s ­
fire .
pcflle D o lo re s I b a r r u r i . m a is o n la n o m m e ,
ce. P a s s io n a r ia », p a r u n d e c e s re fle x e s
le l ’i n s t i n c t p o p u la ir e q u i f a i t d o n n e r
u x e c r iv a in s . a u x a r t is te s , a u x h o m m e s
e 'sq u e to u jo u r s a u x to r e r o s , a u x d a n s e u -
£ ~ r ic ju e t q u i c a r a c t e r is e a v e c le p lu s d ’a c -
s a l i t e d e le u r g e n ie . N a g u e re . elle p a r c o u -
a g n e re to m b e e m o m e n t a n e m e n t s o u s le
« r r - tr e s e t d e la b a n q u e . s o u le v a n t le s fo u -
. r u e n t e t c r ie n t. o u p a r f o is s ’a g e n o u ille n t
as.' ;ag e. les p o r t a n t d e s o n c o eur fld e le a u
s e e le u r p u is s a n c e d e c o m b a t. A v a n t- h ie r ,
e i u r s a u t d e p e u r. o n la j e t a i t e n p r is o n ’
i i p r o t e g e a i t les g e o lie r s c o n tr e la c o le re
i u t s . A u jo u r d ’h u i, e lie e s t a v e c le p e u p le
a u ia lig n e d e b a ta ille .
: j i v o ir vu d e b o u t, f a c e a u n p u b lic e n iv r e ,
arsdc; f e m m e v e tu e d e n o ir. ce v is a g e a s c e ti-
s ye. c e s y e u x lu m in e u x so u s les lo u rd e s p a u -
i . s e c h a p p e u n fe u d u n e s i g r a n d e d o u -
s e g e -s te s d o n t l ’e n e r g ie e s t d o m p te e p a r la
s a n c tif le e p a r la g r a c e II f a u t a v o ir
2 _ ,e tte voix d e c h ir e e q u e p o n c tu e la d a n s e
: : * u to u r d u to r s e im m o b ile , le m o u c h o ir
].j p o in g m a ig r e c o m m e p o u r s ’a c c r o c h e r
- - x ;e . ta n d is q u e la p e n s e e b o n d it s u r le s
. rarv.ts. D e te m p s a a u t r e , d ’u n m o u v e m e n t
r e f - m o u c h o ir e s s u ie la b o u c h e t r e m b la n te ,
t y e r a . e t les m a l h e u r e u x q u i l’e c o u te n t
j .- t r a v a i l l e u r s a i t q u e c e t t e tr a v a ilie u s e
a c t d e la c h a ir , d u s a n g , q u 'e lle re c u e ille
■rmes d u p a u v r e . T o u s c o m p r e n n e n t
'r i c - ta p h y s ic ie n s p r e t e n t a r i r e d e v a n t elle .
: - - n n e n t q u e le • s p i r i t u e l » n ’e s t a u t r e
i tio n la p lu s s p o n t a n e e d e la t o t a l i t e d e
j T o u t lo r s q u ’li s 'a g i t d e c e p e u p le re s t* p r i-
2 es. r a c i n e s q u ’il p lo n g e d a n s s o n sol s a t u r e
J u f r e p r e s e n t e p o u r t a n t , e t p o u r c e la s a n s
- l n s h a u t e s c im e s d e l 'e s p r i t E lle n e p a r le
• re l a n g u e q u e la s ie n n e . M a is le c h o c e s t
p o itr in e s q u e t o u s s u iv e n t la p e n se e ,
r u i k ! ils n e s a i s i s s e n t p a s u n m o t d e ce
a m a i s r ie n v u n i e n t e n d u d e p a r e il. J a -
n t r e o r a t e u r e t a u d ito ir e . u n e te lle
f o r c e a b a n d o n n e e a u c o u r s in v is ib le
f n c r v e u s e j a m a i s e p r o u v e a c e p o in t la
la v e r ite s 'im p o s e a c e tt e s e c o n d e p o u r
^ t e s le s a m e s J e n 'a i j a m a i s e n t e n d u a u -
• 'n i a ille u r s . c e s in f le x io n s s i t e n d r e s d a n s
i j c h e s a c c e n ts , n i ce d e b it p r e c ip ite , i n -
ut - e t r e . p o u s s e p a r le s s p a s m e s d u cce u r.
- t r a c t io n P a s u n f l o t te m e n t n o n p lu s,
- >u L e s f a i t s , le s e t r e s s e u ls y s o n t s a is is
as «*.vec u n e p a s s io n q u i t r a n s f o r m e im m e -
i u r s r a p p o r t s e n fig u r e s s u r h u m a in e s .
e p a y s a n n e . la f e m m e d ’u n p a u v r e m i-
L <4 u e lle a r i s t o c r a t e n e e ! J a m a i s u n g e s te
- -■e d u r y th m e d e la p e n s e e , ja m a i s u n e
q u e n ’e n v ir o n n e u n e s p a c e oil la t e n -
~ : j » e c o m m e l ’a ir q u i n o u r r i t e t la lu m ie r e
•ox, j a m a i s u n e p a r o le d e h a i n e q u i n e s o it
- 2 I’ a m o u r O n la d i r a i t s o u le v e e a u - d e s s u s
x lie p o r te d a n s s o n c o e u r p a r le s c c e u rs
• * u x q u i I e c o u te n t. O u d o n e a - t - e l l e p ris
■i? d e g r a n d e d a m e , s in o n d a n s c e co eu r
■ x u la p itie e t la c o le r e g r o n d e n t d a n s le
^ x e rn e n t R ie n n e s ’a p p r e n d , r ie n n e s ’a c -
f i c t ' p la n d e l ’e s p r i t C ’e s t u n e s o u r c e q u i
- h tr o u v e s o n e s t u a i r e s a n s c e sse e la r g i
■*-ii r n lt^ d u d e s e s p o lr e t d u d e s i r o u la s o il
« e i ’a b r e u v e . Q u i n e s e r a i t v a in c u p a r e lle
7 - p a r le d e s v a i n c u s s e r a i t i n d ig n e d e
q i »e v ic to ir e q u e lc o n q u e s u r a u t r u i o u s u r
■i d e la lig n e e la p lu s n o b le e t la p lu s
• lis* 1 o ir e , la f e m m e d u p e u p le q u i s e le v e
r a v a g e p o u r s a u v e r le m o n d e m e m e ,
* 1c la Vie s p ir i t u e ll e e t le m o n d e d e la
• j le s jo u r s . C ’e s t J e a n n e D a re d e v e n u e
m e r e , t e n a n t p a r p lu s d e lie n s e n c o r e
• l a n c e u n iv e r s e lle L E s p r it n e s o u ffle plu«
• m a i s d ’e n b a s. d u s illo n o u le p a u v r e
x i’a v o n s p lu s b e s o in d ’u n e illu s io n s u r -
THE PASION
v a le ts 8008 *C C*eS s0*<*a t s e t ,a m a fr a q u c des
P o u r c e lle -la , on est. tra n q u llle . S a p o p u la rity e s t
d u n e tre m p e tr o p p u re , elle a e te co n q u ise e n des
h e u re s tr o p tra g iq u e s p o u r n e p a s d o m ln e r le su c ­
ces d a u s s i h a u t q u ’elle a d o m in e le d a n g e r e t la
in isere . Elle e s t tr o p fe m m e a u ssi, e t tro p d ’E sp a -
g n e p o u r c esser de d o m in e r la le ttr e E lle e s t d e
c e tte ra c e y tra n g e d ’o u u n e fla m m e a u ssi e tr o ite
qu a r d e n te n 'a cesse d e m o n te r d ro it, e t q ui s'e c h a p -
pe d u fe r d e la la n c e de D on Q u ic h o tte qu elle qu e
s o it l’e p a is s e u r d u voile d e p o u ssie re qui c o u v re ses
so litu d e s deso le es. qu e lle s qu e s o ie n t les d e c e p tio n s
q ui a t t e n d e n t !es so n g e s de ses h ero s. q u els que
s o ie n t les m ira g e s qui d a n s e n t d e v a n t les y eux
d e ses m y stiq u e s.
Q u ’o n n e s ’y tro m p e p as. s u rto u t. Q ue ce so it
G o y a ou s a in te T h e re se , e 'e s t d e la m em e fla m m e
q u ’il s ’a g it. C a p te e s o u v e n t p a r le c a th o lic ism e . elle
b rille a u ssi b ie n cn d e h o rs d e lui. c o m m e elle lu i
su r v iv ra . E lle e s t le m ira c le m em e de n o tre E sp a -
g n e . on n e la c o n n a it p a s a ille u rs. C ’e s t e lle q u i
b r u la it a v ec les m u rs d e S a ra g o sse q u a n d les .-mu­
lc ts d e N a p o leo n b r o y a ie n t so u s eu x se s d e fe n se u rs.
C ’e st elle qui, a I’h e u r e ou j ’ecris. j e tte e n p a q u tts
fr e n e tiq u e s s u r ces m e m e s m u rs re leves, p u is re n -
verse s d e n o u v e a u d a n s le s c e n d re s de s fo y ers d e -
tr u its , d e s b a n d e s d ’o u v rie rs, d e p a y sa n s. d 'e n f a n ts ,
de fe m m e s q u i e x ig e n t de la R ep u b liq u e la f a v e u r
de m o u rir p o u r q u 'e lle vive.
C’e s t elle qui, d a n s les d ra m e s d e C a ld e ro n , n e
tro u v e p o u r r e p o n d a n ts a la fie rte de l’h o m m e qu e
le s a n g de ses p ro p r e s v e in e s e t !e s a n g q ui b aagne
la C roix. C ’e s t e lle q u i tr a v e r s e e n n a p p e s f u lg u -
r a n te s le co rp s n e rv e u x de la d a n se u se , d u ta lo n q u i
fr a p p e le sol a u x d o ig ts c o n v u lse s d ’ou elle fu se en
c r e p ita n t. C’e s t elle, il f a u t a v o ir le c o u ra g e d e le
re c o n n a itr e , q u i p lo n g e a v ec 1’ep ee c o n d u ite p a r la
v o lo n ty in te llig e n te ju s q u ’a u coeur d u m o n s tr e fu -
rieu x . C ’e s t e lle a u s s i q ui a je te la ro b e d e l’in -
f a n te , tisse e d e ro se e e t d e fle u rs. s u r les d e s e rts
s in is tr e s d e C a stille .
P a s s io n a ria , h e r o in e g u e rr ie re , e s t a u ssi u n e
s a in te d e s te m p s n o u v e a u x . E lle sy m b o lise l’e sp e -
r a n c e q u e le trio m p h e d e la re v o lu tio n d ’E sp a g n e
s u r q u a tr e sie c le s d ’h o r r e u r r e p r e s e n t* p o u r l ’O cci-
d e n t.
n a tu r e lle p o u r im p r im e r a n o s a c te s la m a r q u e d e
la g r a n d e u r .
V oici u n p e r s o n n a g e d e le g e n d e , il f a u t le r e p e te r .
S i e lle a v a i t e te j o u r n a lls te , ou c o m e d ie n n e , ou
ro m a n c ie r e q u a n d e lle e s t v e n u e , l ’a n d e r n ie r , im -
p lo r e r le s e c o u rs d e s h o m m e s lib re s p o u r la m a l-
h e u r e u s e E lspagne, to u s le s j o u r n a u x . e t c e u x m e m e
q u i o n t p o u r m is s io n d e c a c h e r la v e r ite a u x p e u ­
p le s se s e r a i e n t o c c u p e s d ’elle. a v e c in te rv ie w s ,
a n e c d o te s , p o r t r a i t s d e fa c e e t d e p ro fll. A p e in e si
n o u s a v o n s e te q u e lq u e d o u z a in e a s u r p r e n d r e s o n
p a s s a g e , ju s t e m e n t p a r c e q u ’il s ’a g is s a it d ’u n e tr e
q u i n ’a r ie n a v o ir a v e c le s c a te g o r ie s d e n o s c o n -
n a is s a n c e s e t le s c a d r e s d e n o s h a b itu d e s , u n e tr e
q u i v it d a n s I’u n iv e rs e l e t le re e l, n o n d a n s le
d e ta il e t l ’a p p a r e n c e U n h e r o s m y th o lo g lq u e en
q u e lq u e s o r te , a u x p r is e s a v e c le m o n d e d e s f a its
e t d e s fo rc e s , le m c ^ d c a a im e r, & c o m p re n d re , a
c o m b a ttr e , a s u r m o n te r . Q u e f a u t - i l d o n e p o u r
q u ’u n e t r e d e le g e n d e r e s te le g e n d a ir e a p r e s so n
e n t r e e d a n s l’H is to ir e ? Q u ’il m a in tie n n e e n lu l les
v e r tu s q u i o n t f a i t n e lu i u n e tr e d e le g e n d e . Q u ’il
r c c c n iia is s e m e m e p a s I’a m b itio n d ’e t r e q u e lq u e
c h o s e a lo r s q u ’il a la g lo ire u n iq u e d 'e t r e q u e lq u ’un.
Q u ’il g a r d e c o n t r e le s u c c e s le c o u r a g e q u ’il a d e ­
W ITH G ESTURES (IN T E N S E )

Paulo Abreu
Conde Fereira, 2003
Paulo Abreu/Light Cone
 W HEN BODIES SAY NO

Geoffray
Xtamorphose II
Jetamorphosis n),
‘tetamorphoses” series,
:i2-i5
:0*£s Geoffray collection

^raCs Geoffray
ctalepsie (Catalepsy),
‘icidental Gestures”
sies, 2011-15
iAX Auvergne,
^rmont-Ferrand

Hoiuing page
<n£s Geoffray
jjra Nelson,“Incidental
^fcures” series, 2011-15
AC Auvergne,
armont-Ferrand
 W ITH G ESTUR ES (IN T E N S E )

146
W HEN BODIES SAY NO
W ITH GESTURES (IN T E N S E )

Jochen Gerz
Calling to the Point o f Exhaustion
1972
Musee National d’Art Modeme
Centre Pompidou, Paris

Preuious page

Annette Messager
so Piques (50 pikes), detail
1992-93 Hiroji Kubota
Annette Messager and Marin Manifestation des Black Panthers
(Black Panthers rally), Chicago
Karmitzcolletftion/Marian 1969 ’
Goodman Gallery
Magnum Photos, Paris

148
 M O U TH S FOR EXCLA IM ING

>
W ITH GESTURES (IN T E N S E )

Julio Gonzalez
Cap de Montserrat cridant (Head
of Montserrat shouting), c. 1942
Museu Nacional d’A rt de
Catalunya, Barcelona

150
 M O U TH S FOR EXC LA IM IN G

lulio Gonzdlez
Zap cridant (Shouting head),
1936-39
Museu Nacional d’A rt
ie Catalunya, Barcelona

lulio Gonzdlez
Montserrat cridant, num . 1
Montserrat shouting, no. l),
1936-39
Museu Nacional d’A rt
le Catalunya, Barcelona
W ITH GESTURES (IN T E N S E )

M X U PA d :
\sa a m <
331000

Graciela Sacco
from the “Bocanada” (A breath
of fresh air) series, 1993-94.
Posters in the ftreets of Rosario,
Argentina
Graciela Sacco collection

152
 M O U TH S FOR EXC LA IM IN G

Volf Vostell
)utsch ke, 1968
laus der Geschichte
ier Bundensrepublik
)eutschland, Bonn
W ITH G ESTUR ES (IN T E N S E )

Lorna Simpson
Easy to Remember, 2001
Lorna Simpson collection

154
 M O U TH S FOR EXC LAIM IN G

r& Language
uting Men, 1975
L3A - Museu d’Art
oem porani de Barcelona,
zelona
 III.
WITH WORDS
(EXCLAIMED)

156
Arms have been raised, mouths have exclaimed. Now,
what are needed are words, sentences to say, sing, think,
discuss, print, transmit. That is why poets place themselves
“at the forefront”of the action itself, as Rimbaud said at
the time of the Paris Commune. Upstream the Romantics,
downstream the Dadaists, Surrealists, Letterists, Situationists,
etc., all undertook poetic insurrections.
“Poetic”does not mean “far from history?’quite the contrary.
There is a poetry of tracts, from the protest leaflet written
by Georg Buchner in 1834 to the digital resistances of today,
through Rene Char in 1943 and the “cine-tracts”ffom 1968.
There is a poetry particular to the use of newspapers and
social networks. There is a particular intelligence—attentive
to the form—inherent in the books of resistance or of
uprising. Until the walls themselves begin to speak and
occupy the public space, the sensible space in its entirety.
 W ITH W O RD S (E X C L A IM E D )

&

lib to u r f

f)y

H f t/'inrs H U Cj/c

jr i f
U * GAYiNE, N« J

>

il / a It/VoLli, f ItUUijU/ML if n o Jtpt MuaU-

- £I i'K
{'tfch
ohll h—V illt______
k fa4^>( _________
MiaiJrluAji____
Joy sM
_
H^t. fi'avaU-^d] l/i1
fftt/M
b u m ihc Ji«K
*k a*.ianuAK ti-
,O n
M
/m
T
A /»/> I;
Ji la flAtflflA i k lo ib (dttcq ^OKa^O a4x
h *AAf64 ha) d tfltu f h M
W.V
U leacficw p * j 7M<~ 4r I m h tin t

pfM hu L\ u Jtu b 1Kujl a je k fa

flefa be la fv4/A£e a I F(i/loj>< U \ /jhcfl'f
(jUA Jb/ji a k ite Aj>aj^l Y0u^ Va^ a* i*U#
h u A , iMtks CfiAGfanies J&j 6 h 'fa p A tfi
U Jtiile/vwtiM vi ic fauv> Ijl) \ *K
(uLvtj ('ttAcdwmt ic bio) I) %(e); J<><■
W fih lc OMtmlL Jics fA Jc J2,

Victor Hugo

l]Z T <(Anniversary
ue 1848 7 ede,arivolution
of
^ r e v o lu tio n of 1848), 1855

- a s s s r - -
ae France, Paris

158
 POETIC INSURRECTIO NS

* r"'
&TW /Uhllemnu.dLLbttfAit)I C](dn
A U lle h jiit, A 4 ( a /A
I dU^HAOtUL ( ^ 1' r ^ ^ ^ / ' Ikiojo* Jh f>«fa
(ut JklM dl £ I Plviopf J&y ^fa x tjudk
)(/\dit tfujtuu) f\M jiu lc th
U ic livhtA&iL f L JiptafifiH Ityehht**-.
Oh U*\ :
L Jeui fwpL -f lq fuUjd
ftdiifa t w tre p io fa ZitM (a Vit
ttitnftWiU' \l K)biic Apt/MtifailM-i ('yf&liz f
1 . . . J / L ^ a i) / ..
)4U M p M ft* * il4 tr4 -h Vfhlb-*- J* “gMl' <
t y b M i e r f l l r ' i h H*M» l , h &**<*
* 4 , f i U laJ c j
i n j u r i I'ftittftJ'& to p * - a,
kc c ^ < . fries to ite , I ' HutH/l/M&V ■ ---- . , — t
(.its ItilUi \ f a ^ frufcMlJhUc( U 4l6Uf)t- ( u w j1**- h 'c f& M - iluA A
j-
»«W

h tfio i l / A U i m * ^ A U
L c f a n o i i ) ] f>/‘4 ^ C lh n $ Y * - y
U tfffo u J e w T A H h U t a
;!n v jcntjf.ilfo t j)L<> )i~ tsn*>*4 t*
L Holm#**'*-* h f i w d ' t &- h h c a ^ t *
h 'y n -
I L L in a iiu , ; (Am L i t * * * i f * * # * ? * ?
Huztj i U4 auy ¥iziban ^
lL JeJ Yo}>* h ^
fa )c n * m k t u t %
l l l j a M- f » f "T d ,
L
lt\ 6 U .\ ^
*& »* yo /« > - h r / < ^‘

v u «- l' m T uh2
V im U , /*)*»■ * *P *T ’

J w i t A » * iw
£ J
SjV
u .

0 f ,,^ L &**u M * A/* t t i L h * ' < V .

, p/^ 4 puyih<Jvu ihisiuMfl4- 1fa* ^ , f a
L '.ikiztifiy
^L O /tsAuHs/A'u^Uto
w bM ? au** JxaAw;\e^-,^>(^fu
m • h uirc
 LE SALUT PUBLIC
2e NUMERO

cuie dans Fair, et enivre les poum ons, comm

VIVE LA REPUBLIQUE! un parfum .
Les redacteurs - proprietaires du S a l u t p u ­ Ou reposer cette tete m audite ?
, CHAMPF L E U R Y, B A U D E L A I R E , et
b lic A R o m e ? ... Le S a in t-P ere ne b^nit plus les
POUBIN ont retarde a dessein I envoi du jo u r­ tyrans.
nal a leurs abonnes, afin de Jaire graver une
T o u t au plus pourrait-il lui donner Fabsolu-
rignetle qui servira d distinguer leur feuille d u n e
tion. Mais Fex-roi s’en m oque. II ne croit ni 1
autre qui s est emparee du meme litre .
D ieu , ni a Diable.
U n verre de Johannisberg pour rafraich ii I
LE8 CIIATIM ENTS DE DIEU.
gosier altdrd du J u if errant de la Royaule1
L ex-roi se promene.
M etternich n ’a pas letein p s. II a bien assez d ai
11 va de peuple en peuple, de ville en ville. faires sur les bras; il Taut intercepter t o u t c s l<
H passe la mer; _ au-dela de la m er, le lettres, tous les journau x, toutes les depeche
peuple bouillonne, |a Republique fermente E t d ’ailleurs, entre despotes, il v a peu de li*‘
sourdement.
ternite. Qu’est c e q u ’un despote sanscouronm
Plus loin, plus loin, au dela de UOcian, la L’ex-roi va toujours de peuple en peuplfc, (i
Republique!
ville en ville.
II rabat sur i’Espagne, _ la Republique cir-
Toujours et toujours, vive la R ep ub lic1'

Tiarles Baudelaire,
Cuftave Courbet, Champfleury,
aid Charles Toubin
L>Salut public, no. 2,1848
tiblioth&que Nationale
ce France, Paris
POETIC INSURRECTIONS
ALLIANCE
4 3 0 TON
CRANE
DADA^i*v. T O U T
Philippe Soupault
Dada soultve tout (Dada lifts
everything), 1921
ChanceUerie des University de
Paris - Bibliothdque Littdraire
Jacques Doucet, Paris
W ITH W O RD S (E X C L A IM E D )

nauMiiann
?Zt™lf H/rwarth Wa,dend B°™t
n ^ V ,T w h Walden at Bonset), 1921
RKD T p th / "T DoesburS Archive,
kkd - Netherlands Institute
for Art History, La Haye

162
POETIC INSURRECTIONS
 W ITH W O RDS (E X C L A IM E D )

N° 1 — P r e m ie r e a n n e e 19 ler Decembre 1924

REVOLUTION
URREALISTE

FAUT g
ABOUTIR A UNE
NOUVELLE DECLARATION''
CES DROITS DE L'HOMME

. .. . , _ SOMMA1RE
J .-A . B o iffard , P . E lu a rd , R. V itra c . |
‘ : ,Je o rg io d e C hirico, A n d re B re to n , C h ro n iq u es ;
R enee G a u th ie r . L ouis A ra g o n , P h ilip p e S o u p a u lt,
Texte. surrealistes ■ ' M ax M orise, J o sep h D e lte il,
•■■««.! fto u , R o b e rt D esnoa, B e n ja m in P e r e t F r a n c is G erard, e tc .
G eorges M olkine, P au l E lu a rd N o te s.
J -A . B oiffard. S. B ., M ax M o r s e Illu stratio n s : P h o to s M an R ay.
l.ouis A rag o n , F ra n c is G e ra rd . Max M orise. G. de C hirico, M ax E r n s t.
L- 1cveur P»rmi l « murailits : P ie rre R ev e rd y A nd re M asson, P a b lo P ica sso . P ierre N a v ille ,
R obert D esn o s.
ABONNEMENT,
le* 12 Numcros •
f r a n c c : 45 fra n c s
P • aire gdnsral : Librairie GALL1MARD
LE N U M IjR O ;
S tr a n g e r : 55 fra n c s ts, Boulevard Raspail, 15
P A R IS (VII ) France : 4 franc
Etranger : 5 fri

Andr<* Breton et al.

La Revolution surrealifte
n o - 1 ,1924
Biblioth&que Nationale
de France, Paris

164
 POETIC INSURRECTIO NS

n. - POSITION DE LTJNION SUR DES POINTS ESSENTiELS

i O X T IIE -IT T 1 Q IK
I n io n d r l i il l r drw I n l r l l r r l t i r K R i'v o liilio n iiiiirc *

- Vtolenurxnt hostile* a toute tendance, quelque forme qu'elle pi nne. captant la Revo-
ben&Ice des idees de nation ou de patr.e. nous nous adressons a s ceux qui, par tous
os et sans reserve, sont re solus &abattre I’autorite capitaliste et s institutions politi-

--------------------ne elimine quicooque est inca-

>s isrue, de passer a des considerations realistes.
1 — Nous atfirmons que le regime actual doit etre attaque avec une tactique renouvelee. La
tactiquc traditionnelle des mouvements revolution nairas n'a jamais valu qu’appliqute a la liquida­
tion des autocraties. Appliquee a la lutte contre les regimes democratiques, elle a tnene deux fois
le mouvement ouvrier au dhsastre Notre Uche essentielle. urgente, est la constitution d'une doc­
trine rerulisnt des experiences irr. mediates. Dans les circonstanoes historiques que nous vivons,
Ilneapeeit* de tirer les leqons de ('experience doit etre cor.sideree comme criminelle,
4. — Nous avens conacience que les conditions actuelles de la lutte exigeront do ceux qui
sort resolus a s'emparer du pouvoir une violence imperative qui ne le cede A aucune autre, mais,
quelle que puisse etre notre aversion pour les diverses formes de l'autorite sociale. nous ne reeu-
lerons pas devant cette ineluctable neeessite. pas plus que devant toutes cclles qui peuvent nous
etre impasses par les consequences de l'action que nous engaseons.

v des institutions bourgeoises, ai

ons*:tution <Tun gouvemement d lie, exige UNE
INTRAITABLE DICTATURE DU PEUPLE A
1 — Ce n'est pas une insurrection informc qui s’emparera du pouvoir. Ce qui decide aujour-
d"bu: de la destinee sociale, c'esl la creation organique d'une vaste composition de forces, discipli­
ne. fanatique.capable ifexercer le jour venu une autorite impHoyable Une telle composition de
forces dougrouper l'ensemble de ceux qui n'acceptent pas la course i l'ablme — a la ruine et i
'---------------- ' ’le capitaliste sans cerveau et sans yeux ; elle doit s’adresscr a tous ceux qui
our etre conduits par des valets et des esdaves (1) — qui exigent de vivre
______ mee immediate da l'etre humain — qui se refusent a laisser cchapper Uche-
se materieUe. due i la cnUeetivite, et I’exaltation morale, sans lesquellcs la vie nc
i pas rencme a la veritable Uberte.
MORT A TOUS LES ESCLAVES DU CAPITAUSME!
C O \T R K - A T T .tQ lK
P u n u AIMERY. Cnoitcc AMBROS1NO. Groxcts BATAtLLE, Rocr« BLIN, I SQASE lEon cullou. paws. xv«
J xcqcis-Axdm BOIFFARD. AxdrS BRETON. Ctauot CAHUN. Jacqtizs CHAVY.
Jiax DELMAS, Itxa DAUTRY. PaDL ELUARD, Matnuct HEINE, PirrJtr
KLOSSOVSKL BO.J1MIK PERET.

Gorges Bataille
id Andrd Breton
Intre-Attaque : union de lutte
1, intelleftuels rfvolutionnaires
•junter-attack: United front
: revolutionary intellectuals),
m
bliothfcque Nationale
: France, Paris
W ITH W O RD S (E X C LA IM E D )

dans les esprits abstraits. de plus en plus abs-

traits. de plus en plus refoulants.
Lourd. Ipais. em barrassant en effet est le
m onde.
P our le to llre r, il faut en rejeter beaucoup
d une fa^on ou d une autre. Us le font tous.
Je le fis particulierem ent tot. tro p t6t. A m a
m an itre. A spirant k plus de tran srie l. * y vivre
toujours.

J ai peint afin de rendre le m onde plus

•marquant*. rout en refusant le Tlalism e» des
conduites, et des idles. J'ouvrais ainsi d un
c6tl. tenant ferm l 1’autre.
Des signu. ma prem itre recherche.
C’est le m onde reduit, au m axim um .
Certains rlduisent le m onde <i I'intelligibilitl.
114 ce qui est le rejeter en panie. com m e on le voit

Henri Michaux
fimergences-r^surgences
[Emergences/ftesurgences]
Geneva: Albert Skira, 1972
Jeu de Paume, Paris

166
 POETIC INSURRECTIONS

Henri Michaux
Sans titre (Untitled), 1971
Private colledtion
W ITH W O RD S (E X C LA IM E D )

F- ^\ ...^ L .

~7"' f---7— T- r‘4-—-'- ~

I~~ . : j -.«-i

*...... _ _. . __: ; .- - ' : ( ) ^

~~• ~T *r ... -rr’ ", T — *" ■

'
----~-Uf-r-

Antonin Artaud
Notebook no. 326, 1947
Biblioth&que Nationale
de France, Paris
Antonin Artaud
Notebook no. 321, 1947
Biblioth&que Nationale
de France, Paris

168
 POETIC INSURRECTIO NS

•ier Paolo Pasolini

vnografia ingiallita
?er un “Poema fotografico”)
followed iconography
o r a “Photographic poem”])
uxin: Einaudi, 1975
de Paume, Paris
 W ITH W O RD S (E X C LA IM E D )

Marcel Broodthaers
Soleil politiqu e et Fig., Fig. Fie.
(Political sun and Fig., fig’ flg)
(diptych), 1972 g'’ 80
Eftate Marcel Broodthaers

170
 POETIC INSURRECTIO NS

CARTE DU 5
TCW JK POLITIQ U E

la reel Broodthaers
Jrte d ’une utopie politique
Deux petits tableaux lo u 0
4ap of a political utopia and
wo little pictures l or 0), 1973
rivate collection
W ITH W O RD S (E X C L A IM E D )

Gil Joseph Wolman

Prague occuptfe par Russes ou
Art scotch (Prague occupied by
the Russians or Tape art), c. 1968
Les Abattoirs, Toulouse

172
 POETIC INSURRECTIO NS

/cVioA ^ vt ■i.''**y ' y*r ' f~''~/^<C' -

; fee*
i: a 'tiK ? ? K '" V &

&H f < V ^ :/ \ <» $ AY/A' A//^ V?V

T »«q (L r fa sv -
i T '/ .V y t t S r * '- - ' •. v. ■£ ., r . i . \" *

v?5jr,

i i-.Lv.^,>f-;V6l

[S&^ShgN '> 4,A•'A;.*"V». X* W > ^ ’’“W'

: ^ ' v - )*-%' -; .
J' ..-tv ■.

fcrnard Heidsieck
bchines a mots, no. 10 (Word
lachines, no. 10), Odtober 1971
andwriting and collaged
■ess photograph
;n tre National des Arts
antiques, Paris
W ITH W O RD S (E X C L A IM E D )

Giselle Freund
International Congress o f Writers
fo r the Defense o f Culture, 1935
IMEC, Inftitut Ntemoires de
1Edition Contemporaine -
Abbaye d’Ardenne,
Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-Herbe

174
POETIC INSURRECTIO NS
W ITH W O RD S (E X C LA IM E D )
N° 25
LIBERATION
ORGANE DES MOUVEMENTS
Un seul chef: DE GAULLE; une seule lu tte ; POUR NOS LIBERTES
La Jeunesse frangaise repond: Mer
i e Rassemblement du Peuple
La croix ga m m ee a d'abord £te le
sym bole de la Resistance. A M unich
en 1920 les hom m es d’Hiile r etaient
contre la collabo ra tio n.
A L IB E R A T I O N aussi, nou s s o m m e s
les ennemis de la collaboration, jmais
nou s so m m es surtout les e n n e m is du
Fascisme. D ’un nouveau Fascisme qui
tenteraitde se lever sur I’im m in ente defai-
te allemande, NOUS N E VO UL O N S PAS.
^-e G e n e r a l D E G A U L l . E est
C h e f , tl n' cst pa s n ot r e E i t h r c r .
Le Gene ral DE GA ULLE ne repnS-
sente pas un cesarisnie naissant, une
ambuion personnelle. il est le garant
de la LIHKRTE nationale et ind iv id u el le .
Les «resivtants» de la derniere heure
aiment a nous consid£rer c o m m e de
iavcs jeunes ge ns qui n ’auraient d’au-
re espoir que celui du martyre.
i t i fr 'u T v e n n a llu
Frangais, sab otez le r e c e n s e m e n t pour la d eportation
176
I r M ars 194:1
Autres Organes des Mon
de Resistance Un
COMBAT ___
DE RESISTAN CE UNIS
FRANC-TIREU
S A B O T E Z LA CONSCRIP
des esclaves au serviced!
Des ma rtyr s? Certes il en fallait. Pour La r e l i v e n ’ayant pas donne k
I’H o m m e , pour le M o n d e , pou r l ’His - sultats qu e les A lle mand s en aiicnc
toire. Le Parti C o m m u n is t e et n o u s - Hitler a exige de Vichy *des iik
niemes, n o u s d o n u o n s les m eilleur s plus d raconie nnes.
d entre nou s. Le mot de mob ilisation, dans L
Nais n ou s so tn m e s d es VO L O N TA IR ES c h e de ceu x qui capitulerent cn
nous ne so in m e s pas des im b e c ile s . 1940 risquait d’indigner le pcupi
N o u s s o m m e s des je u n es qu e d e u x an- Franc e. Aussi l’a t on Template | .
nees de co m bat ont muris. N o u s avons press ion attenude : a Service obiu
beaucoup app ii s, de V ic h y et a u s s i . . . du travail ».
n o tr e d Alger. N o u s savons reconnaitre les en­ 11 s ’agit en fait de la dlportaiion
ne mis de la Libertd qu els q u ’ils sqient. siv e de notre je un es se . Non coi
Le fa scime in ter nat ional, c ’est la con- de garder non prisonniers ct dair
tre-rdvolution p r e v e n tiv e c ’est la Sainte nos o u r r i e i s a leurs foyer, les Alter
A llian ce des nantis terrilies, la derniere no u s d e m a n d e n t tous nos jciints
cari ouche c o m r e ce l a s s e m b le m e n t po- m es, sans e x c e p t io n .
pulaire qui d6ja, dans le m o n d e entie r, II ne s ’agit pas, com m e le Lu
allait detruire les p r ivile ge s d ’un c ap i- tend re h y p o c r ite m e n t le Uxte oil
ta lism e moribond.
“de repartir equit ablement enire
(suite p a g e 2) les F r a n c i s les ’charges resultant
be soin s de notre e co n om ic ». II
de livrer de nou veaux bras a I'.1.11
gn e . B ic he lo nne qui a quelque 1
d etre in for m e, a precise que les
vell es «recrues» seraient alfectees
co ns truc tio n de fortificaiionsen Pole
En dc ha nge de cette conscription
cla ve s au servic e d ’11 itier. L I
offre de lib<§rer quelque^ piL 1
L’atroce c o m e d ie de la releve cor'
qui permettra au gouvernerpen1
chy de p r e s m l e r com m e un a- c
generetise politique l’un des cii"
lui sera le plus difficilement p , !t
C on tr e ces nou vell ts mesute 3
nesse fran^aise s ’est deja, ■1 efl
dress^e to u te entidre.
L’e x e m p le des ouvriers de I 1 11 ct \
VIVUivuiVI I‘
d t m e u r e r constnrhment p r e se n t
ses y e n x . -Les ou vrie is ont ret'i
six mois, par leur resistance I '(’I
tion de* m esures de requisiii""
de France, im ite z leur t.venp'
m o is que vo u s ponrrez gag'" 1 i "11
IS
U E c o n f i d e s fit.
O'cs rourageusetnent.
d o u b le aujourd hui car I’A lh '11
press^e, car ?a ddfa te est p o f
M anifestez c o n tre le -servioe
g a to ire du tra v a il. , >////*/ 'I
m®.

Anonymous (French)
La jeunesse frangaise rdpond:
derde !” (France’s youth says:
'hit!), Call to adtion in Liberation,
10.20, March l, 1943
Tivate colledtion
THE MESSAGE OF THE BUTTERFLIES
Anonym ous (French)
Colledtion of leaflets
Bibliothdque nationale
de France, Paris
 W ITH W O RD S (E X C L A IM E D )

178
 THE MESSAGE OF THE BUTTERFLIES

—
-F-) J~L<.
rlWiiuAslx'fi^ /ix^AL
tyAi^sit^Z 1

KAfiTAl

i
'^ v ^ r
A A , A
„ !s t e ^
/F vF^

1/
S(j*oot ~ A ^ l J+ JltA .
W ITH W O RD S (E X C L A IM E D )

Joseph Beuys
Diagramma Terremoto
(Diagram of an earthquake), 1981
Isabel and Aguftfn Coppel
colledtion, Mexico

P reuious pages
Joseph Beuys
So kann die Parteiendiktatur
uberwunden werden
(Thus can the didtatorship
of parties be overcome), 1971
Pinakothek der Modeme,
Munich

180
 THE MESSAGE OF THE BUTTERFLIES

n o n y m o u s (French)
i/etracte (Film tracts), 1968
k i a collection, Paris
 W ITH W O RDS (E X C LA IM E D )

Hdlio Oiticica
Seja Marginal Seja Herd/
(Be an outlaw be a hero), i 968
Private colledtion

182
 THE MESSAGE OF THE BUTTERFLIES

air tfp
' avoir un faibJe pouL
"CARTOUqj
Vous i sit

Asger Jom
l in de Copenhague
fEnd of Copenhagen),
' 957, Paris: Allia, 2001
Jeu de Paume, Paris
W ITH W O RD S (E X C LA IM E D )

Gerard Fromanger
Film -traft no. 1968,1968
Mus£e National d’A rt Modeme,
Centre Pompidou, Paris

184
 THE M ESSAGE OF THE BUTTERFLIES

TIIK I KITED STATES OF AM EHICA

* C 18166354 D 011128

C18166354 0 011128

BI 3 5 8 9 BANCO CENTRAL DO BRASIL k -

4174J-

I 358 9
I 86

017012L

Cildo Meireles
Inseiyoes em circuitos ideoldgicos 2:
Projeto C&dula (Insertions
into ideological circuits 2:
Banknote projed), 1970
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte
Reina Sofia, Madrid

185
W ITH W O RD S (E X C L A IM E D )

30 C e n tim e s

cri cfe paris

Dimanche 3 3 Janvier 1 8 9 8

D etsm n , p YalloUrj,,. ,bA

'•A<»Ii DUMPIER

F61ix Vallotton
L’Age de papier (The age of paper)
cover illustration for Le Cri de Paris,
no. 52, January 1898
Biblioth&que Nationale
de France, Paris

186

Man Ray
Cover, Mother Earth, DC,
no. 6. New York, edited by
Emma Goldman, 1914
David and Marcel Fleiss
collection, Galerie 1900-2000,
Paris
187
NEWSPAPERS
Man Ray
Cover, Mother Earth, IX,
no. 7, New York, edited
by Emma Goldman, 1914
David and Marcel Fleiss
collection, Galerie 1900-2000,
Paris
W ITH W O RDS (E X C LA IM E D )

M E R ID IA P h g . 4- ___________ L E S A R T S ------------------------------- ^

UNES DECLARACIONS
it L'Elnsteie? I qui »« P " S K V S A C K I W I S DE CARL EINSTEl
MIRO I DALI — L ART REVO Lli CION A RI — EL ROL DELS INTEL- 1.L< [fl

veil ronsonHc. I on perill. En return,

an ocodcmisme falsomcnt rcrolucionori, intellectuals i ,
que explore una consltNocU. Evidentment soben croot-lot Continue.
une revolta ottricto- tinua: bar el rol ben com
menr estitico i t in- ient» an la pinturo promet dels intel
tuficient. Ccrquen le Un acodemismc per lectuols i abando
noyctat, oltrament nor el privilegi d'u
arcoico, I ocoben no cerardie venera
imitant-se oils mo- ble ■ mol pagoda i
tcixos eontinuoment. anar a let tnnia-
Doli fa tempre Do­
ll*...
— E» porla molt o
rot cl men d'ort
revolucionoH. A r a
\ moteix una impor­
tant rerista froncc-
so ho obcrt uno en-
i quest a tobre oquest
I tcma. Que en pen-
r tea?
— En principi, for
L art avui i t un pre-
I text per a evitor el
1 porill. Toto content -
1 plocio is posterior
el* fets. I i t ora que
col exposor-se sense
I trollodorcs es bur-

CARL EINSTEIN rct intellectuals ol

front. I els soldots
ho so ben perfecto-
ment. En realitat,
els intellectuals con-

tligi internocionol. Els seus llib

ossaigs, els seus article*, que
o lucidese de pensament, una I

tin ha publicot un
r do llibret que h
els idiomes. Ara
le I'ort a f.ccio i
ossoig per erribor a la bio-
ombdos llibret editat* per
I'Africa, csportiu cent per
ttemociono! do boxa i de
:tualmont l*onic intellectual
tdiol quo lluita alt nostres

A q u e s i num t *1
ha p a a t a t Ptr

HOME INVISIUf 0930) fa c e n aur*

A le Calms flerretrodr I
tueimctil els " Imspert
Iradon de die nr ■ de Uibr.i
pert" sdn tutu I Adlan, I
Karzon. LaUsnde, I abadall.
Van Moppet. No eneu -
tin genus!t. S'atmUnlen J
divertils, personals, t Uurt

Jem a, pinion
de la tentable

Francis Iminlssi

> de Pads
■Perl, on
cretecch l„
■•rfncvr? A

188
 NEWSPAPERS

irl Einstein
Lnes declarations sensacionals
fCarl Einstein” (A sensational
utement by Carl Einstein), 1938
Jticle by Sebottomtik Gasch in
f ridid. Setmanari de literatura,
r i politico: tribuna del Front
lelleftual AntifeixiSla (Meridib. T ina M odotti
•.veekly of literature, art Peasants reading
Jd politics: the voice of the “El Machete”, 1927
^ti-Fascift Intellectual Front) Archivio Riccardo Toffoletti,
"vate collection Comitato Tina Modotti, Udine
W ITH W O R D S (E X C L A IM E D )

'

$ ra u S r . O to fa S u je m b u rg S
fogenannte 3unius-33rofcf)ure

Sie &rtfe Der

©ojialDemofratie
33on 3 u n tu 3
31nf)ang: fieitfafte liber 5ie CUufgabeit
6er intemationalen ©ojiaibemofra'ie
(Sine © e fa n g n itfa r b e it b o n
g r a u S r . O ^o fa S u j e m b u r g

l . bte 5 . £aufenD

31. ftoffmanna Q^erlag (S. m. b. Berlin O. 27, 33lumenftr. 22

iig|il!llltl||!||l!l!llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll||||||lll|l

VO 17

Rosa Luxemburg
Die Krise der Sozialdemokratie
[The Crisis of Social Democracy],
Zurich: Verlagsdruckerei, 1916
Akademie der Kun^le, Berlin,
Nachlassbibliothek Bertolt Brecht

190
 M AKIN G A BOOK OF RESISTANCE

NOCHEJ d e JEVILLA
f y c

Anonymous (Catalan)
**± & > * *
iNT-FAL Barcelone, 1936
Irivate collection

.Can Alloucherie
+
laches de Sevilla. Un mes entre U N A\EX\
bs rebeldes (Nights in Seville,
month with the rebels), E N T R E LO J RE BE LD EX
larcelona-Madrid, 1937 p a r E
J A N A L L O U C H E R I E
rivate collection

91
 W ITH W O RDS (E X C LA IM E D )

John Heartfield
Art for the duftjacket
of John Reed’s 10 Tage, die
die Welt erschutterten [Ten Days
That Shook the World], Verlag
fur Literatur und Politik,
Vienna-Berlin, 1927
Akademie der KiinSte,
Kun^tsammlung, Berlin
John H eartfield
Artwork for the m agazine
Jahrbuchfur Politik,
Wirtschaft, Arbeiterbewegung
Verlag Carl Hoym Nachf.,
Hamburg-Berlin, 1926
Akademie der Kunfte,
Kunftsammlung, Berlin

192
 m a k in g a b o o k o f r e s is t a n c e

B E N U T Z E FOTO ALS WAF FE! ZUR AUSSTELLUNG DER ARBEITEN VON J O H N H E A R T F I E L D

AUF DER GROSSEN BERLINER KUNSTAUSSTELLUNG

[Ml
* A _ J

BENUETZE FOTO ALS WAFFE

In der K unst m anifestiert sich das Leben.

Unsere durch T echnik und Klassenkam pf gekenn-
zeichnete Z e it hat sich in H eartfields K unst eine
auBerordentlich charakteristische A usdrucksform
geschaffen. Sie ist unlosbar v e rkn iip ft m it dem
W esen der heutigen Gesellschaft. A ngesichts
der gigantischen gesellschaftlichen K onflikte, die
wir durchleben, hat die ..Kunst als P rivatver-
gnugen1', hat die ..reine Kunst '1 ausgespielt. Das
G efuhl fur die D inge als solche ist w ichtiger als
der Sinn fu rd a s K u n s tle ris c h e ! Lebensberechtigung
und G eltung hat nur die Kunst, die die bew egen-
den K rafte unserer G esellschaft sieht und erkennt
und aus dieser Erkenntnis die Folgerung zieht:
Partem ahm e und K am pf!
John Heartfields K unst — Plakate, Buchein-
bande, lllustrationen — ist aus dieser E rkenntnis
geboren, seine Kunst ist W affe W affe im Kam pf
um eine neue, endlich m enschenw iirdige O rdnung.
in der die Massen der Schaffenden nicht nur den
H unger nach Brot. sondern auch den nach K ultur
und K unst w erden stillen kdnnen.
F C. W eiskopf

17

hn Heartfield
enutze Foto als Waffe!” (Use photography
a weapon!), AIZ magazine, no. 37, Neuer
utscher Verlag, Berlin, Jg. Vm, no. 37, p. 17,1929
ademie der Kun^te, Kun^tsammlung, Berlin

i7
W ITH W O RD S (E X C L A IM E D )

Alvaro Sarm iento, Fina Torres,

Neruda. Entierro y teftamento
(Neruda: Burial and tribute),
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria,
Inventarios Provisionales, 1974
Jeu de Paume, Paris

Alfredo M. Bonanno
La Gioia armata [Armed Joy],
Edizioni di Anarchismo, 1977 EDIZIONI DI ANARQHISMO
Jeu de Paume, Paris T

194
 M AKIN G A BOOK OF RESISTANCE

Vnonymous (Mexican)
)jo! Una revifla que ue
Eye! A magazine that sees),
Mexico, 1958
:ir$t issue of a magazine
elf-published by Hddtor Garcia
^Jexis Fabry collection. Paris

195
W ITH W O RD S (E X C L A IM E D )
Anonymous (French)
Appel, 2003
Private colledtion
196
TIQQUN
O rgane de liaison au sein d u Parti Im aginaire
Z one d ’O p acite O ffensive
Anonymous (French)
Tiqqun, 2001
Private colledtion
 M AKIN G A BOOK OF RESISTANCE

L iVftO
'• s ' A sl ,

c a M e .

TRABALHp AC . ^ J ;ri/e $

L o u is J i.

rtur Barrio
lto de C am e (Meat bookj; 1978
• tur Barno collection
 W ITH W O RDS (E X C LA IM E D )

tornjpe a
c6uaIt }Ii £

'•1 <><., '4',/ ' - •, • -

Mi un
*OUT j SABAfa si
P v T -f-

PAA.TSor 7 ?
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Dfl/fNS D J^ 8 A T ic n o LLI

« ■iksJ ! (lJ p 1f P | 1 4, f c '/ T l U E / T a - - / I t m f^ d n 1 ?'" '•

^ j I a/T * T* >r :, ■ •- P u n A T & W / J J ' /\ A U A Q M

- L r •* - -4 ; . ,,. i .... **

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1- i.
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Mf n
&.<X{¥su~'
V'
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rpuLEf X1
Jp?
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2A-ynAS
**.-£
. £** , nAs
nA<riir-p-- —
' n J 1fittrer- i
D
£ r v,UE7t
jl r
5lwi£S T T '*•' **
i JPT ^
___ ^ ' _

r , ^ **,•-••,
f“?V3p ,".*£■> .

Anonym ous (French)

Anonymous (French)
Manures de dire (Ways
of speaking), 1880
W partem ent Patrimonial
au Service de la Mdmoire
et des Affaires Culturelles
(SMAC) de la Prtfedture
de Police de Paris
£ledtions k la commune.
GuStave Courbet candidat
du VP arrondissement,
scrutin du 10 avril 1871
(E ledtionsforthe Commune.
Guftave Courbet, candidate
for the 6th arrondissem ent,
eledtion April 10,1871)
Documentation, Musde d’Orsay,

198
 THE WALLS SPEAK UP

REPUBLIQUE FRANCAISE
LIBERTE, EGALITE, FRATERNITE

ELECTIONS
A L A C o m n n iE
SCRUTIN DU 1 0 AVRIL 1 8 7 1

Les M em bres du Coroite Electoral republicain du 6ra* arrondissem ent, p a r

deference pour le su ffrage de leu rs concitoyens, recom m ail dent k leur choix, pouf
E le c tio n a la C om m une, le citoyen

qui a obtenu le p lu s gran d noinbre de v oix apr£s les elus du 26 m a r s, et Ini

adjoignent le citoyen

s
Le Com ity electoral republicain du 6* Arrondissement*
W ITH W O R D S (E X C L A IM E D )

Raymond Hains
°A5. Fusillez les pla§liqueurs
(OAS. Shoot the bombers), 1961
Private colledtion

200
 THE WALLS SPEAK UP

ymond Hains
ns titre (Untitled), 1952
AC Nord-Pas-de-Calais,
tnkirk
W ITH W O RD S (E X C LA IM E D )
. ■*- — ■y-7- «JC~
\ x ^ j> n 4 rv
^ " js a in g r e s o a ia is g r e s e
iC M D S ie a 1'H O TE L I N T E R C O N T I N E N T A L U M V E R S I D T D IMVERSI

's s f S K S r li M ts& siiatriJ

T® 7P.U.^ Aaiiteno Slu«e L* Terflilat},.
HOTEL iNTEReONTINENTnt
affijfpjx new *
miscARUKncw-*,

i.n /

los tr; ■7j1ot

M O S: DE; Vi

• HOt |jurir.7bJtno/I* M 1
7bJuL»noTerluiUt
/!’
,
»-"• L»Ttrmial
rJMf?,,„ m> . •.»«* , ............ ~
110 IKE
m m m i itimjewu ;

AV 2 N N 7-€*C* A V ? !
UIBCAWJC.nCUL’RIll'

* O': |/ ^
LA
"jlVJ,
b,vM^ c r u ./> M
ii m itii * u w

Ever A studillo Delgado

Cali, 1975-78
Leticia and Stanislas
Poniatowski colledtion

Ever A studillo Delgado

Cali, 1975-78
Fondation Cartier pour l’Art
Contem porain, Paris

Ever A studillo Delgado

Cali, 1975-78
Fondation Cartier pour l’Art
Contem porain, Paris

202
 THE W ALLS SPEAK UP

rW 'f :

til Joseph Wolman

tins titre (la tragidie) (Untitled
tragedy]), 1966
Jatalie Seroussi gallery, Paris

s illc jjin g d ou ble p age

iigmar Polke
(«gen die zwei Supermachte
-fur eine rote Schweiz (Against
-ie two superpowers - for a red
witzerland) (lft version), 1976
udwig Colledtion, Ludwig
orum for International Art,
ix-la-Chapelle
 IV.
WITH CON FLICTS
(FLARED UP)

206
And so everything flares up. Some see only pure chaos.
Others witness the sudden appearance of the forms of a
desire to be free. During strikes, ways of living together are
invented. To say that we “demonstrate”is to affirm—albeit
to be surprised by it or even not to understand it—that
something appeared that was decisive. But this demanded
a conflict. Conflict: an important motif of modern historical
painting (from Manet to Polke), and of the visual arts
in general (photography, cinema, video, digital arts).
It happens sometimes that uprisings produce merely
the image of broken images: vandalism, those kinds of
celebrations in negative format. But on these ruins will
be built the temporary architecture of uprisings: paradoxical,
moving, makeshift things that are barricades. Then, the
police suppress the demonstration, when those who rise
up had only the potency of their desire (potency: not power).
And this is why there are so many people in history who
have died from having risen up.
W ITH C O N FLIC TS (FLA R E D U P )

Ruth Berlau
American Strikers, 1941-44
Akademie der Kunfte, Berlin,
Bertolt Brecht Archiv
H enri Cartier-Bresson
ticole des Beaux-Arts,
Paris, May 1968
Fondation Henri C artier-B resson.
Paris

208
 TO STRIKE IS NOT TO DO NOTHING

USINE (KCl/KE

TERRE ■: JBERTE

VIVE L'UNITE
DE5 rAAVAIUfuftj a v e c lesovV

ACTffS etw)
C H O M F U f^
EH
kU GRAK
W ITH C O N F L IC T S (F L A R E D U P )

Jean-Luc Moul&ne
Series: 39 objets de grkve
(39 Strike objects), 1999-2000 Maniuelle de ptdalier
Jean-Luc Moul&ne/Galerie de cycle dit «Le casse-tite» La Bobine Novacore
Chantal Crousel, Paris La Pantinoise Les Souliers de la lutte

210
 TO STRIKE IS NOT TO DO NOTHING

Holgeir Meins Dirty Protect

Le Coftume Novacore Casse-tite
 W ITH C O N FLIC TS (FLA R E D U P)

F<§lix Vallotton
La Charge (The charge), 1893
Mus^e National d’A rt Modeme
Georges Grosz
Centre Pompidou, Paris. On loan
Blutiger Karneval (Bloody
to the Musge des Beaux-Arts et
dArch^ologie, Besangon carnival), 1915-16
Private collection

212
D E M O N STR ATE, PUT YOURSELF AT RISK
 W ITH C O N FLIC TS (FLA R E D U P)

Hans Richter
Revolution, 1918
Private coUedtion

214
 D E M O N S TR A TE, PUT YOURSELF AT RISK

Hans Richter
Orator-Rebellion-Revolution, 1916
Private colledtion
 W ITH C O N FLIC TS (FLA R E D U P )

Agustl Centelles
Rioting after the victory o f the
Popular Front at the elections
o f February 16, 1936. Plage de la
Republica(Plage Sant Jaume),
Barcelona, February 17,1936
Museu Nacional d’Art de
Catalunya, Barcelona

H erbert Kirchhoff
Revolucidn en La Paz (Bolivia)
(Revolution in La Paz,
Bolivia), 1946
Leticia and Stanislas
Poniatowski collection

216
 D E M O N S TR A TE , PUT YOURSELF AT RISK

Arpad Hazafi
Bn dape Q. 1956
AP/SIPA A gency
 W ITH C O N FLIC TS (F L A R E D U P )

Ernesto Molina
S(n tftulo (Untitled), 1977
Anna Gamazo
dc Abelld colledtion

218
 D EM O N S TR A TE , PU T YOURSELF AT RISK

Ernesto Molina
Sft tftulo (Untitled), 1977
Anna Gamazo
de Abellb collection
 W ITH C O N FLIC TS (F L A R E D U P)

Hector Lbpez
Poblado la Victoria, Santiago,
Chile (Village of La Victoria,
Santiago, Chile), c. 1986
Anna Gamazo de Abellb
collection

220
 DEM O N S TR A TE , PUT YOURSELF AT RISK

Jesus Ruiz Durand

Lima. Perou (Untitled, Peru), 1969
Leticia and Stanislas
Poniatowski collection
W ITH C O N FLIC TS (F L A R E D U P )

Henri Cartier-Bresson
Funtrailles des viftimes
de Charonne, Paris, France
(Funeral ofthevidtim s
of the “Charonne massacre,”
Paris, France), February 13,1962
Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson,
Paris

Henri Cartier-Bresson
Manifestation pro-Caftro, New
York (Pro-Castro demonstration,
New York), September i960
Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson
Paris
A llan Sekula
Two images from the
installation Waiting for Tear Gas
(White Globe to Black, 1999-2000
InStitut d’A rt C o n t e m p o r a i n ,
Rh6ne-Alpes, France

222
dem onstrate , p u t y o u r s e l f a t r is k
W ITH C O N FLIC TS (F L A R E D U P )

Sigmar Polke
A Versailles, 4 Versailles!
(To Versailles, to Versailles!), 1988
Musge Ddpartementa] d’Art
Contemporain de Rochechouart

22 A
 D EM O N S TR ATE , PUT YOURSELF AT RISK

Chieh-Jen Chen
The Route, 2006
Chieh-Jen Chen/Lily Robert
gallery
Robert FilLiou
Optimistic Box no. 1,1968
Mus£e National d’Art Moderne,
Centre Pompidou, Paris

226
 D EM O N S TR A TE , PUT YOURSELF AT RISK

Ismail Bahri
film a blanc (Blank film), 2012
Ismail Bahri collection
W ITH C O N FLIC TS (FLA R E D U P)

Jules Girardet
La Colonne Venddme aprts sa
chute (The Venddme Column
after being tom down), 1871
Mus<§e Carnavalet - Hiftoire
d t Paris, Paris

228
 VAN DAL JOYS

Edmond, successor
to Charles MarviUe
(presumed photographer)
Ruines de I’Hotel de Ville, Paris.
Cour des bureaux (Ruins
of the Hdtel de Ville, Paris.
The office courtyard), c. 1871
Bibliotheque des Arts
D^coratifs, Paris
 W ITH C O N FLIC TS (F L A R E D U P )

Terji i^r -"Imp. Qi. PouUin . Cliclit Cnllfl ' “ ' * 'Z v
TERGNIER — La Grdve des Chem lnots (in ) — Icsdeux machines taraponnees
s u r la p la q u e to u m a n tc

Ht*«tes d u Christ tie I’aven u e Baudin

dclru it a la suite des tro u b les „%
it, v de Limoges •

A nonym ous (French)

Postcard “ReSte du Christ
de l’avenue Baudin d^truit k la
suite des troubles de Limoges”
(Remains of the crucifix on
Avenue Baudin, destroyed
during the disturbances in
Limoges), May 8,1905
Jeu de Paume, Paris

Anonym ous (French)

Postcard “Tergnier - La Gr£ve
des Cheminots [III] - Les deux
machines tamponndes sur
la plaque tournante” (Tergnier
- The Railway Workers’Strike
[HI] - Collision on the
turntable), 1910
Jeu de Paume, Paris

230
 VAN DAL JOYS

Pedro G. Romero/Archivo F.X.

Tesauro: Vandalismo
(Thesaurus: Vandalism), 2005-16
Private collection
W ITH C O N FLIC TS (FLA R E D U P)

Asger Jorn
Asger Jorn
Brisez le cadre q[u]i [tjto iiftfe]![’]
image (Smash the frame
Pas de puis[s]ance d[’]imagination
that Stifles the image)
sans images puis[s]ante[s]
1968 (No power of im agination
Statens Museum for KunSt,
without powerful images), 1968
Copenhagen Statens Museum for KunSt,
Copenhagen

232
VANDAL JOYS
 W ITH C O N FLIC TS (F L A R E D U P )

tfe ; ■,-v: ^
•m : ‘ *
mm m

Thibault
la Barricade de la
Popmcourt auant I’a tta quepar
les troupes du gd n tlr
le aimanche 2Sjuin 1848 (The
barricade on Rue Saint-Maur-
Popincourt before the attack
by General Lamoricifere’s troops
Sunday June 25, 1848)
Mus£e d’Orsay, Paris

234
 BU ILDING BARRICADES

Thibault
La Barricade de la rue Saint-Maur-
Popincourt apres Vattaque par
les troupes du g&n&ral Lamorici&re,
le lundi 26 juin 1848 (The
barricade on Rue Saint-Maur-
Popincourt after the attack by
General Lamorici&re’s troops,
Monday June 26,1848)
Mus£e d’Orsay, Paris
W ITH C O N FLIC TS (FLA R E D U P)

Arm and Dayot

Journtes rfuolutionnaires
1830-1848 (Revolutionary days),
Paris: Flammarion, 1897
Private collection

236
 BU ILDING BARRICADES

Arm and Dayot

Journees r&volutionnaires
1830-1848 (Revolutionary days),
Paris: Flam m arion,l 897
Private collection

237
W ITH C O N F L IC T S (FLA R E D U P )

Mil., Haoii-l’tCiapc
RAON-l’ETAPK. - L’Em eute du 28 J u llle t. - Barricade de U Rue Thien.

A nonym ous (French)

Anonymous (French) PoStcard “Raon-l’£tape -
PoStcard “Graves de Limoges, L’Emeute du 28 juillet -
15 avril 1905, Barricade Barricade de la rue Thiers, 1907”
Ancienne” (Strikes in Limoges, (Raon-l’£tape - The July 28 riot
April 15,1905, old barricade) - Barricade on Rue Thiers, 1907)
Jeu de Paume, Paris Jeu de Paume, Paris

238

Anonymous (Mexican)
Jesus Carranza acompanado de
uarios hombres observan una u(a
deftruida (Jesus Carranza and
others inspecting destroyed rail
tackrRevolucidn Zapatista,”
Coahuiia, Mexico, c. 1914
Secretaria de Cultura, INAH,
Sinafo, fn, Mexico
239
BU ILDING BARRICADES
Voula Papaioannou
Barricades During the Civil War
o f December ’44 (Dekemuriana),
Athens, 1944
Benaki Museum Photographic
Archive, Athens
W ITH C O N FLIC TS (FLA R E D U P )

Willy Romer
La Revolution de novembre:
occupation du quartier de la
presse. Barricades faites de papier
journal. SchutzenStrasse, Berlin
(The November Revolution:
Occupation of the press diftridt
Barricades made of newspaper
Berlin), 1919
Kunftbibliothek, SMB, Photothek
Willy Romer, Berlin

240
 BU ILDING BARRICADES

Ridiler aiemaL ala Typua <ica diutapbea Ritblar. as opnorr. eollta jemala pin aoMatr
rill rcrtamopa. ao darf ar dam drut.rkrn Rid.tpr.Und n.tbt anf. Kooto ja.diry.bao
•prdpn. wafl dar aim* ba.ledili.kin Jn.tiabe.mlao ohor Cnada auauklJu. f’bnjrtu
_ _ . plt,...rr..,ndl„i,Vr
dar Uobeaterklirkk.il, Ablenknnj mm Ue.entlipl.an ... I
,infra ta kabeo. kaiBl norb nidil tujpodK.ll .p.u
Ea darf ram mittleran Typu. de. daut.<Kan Rip
oad iaullaktaall jrbobane- Mrnarh .entf Aou.
kaadlaaj Kontakl as bakommen Abjaleho. .am Patbaa and mine Veraud... Moral
a. pmdifen: abjalabnl aaia ..ttltrhe. EmpSnd.n and aaia Humop; abjalabat aaina
Raaktroa anI Spkmera. Frauda. Laid and Ant.nut. ibjalaKnl aaina Bildat aa dar
Wand. aaia. Frau, eatoa Ferianatuaden. abjalabnl die Loft, in dar aa lebt, daa Biar.
da. ar Iriakl. dia bonder. die ar aniabt Abjalabnl aaia Geilt. abjalabnl mini Karla,
abjalabnl aaina Walt
Baiaipbnaod aand dia Cabilfaa. dia ar abb ball Daa aadilwaadleriark aipbara Calubl
dar Ce/irktabcamtea fur Srkoffen and Ceatfcraorine be.oraufl kle.nkprpSjen. bramaijm
Miltabund. Unlertaaen. die auuniL win Poljap daa faaiant bal. dan Obarunan apialan
.oUan Jade, umjikl .,d> nar mil aid. aalbal. uod alibi utuemoer .or danan. ro
indal ar ain. Iramde Wall.

Banal., Rtaadanunaanda .00 auffeklarten Arbailara mil diaaaa Rlrblaro

aipbta mabr an tun kabea. did ilo dnrdl l-.rfitj.br. dar Enlfarnnnj .aa
rant uod. uod daB o.turli.K jedar ana ana mi: irjandeoaem arfabranaa
inara lortjaatbnllauan Deutarbaal.onalea. mil ainam jewandtea Ann
ri aQer Verad.iedeabe.1 dar pol.liarken Au/faaanaj raarbar in Ver-
ala mb ainam Undjarudtudiraklor* Wir apradian tnrai Spradmo.
Gedankeoreiheo Man alalia aid. .or. daB dia Opfar dar Jtatlia mil

Moadaafjaaj bi. aum Triakjeld jib* aa line

Und wail nm.ra.nar In. Rid.lar.Und nar an aa

Willy Romer la Amuripbur n>pKl mabr wiedaranarkannan ini: daa

La Revolution de novembre:
occupation du quartier
de la presse. Barricades
faites de rouleaux de papier
journal. Devant la maison
d’edition Rudolf Mosse,
Schutzenftrasse, Berlin (The
November Revolution:
Occupation of the press di^tridt.
Barricades m ade of newspaper. John Heartfield
Outside the Rudolf Mosse Kurt Tucholsky, Deutschland,
publishing house building, Deutschland uber alles (Germany,
Schutzenitrasse, Berlin), 1919 Germany above all else), 1929
Kunitbibliothek, SMB, Photothek Akademie der KunSte,
Willy Romer, Berlin Kun&sammlung, Berlin
 W ITH C ON FLIC TS (FLAR ED UPJ

Agustf Centelles
Barricades, Barcelona, i 936
Centro Documental de la
Memoria HiSt6rica, Salamanca

7A2
 B U ILDING BARRICADES

Jerzy Pibrkowski
Miafto Nieujarzmione (City
unbroken), Warsaw: Iskry, 1957
Private collection
W ITH C ON FLIC TS (FLAR ED UP)

Edouard Manet
Guerre civile (Civil war), 1871
Mus£e Camavalet - Hiftoire
de Paris, Paris

244
 DYING FROM INJUSTICE

Andr£ Adolphe Eugene Disddri

(attributed to)
Insurgts tuds pendant la Semaine
sanglante de la Commune
(Insurgents killed during the
Commune’s “Bloody Week”), 1871
Mus£e Camavalet - Hiftoire
de Paris, Paris

Anonymous (Mexican)
Fusilados por tropas zapatiftas
en Ayotzingo (Men shot by
Zapatift troops at Ayotzingo),
c. 1913-17
Secretaria de Cultura, INAH,
Sinafo, fn, Mexico
 WITH CONFLICTS (FLARED UP)

Anonymous (Mexican)
Foitmo Sdmannfumaun
onics de ser fusilado (Fortiiw
Mmano smokes a cigar before
§ shot) Mexico City 1917
Secretana de Cultura, INAH
Smafo, fn , Mexico

246
 DYING FROM IN JU STIC E

Manuel Alvarez Bravo

Obrero en huelga, asesinado
(Murdered striker), 1934
Musge d’Art Modeme
de la Ville de Paris, Paris
W ITH C O N FLIC TS (FLAR ED U P)

LE V E R G E R D U R O l t D O U A R D

la proclamation dans laqnello je declarais rebclle tons les homracs pris les armes 4 la main a donnfe les meilleurs rteultats.
Je 1 ai fail appliquer partont avec rtg u laritt — Cela est du meillenr effet. . . .
(Raptwirt ofndd do g4n6ral Kitchener aa War OfBcc)

Jean Veber
Jean Veber
Les camps de reconcentration au
Les camps de reconcentration au
Transvaal (no 4): “ de
Transvaal (no 5): aLes progr&s de
la science’ (The concentration
la science” (The concentration
camps in the Transvaal [no. 4]:
camps in the Transvaal [no. 5]:
“Scientific progress” published
in UAssiette au beurre, “Scientific progress”), published
in UAssiette au beurre,
September 28,1901
September 28,1901
Bibliothfcque Nationale
de France, Paris Bibliothfcque Nationale
de France, Paris

248

LES CAMPS DE REC ON CEN TRA TION
Jean Veber
Les camps de reconcentration au
Transvaal (no 19): aLes progres
de la science” (The concentration
camps in the Transvaal [no. 19]:
“Scientific progress”), published
in L’Assiette au beurre,
September 28,1901
Biblioth£que Nationale
de France, Paris
DYING FROM IN JUSTICE
Jean Veber
Les camps de reconcentration au
Transvaal (no 12) : “Les progres de
la science” (The concentration
camps in the Transvaal [no. 12]:
“Scientific progress”), published
in L’Assiette au beurre,
September 28,1901
Bibliothfcque Nationale
de France, Paris
W ITH C O N FLIC TS (FLA R E D U P)

''**<2.

Dmitri Kessel
Greek National Liberation Front
rally, Athens, December 3, 1944

250
 DYING FROM IN JU STIC E

\A*0

Dmitri Kessel
Greek National Liberation Front
demonstrators gathered around
the bodies o f three fellow
protestors shot by police during
a rally; Athens, December 3,1944
Getty Images
W ITH C O N FLIC TS (FLA R E D U P)

Anonymous (South African)

African National Council
demonstration, Fordsburg, 1952

Anonymous (South African)

Dead and wounded outside
the police Station in Sharpeuille,
March 21, i 960
Getty Images

252
 DYING FROM IN JUSTICE

Malcolm Browne
Self-Immolation by BuddhiSt Monk
Thich Quang Due, Saigon, 1963
AP/SIPA Agency
 V.
WITH DESIRES
(INDESTRUCTIBLE)

254
 But potency outlives power. Freud said that desire
was indestructible. Even those who knew they were
condemned—in the camps, in the prisons—seek every
means to transmit a testimony or call out. As Joan Miro
evoked in a series of works titled The Hope o f a Condem ned
M an, in homage to the student anarchist Salvador
Puig i Antich, executed by Franco’s regime in 1974.
An uprising can end with mothers’tears over the bodies
of their dead children. But these tears are merely a burden:
they can still provide the potencies of uprising, like in
the “resistance marches”of mothers and grandmothers in
Buenos Aires. It is our own children who rise up: Zero fo r
C o n d u ct ! Was Antigone not almost a child herself? Whether
in the Chiapas forests or on the Greece-Macedonia border,
somewhere in China, in Egypt, in Gaza, or in the jungle of
computerized networks considered as a vox populi, there
will always be children to jump the wall.
W ITH DESIRES (IN D E S T R U C T IB LE )

Anonymous (Greek m em ber

of the Auschwitz-Birkenau
Sonderkommando)
Women being driven towards the
Crematorium V gas chamber,
Birkenau and Burning the bodies
o f gassed prisoners in the open-air
cremation pits outside the
Crematorium Vgas chamber,
Birkenau, 1944
Archival collection of the State
Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum
OSwi^cim

256
 TH E H OPE OF TH O S E C O N D E M N ED TO DEATH

2
>
x
N
O

^
-2 ] •C U / V \W S ^ , s
cn
jA C b

Joan Mird
L’Espoir du prisonnier
(The prisoner’s hope)
Preliminary drawings for
L’Espoir du condamnt b mort I, II
et III (The hope of a condem ned
man, I, n, and ID), 1973
Fundacid Joan Mird, Barcelona

Joan Mird
Preliminary drawings for
L’Espoir du condamnt b mort I, II
et III (The hope of a condem ned
man, I, n, and 111), 1974
Fundacid Joan Mird, Barcelona
W ITH DESIRES (IN D E S T R U C T IB LE )

Joan Mird Joan Mird

Homme torturd s’dvadant Prisonnier crucifid
(Tortured m an escaping), 1973 (Crucified prisoner), 1974
Fundacid Joan Mird, Barcelona Fundacid Joan Mird, Barcelona

258
TH E HOPE OF TH O SE C O N D E M N ED TO DEATH

/U v ,
W ITH DESIRES (IN D E S T R U C T IB LE )

f '- *
t

Joan Mird
LEspoir du condamnt*d mort,
I, II et III (The hope of a
condemned man, I, II, and HI),
February 9, 1974
Fundacio Joan Mird, Barcelona
TH E HOPE OF TH O SE C O N D E M N ED TO DEATH
W ITH DESIRES (IN D E S T R U C T IB LE )

Voula Papaioannou
Prisoners’notes written on
the wall o f the German prison
on Merlin Street, Athens ,1944
Benaki Museum Photographic
Archive, Athens

262
TH E HOPE OF TH OSE C O N D EM N E D TO DEATH
W ITH DESIRES (IN D E S T R U C T IB LE )

LES FEMMES S O C I A L I S T E S .
LE S F E M M E S S O C I A L I S T E S .

SU JK '

Le* b tgots i i dak central so cialist ont a Vunasimite rtpmsse la candidatart de Jeanne Deroain!*
-O k 1 lu am to s! . . . L insurrection conlre les m ans est proclamec le pins samt des devoirs

Honors Daumier
Les Femmes socialities (Women
socialists), in Le Chariuari,
Apnl-June 1849
Biblioth£que Nationale
de France, Paris

264
 m o t h e r s r is e u p

L E S DIVORCEUSES.

- C itoyennes........ on fait courir le fru it que le divorce est sur le point de nous etre refuse
coRstituons - nous ici en permanence et declarons que lapatrie est en danger!......

Honors Daum ier

Les Diuorceuses (Divorced
women), in Le Charivari,
Auguft-Odober 1848
Bibliotheque Nationale
de France, Paris
W ITH DESIRES (IN D E S TR U C TIB LE )

Eia popeia
! Was raschelt im Stroh ?
Nachbars Balg grcinen,
Und meine sind froh.
Nachbars gehn in Lumpen
Und du gehst in Soid,
Ausn Rock von oinom Enf
Umgearbeit’.
| Nachbars han kein Brooke
3 Und du kriegst cine Tort,
i 1st sie dir zu trocken
; Dann sag nur cin Wort.
| Eia popeia
| Was raschelt im Stroh ?
i Der eine liegt in l ’olen,
I Per andre ist werweiCwo.

DIE BAUERSLEUTE: Sie mussen lort, Erau. JNur mehr ein r e g i­

ment ist dahinter. Allein konnens nicht weg.
MUTTER COURAGE: Sie atmet noch. Vielleicht schlaft sie mir
cin. ,_-_,---

Mi# ,
/)£:>' < '

... ...... :
Sie miissens einsehn, sie
, ist hiniiber. Und Sie selber miissen los endlich. Da sind die Wtilf, und \
was schlimmer ist, die MarodOre. / qBE3w8j

Bertolt Brecht
Modellbuch [Model] for Mother
Courage and Her Children,
January 11,1949-April 4,1961
Akademie der KunSte, Berlin,
Bertolt Brecht Archiv

266
Jerbnim o H em dndez
Soldaderas en el eitribo de un
tren en la eftacidn de Buenavifta
(Women com batants on the
fteps of a train in Buenaviita
station), “Tropas federales”
(Federal troops) series, Mexico,
1912
Secretaria de Cultura, INAH,
Sinafo, fn, Mexico
A nonym ous (Mexican)
Soldaderas en posicidn para
disparar contra las gauillas
de Josd Chduez Garcia (Women
com batants ready to fire at
the forces of Josb Chavez Garcia),
c.1914
Secretaria de Cultura, INAH,
Sinafo, fn, Mexico
AMTH DESIRES (INDESTRUCTIBLE)
Ken Hamblin
Beaubiert Street, 1971
Joseph A. Labadie Collection,
Special Collections Library,
University of Michigan
268
E duardo Gil
Ninos desaparecidos. Segcunda
Marcha de la Resi&ancia
(Murdered children. Second
Resistance March), Buenos Aires.
December 9- 10,1982
Eduardo Gil collection
Eduardo Gil
Paraguas. Segunda
Marcha de la Resiftancia
(Umbrellas. Second
Resistance March), Buenos Aires.
December 9-10 ,1982
Eduardo Gil collection
M O T H E R S RISE UP
W ITH DESIRES (IN D E S T R U C T IB L E )

270
 TH EY ARE YOUR OW N CHILDREN

Ruth Berlau Agusti Centelles

Rrops/or Bertolt Brecht’s Children playing, Montjuic,
Antigone, 1948 Barcelona, 1936
Akademie der Kunite, Berlin, Centro Documental de la
Bertolt Brecht Archiv Memoria Hi^tdrica, Salamanca
 W ITH DESIRES (IN D E S T R U C T IB L E )

/ DESAPARECIDOS
/ DE MJESTRA
* — M U — nrr
IP.GEHTE *

272

Solidarte Mexico
Desaparecidos politicos de NueStra
America (Solidarte Mexico,
the political disappeared
of our America), 1984
Two posters (Paulo Bruscky,
Manuel Marin)
THEY ARE YOUR OW N CHILDREN
E duardo Gil
Siluetas y canas. El Siluetazo
(Silhouettes and cops. The
silhouette adtion), Buenos Aires,
September 21-22,1983
Eduardo Gil collection
W ITH DESIRES (IN D E S T R U C T IB LE )

Bruno Boudjelal
Sur les traces de Frantz Fanon
(In the footsteps of Franz Fanon)
2012
Bruno Boudjelal/Agence VU’

274
TH EY W H O GO TH R O U G H WALLS
W ITH DESIRES (IN D E S TR U C TIB LE )

Taysir Batniji
Gaza Journal intime
(Gaza diary), 2001
Taysir Batniji/Galerie Eric
Dupont, Paris

276
THEY W H O GO TH R O U G H W ALLS
 W ITH DESIRES (IN D E S TR U C TIB LE )

Mat Jacob
Chiapas 2, 100
-2
6
9 216
Mat Jacob/Tendance floue
Mat Jacob
Chiapas 1 (marche 1997) Mat Jacob
(Chiapas 1 [March 1997]), 2016 Chiapas 7 (marche 2001)
Mat Jacob/Tendance floue (Chiapas 7 [March 2001]), 2016
Mat Jacob/Tendance floue

278
THEY W H O GO TH R O U G H W ALLS
W ITH DESIRES (IN D E S T R U C T IB LE )

Marie Lechner
Forms of Digital Resistance, 2016
Screenshot of the online
project “Anonymous:
Shared identity in the era
of a global networked Society”
by Robert Sakrowski (2011)
Production: Jeu de Paume, Paris

280
 TH EY W H O GO TH R O U G H W ALLS

Hugo Aveta
Ritmos primarios, la subversidn
del alma (Basic rhythms:
subversion of the soul), 2013
Hugo Aveta/NextLevel Galerie,
Paris
W ITH DESIRES (IN D E S T R U C T IB LE )

Estefanla Penafiel Loaiza

Et ilsvont dans I’espace
qu'embmsse ton regard (And they
go into the space taken in by
your gaze), 2016
Production: Jeu de Paume, Paris

282
TH E Y W H O GO TH R O U G H W ALLS
W ITH DESIRES (IN D E S T R U C T IB LE )

Enrique Ramirez
Cruzar un muro (Passing through
a wall), 2013
Enrique Ramirez/Michel Rein
gallery, Paris, Brussels

284
THEY W H O GO TH R O U G H WALLS
 WITH DESIRES (INDESTRUCTIBLE)

Francisca Benitez
Garde I’ESl, 2005
Francisca Benitez collection
Maria Kourkouta
Idomeni, 14 mars 2016. Frontitre
S^co-mac^donienne
(Idomeni, March 14 , 2016.
^reek-M acedonian border), 2016
Production: Jeu de Paume, Paris

286
THEY W H O GO THROUGH WALLS
 Georges D idi-H uberm an

BY THE DESIRES
(Fragments on W hat Makes Us Rise Up)

LOSS AND U P R IS IN G S

Forces make us rise up. Forces th at are neither exterior to us nor

imposed upon us: involuted forces in everything that concerns us moft
essentially. But w hat are they made of? What are their rhythms? On
w hat sources do they draw? Could we not Start by saying that they
come to us, th a t they appear and reappear, more often than not from
a loss. Is it not true th at losing uplifts us, makes us rise up when loss
has brought us to the ground? Is it not true that losing makes us desire
w hen m ourning immobilized us? So, let us begin with loss.
Two siSters— one four years old, the other six—have juSt loSt their
mother. Pierre Fddida observed w hat happened between them. It is
som ething extraordinary or, quite simply, something vital: a game was
played to im itate the dead woman, to imitate her immobility under
the bedsheet th a t represents the shroud. And then the game suddenly
changed w hen the white sheet fluttered and rose up, while the little
girls themselves came to life with “arguments,” cries, and “joyful jum ps”:
“A few days after her m other’s death, Laure, aged four, played at being
dead. With her siSter, two years older than her, she argued over a
bedsheet th a t she asked to be covered with, while she explained the
ritual th a t was to be scrupulously accomplished to help her disappear.
The sifter carried this out until the m om ent when, seeing Laure no
longer moving, she began to scream. Laure reappeared, and, in order
to calm h er sifter, now asked her to be dead: she dem anded that the
sheet she had used to cover her rem ain impassive. She continuously
rearranged it as h er sifter’s screams suddenly transformed into
laughter, m aking the sheet wave with joyful jum ps. And the sheet,
which was a shroud, became a dress, a house, a flag raised at the top
of a tree, before being finally to m am idft the laughter of an unbridled
dance in which an old ftuffed rabbit is put to death with Laure
burfting open its ftomach.”
“ClearlyT the psychoanalyst concluded, “m ourning puts th e w orld into

m ovem ent.... The world is shaken w ith a new m obility as soon

as death suddenly appears evident thro u g h a gam e th a t symbolically
accomplishes the desire for it.” We should even say th a t loss, w hich
overwhelms us initially, can also, thanks to a game, a gesture, a thought,
or a desire, make the world rise up entirely; and this is th e principle
force of uprisings.1

TH E D EP TH S O F T H E AIR ARE RED

The person who tells you th a t “the depths of th e air are red” is no
doubt suggesting th at a Storm—a “red” com m unist Storm—is going
to rise and is going to raise everything u p and carry it away. This is
a meteorological way, a very old one as it happens, to speak of
movements th at affedt the history of h u m a n societies: th ere are
magnificent pages in Les Mistrables on this them e, w here V idor Hugo
compares the Paris in su rred io n to a gigantic ocean turm oil.
We could even go back as far as Lucretius an d his description of social
turbulence at the tim e of the Plague of Athens.
In the wonderful prologue to his film, Lefond de Lair e§t rouge
(A Grin Without a Cat), Chris Marker m ade recent im ages—linked to
the political Struggles of the 1960s and 1970s—rise up, as he did
too with the famous, reedited shots from Sergei EisenStein’s Battleship
Potemkin, which tell of the 1905 uprising in Odessa, Starting w ith
the collective m ourning around the body of Vakulinchuk, th e
m urdered sailor whose death “calls for justice.” With Simone Signoret’s
inimitable voice and Luciano Berio’s Musica nottum a delle ftrade
di Madrid, we see a clash betw een the crowd going dow n to view th e
corpse in Battleship Potemkin and the burial of th e dead from th e
Charonne m etro Station in 1962: “Burial of th e dead of Charonne,”
wrote Marker in the cut,“A w om an wipes h er eyes. Potemkin: close-up
of a woman wiping her eyes, finishing the gesture of th e w om an of
Charonne” (figs. 1-2).
What does this ex trao rd in ary -aesth etic, and no doubt political,
even anthropological-hypothesis tell us, a hypothesis according to
which a gesture filmed in 1925 could “finish th e gesture of th e w om an
of Charonne” in 1962? It tells us, firstly, th a t uprisings, in Marker’s view,
assume a very profound solidarity th a t links th e subjetfs w ith th eir
mourning and their desires; but which also joins th e tim es them selves
their interposed images. It is for this reason th a t we see a crowd
13156(1 m Batt>eship Potemkin, like those th a t were raised on

1.
F£dida 1978,138.

290
Chris Marker, Le Fond de Fair eft rouge (A Grin Without a Cat), 1977-88.
Still frame (woman weeping in Sergei Eisenftein’s Battleship Potemkin).
March 4 1972 around th e coffin o f m urdered MaoiSt w orker Pierre
Ovemey which was followed through th e Streets of Paris by aro u n d
two hundred thousand people. Or like those fiSts raised in Chicago,
in the same years, by the Black Panthers. A nd this is how m ontage,
in Lefond de I’air eft rouge, takes th e shape o f a n atlas o f conflicts
where, Starting w ith Odessa (the prem ise o f th e O dtober Revolution),
the Struggles seem to scatter to every p o in t of th e globe, a n d to every
mom ent of history, as though to give th e m ultiple im age o f a whole
world rising up: “Close-up of a w om an w ith disheveled h a ir lifting h e r
head [Potemkin] towards a helm eted US natio n al guard w ith a grenade-
launcher in his fiSt, who is turn in g his m ask tow ards th e panicked
crowd that is running dow n th e Stairs at Odessa. Flight of th e
demonstrators who have come to knock againSt th e line o f US police
holding up their truncheons w ith both hands, encircling tw o terrorized
women [Potemkin] who are watching an approaching line o f French
gendarmes holding rifles, followed by a d etach m en t of th e US N ational
Guard, with fixed bayonets, advancing quickly tow ards a sit-in o n a
Street in Berkeley. Potemkin: the firSt bodies roll dow n th e Steps.
The face of a woman, Stupefied, facing the mask of a riot-policeman.
An extreme close-up of the finger on th e trigger. In Berkeley,
the tip of a bayonet threatens th e neck of a d em o nstrator w ith naked
cheSt. Potemkin, Berkeley, India, Germany, Belgium, Japan, Pentagon,
charging, fleeing, hand-to-hand fighting, confusion, bloodied face.”
I am not surprised that one of the firSt images of Potemkin
summoned by Marker was th a t of a large w hite sheet: it is th e
tarpaulin th at an officer ordered to be throw n over th e sailors before
shooting them—a great shroud whose cruel drama is created by
EisenStein but it is exadtly w hat th e sailors w ould soon throw over
their heads, in a desperate gesture for freedom , w hich w ould ap p e ar
to be the very firSt in the film (Jigs. 3-4). It would be followed by the
headscarves tom off by the old women in mourning, the shirt tom by
the young rebel w hen the m ourning has yielded to colledtive anger,
to the “fraternal”sails of vessels that have come to aid the mutineers,
awaiting the hoisting of the red flag atop th e maSt, even th e tearing o f
the cinema screen planned by EisenStein for th e film’s prem iere in
December 1925.
Between the shroud and the sheet, the sheet and the flag, the flag
and the tearing, it is as though the Storm of the rebellions found its
clearest emblem m the rising up of all the surfaces. EisenStein
nnriSe C “ 3 (Urea; relation betw een th e idea of political
the iconoCTanh'YS1Cal riSine UP ofsurfaces>giving as an exam ple—as
graphic premises for his own Potemkin—the revolutionary

292
Sergei EisenSteinyBattleship Potemkin, 1925.
Still frame (the tarpaulin thrown over the sailors).

Sergei EisenStein, Battleship Potemkin, 1925.

Still frame (the tarpaulin thrown by the sailors).
 fig - 5
Eugene Delacroix, Le 28 Juillet: La Liberty guidant le peuple
(Liberty Leading the People), 1830 (detail).
Oil on canvas, 260 * 325 cm. Mus£e du Louvre, Paris.

Jig.
Theodore W ricault, Le Radeau de laM iduse (The o f the Medusa), 1819 (detail)
OU on canvas, 491 « 716 cm. M u sted u Louvre, Paris.

294
flag associated with the dress in movement that reveals the breast
of Eugfcne Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, a figurative
Strategy itself, imagined as a “relief” from the despair expressed
by Thdodore Gdricault in The Raft o f the Medusa, with its derisory
and tragic sail.2 (figs. 5-6)

FREIHEITSDRANG, TH E “ UP SUR G E OF LIB ER TY”

A white shroud laid motionless on a body, but which suddenly Stirs,

rises up, becomes a wedding dress or a flag hoiSted to a treetop, before
being to m joyously: th at is w hat shows in the surfaces—or in what
Aby Warburg called the “accessories in movement,” in reference
to w hat traveled through the history of art as one of the moSt ancient
“aesthetic formants,” by which I m ean the drapery—the force of
uprisings. This force is therefore manifested in the forms in movement:
it is the forms th a t make it palpable, however profound its
psychological source. In his essay on mourning and melancholia
in Metapsychology, Sigmund Freud remarked that loss—if it is the
loss of a beloved objedt—arouses a fundam ental psychological
movement: “AgainSt this dem and a Struggle (ein begreifliches Strauben)
of course arises.... This Struggle can be so intense that a turning away
from reality ensues, the objedt being clung to through the medium
of a hallucinatory wish-psychosis (durch eine halluzinatorische
Wunschpsychose).”
Freud did not yet imagine, in this text, that the “Struggle” when
faced w ith loss m ight create a new reality corresponding to desire
rath er th a n undergoing a vain hallucinatory satisfadtion of this same
desire. We cannot bring back someone’s dead mother. But we can,
perhaps, rebel againSt some of the constraints of the world that killed
her. Freud, in any case, allowed the possibility to understand the
polarity betw een “contrition” (Zerknirschung) and “uprising”
(Auflehnung) from the perspedtive of a dialedtics between “the plaint
alone and th e adt of “complaining,” th at is to say, between the passion
experienced and the passion to adt, and to adt againdt. It is the same
dialedtics th a t brings into play all uprising—of which the Potemkin can
offer a firSt paradigm —b o m of a plaint in front of a dead body that
“calls for justice.” In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud could
therefore im agine th a t this Freiheitsdrang, this “drive for freedom
— or this “push towards freedom”—fully contributes to what he called
a “developm ent of culture,” in spite of a spontaneous aversion to
colledtive creative processes, above all when they are deStrudtive:
“What makes itself felt in a human community as a desire for
freedom may be their revolt againSt some existing injustice, and
so may prove favorable to a further development of civilization.”
What makes us rise up? Let us Start with the hypothesis that
it is the Strength of our memories when they burn with those of our
desires as they are kindled—images that muSt enflame our desires
from our memories, our memories in the hollows of our desires.
Jacques Lacan noted that, in Freud’s texts, the “genesis of the moral
dimension does not take root anywhere else than in desire itself?juSt
as Antigone’s brilliance, Ytclat d Antigone, that ancient insurrection,
showed its political incandescence. We muSt then understand—and it
is something that authors such as Julia KriSteva and Judith Butler have
already suggested—that there would be no uprising worth anything
without the assumption of a certain “radical inner experience”in
which desires are carried so far only because they take note of, or even
take their Starting point in, their own buried memories.3

ZER O S FOR C O N D U C T

In the repressive boarding school in the film ZCro de conduite

(Zero for Conduft), we see an endless conflict between a small group of
undisciplined children and the adult personnel supposed to supervise
the Students. It would be an oversimplification to see no more in this
conflict than a contrast between the two poles of “desire”(on the side
of the children) and “power”(pouvoir ) (on the side of the adults). Power
itself is made of desires, like when the Stout and libidinous professor
of natural sciences caresses the hair of the pupil Tabard, before placing
his hand a little too heavily upon the child’s: a desire to hold,
something that Tabard would soon depend on through an about-turn
(an uprising of the gesture) and through an insult (an uprising
of words): “Et moi, j’vous dis merde !”(Shit, I say!) (Thus, through
Jean Vigo—the anarchist Vigo—an energy became native , an energy
that was to take shape in his film through what he called the
collective uproar”of the children who were rising up. Perhaps he
was remembering how adults who had juSt come out of the great
massacre of the FirSt World War had sought to rediscover and
reconfigure this energy of uprising in their images and in their traCts,
in which there phrases such as “Merde!”or “Dada souteve tout!”
(Dada makes everything rise up!) often appeared. He was moSt
probably unaware that in the 1930s, the poet Federico Garcfa Lorca
was also creating for himself—in order to play or to think, to make

3.
Freud 1917,126 and 154-155.
Freud 1929,49. Lacan 1959-1960
11 and 285-298. KriSteva 1997,
21-22. KriSteva 1998,31-32. Butl<
1997,167-200.

296
images and words at the same tim e—a magnificent calii gramme
from the term “mierda.”
Whatever the case, in the courtyard of the boarding school in ZCro
de conduite, a “child’s scheme” takes shape, as Vigo described on a title
card. It is, firstly, the extraordinary scene of a “pillow rebellion”
in the dormitory: “In the middle of the night, they mess up the beds.
The fever spreads, and each pupil wants to mess up his neighbor’s
bed. Once all of the beds have been thrown into the air, they read the
proclamation. Tabard, holding his death’s head flag in his hand,
will read the proclam ation amidst the uproar of the children crowded
around him, all in their night attire”:

Proclamation text. “War is declared. Down with the supervisors!

Down w ith punishm ents! Long live the rebellion!... Freedom
or d e a th ... Raise the flag on the roof of our school. Tomorrow,
everyone Stand w ith us. We swear to bom bard with old books,
old cans, old shoes—the am m unition’s hidden in the attic—the
ugly old mugs on national holidays... Onward! Onward!”

And the scene continues: “Carrying the banner through the whole
dormitory, Tabard drags his friends into adtion. AD the beds are
u n d o n e.... The chUdren increasingly run riot and end up using the
piDows until they burSt. The eiderdown is spread over the dormitory
and faUs like snowflakes (fig. 7). The beds are turned upside down,
th e cham ber pots are dragged along the ground. It is through
a thick cloud of feathers th at Parrain, the supervisor, exhausted, looks
for a chair to sit down. His chair is taken away from him and
he faUs on the ground. The door of the dormitory opens. The school
supervisor appears and, seeing the clouds of feathers, closes the door
immediately. Return to the dormitory, which is increasingly overrun
w ith feathers from the piDows and comforters. A cluld does a
dangerous double som ersault.... The film then takes place in slow
m otion, giving a heightened impression of a dream and a fantasy?
This explosion of childish revolt saturated with feathers is
an unforgettable image, so fuD of future. Joy w ith slowness, bghtness
w ith depth. A pupO majeSticaDy rises up in space, Dke an angel StiD
flying in spite of the scattering of his wings into thousands of softly
faUing feathers (fig. 8). The dem onstration of the half-naked children
attacking an im aginary BaStiUe happens in the phantasmagoria of the
slowed movements, before the “four rebels,” as Vigo calls them, adtuaUy
bom bard th e school courtyard from the roof with pieces of wood,
shoes, and even—as we see coming from Tabard’s hands—a spring,
 fig 7
Jean Vigo, Z6ro de conduite (Zero for Condud), 1933.
Still frame (the pillow fight).

MS

298
which is both a divine and derisory objedt (fig. 8). Everything here
bears the m ark of an uprising—gestural, verbal, psychological, and
atmospheric—from the slightest gestures of revolt to the “proclamation
text” and the insurgents’final ascent to the roof of the school, not to
m ention the flags throw n in the air and the burSt pillows.4

FROM T H E D EP TH S

To make the world rise up we need gestures, desires, and depths.

The child who raises up his sheets or who bursts his pillow
becomes—along w ith his rebel friends, both real and imaginary—
him self a surface to be raised up and a body to be disseminated
throughout space. Joy is spacious, as we know: it is as a fundamental
joy th at an uprising broadens, expands the world around us and
gives us its same rhythm . In his psychical or “psychotropic” experiences,
Henri Michaux discovered similar movements: “Whiteness erupts,
colour of chalk.... The gushing begins from white springs at all points
around m e .... White sheets, a shaking of white sheets, if such they are,
seized w ith giddy shudderings. Like entering a new country where, in
place of tricolour, colours and whatever else besides, an insane quantity
of white flags were hoisted, diamond white, no other
colour—a Strange new country where the moSt favoured occupation
is the waving of white linen high in the air in delirious and unending
celebration.” And it is once again in L’lnfini turbulent, in 1957, that
th e poet spoke of these profound uprisings in which the exaltation
itself occurs only through w hat he beautifully called “the confidence
of a child”:

Exaltation, abandon, above all, confidence: the approach to

th e infinite necessitates these.
You should have the confidence of a child, a confidence which goes
before you in hope, which surges upwards, carrying you with it,
a confidence which, upon entering the seething tum ult of this
u n iv erse... surges Still upwards, prodigiously, extraordinarily, in a
way never before known, surges and surges upwards, beyond itself,
beyond everything miraculously surging and at the same time
acquiescing w ith a limitless acquiescence which brings appeasement
and excitement, which is an overflowing and a liberation, which is
contem plation thirSting for further liberation and yet which gives
birth to the fear th at the heart will not Stand up to the Strain of this
blissful, excessive joy which cannot be housed and came unmerited,
 this over-abundant joy of which one knows not whether one
is the giver or the receiver, and which is excessive, excessive,
e x ... cess... iv e...
Regenerating, ineffably dilating, increasingly dilating, outside
of oneself, breathing, being breathed.

This is how Henri Michaux opens Une voiepour I’insubordination

(A voice/way for insubordination [a play on voix/voie in French, voice/
way]): a Strange text that he also wanted to call Voie pour I’exasperation
or pour Vessentielle conteStation-insubordination (“Voice/way for
exasperation’ or “for basic challenge-insubordination”). It deals w ith
the question of “Striking spirits” and of “ghoSt sounds,” everything that
makes up the matter of certain popular beliefs and certain fantasy,
ancient, or contemporary literary genres. Everything that also makes
up the psychical truth of certain gestures that are considered abnormal
or asocial. Doesn’t the shaking of the sheets tell us, from the beginning,
that a spedter haunts all of this choreography o f uprisings? “Objedts
suddenly move by themselves, drawers open, utensils rise up, furniture,
even heavy furniture, and heavy cheSts change places... Stones fall
thrown from somewhere, pieces of tiles with crazy trajedtories, quite
unpredidtable to the very end.”All of this emanating from a fundamental
force that, above all, is a psychical revolt: the insubordination of a child
who wants to escape from the parental frame and is eager to “move
freely” It is Zdro de conduite but in a gory version, it is like a beginning
for what George A. Romero called, regarding these films, “zombie
politics,” that of riots (dmeutes) and ghoStly packs (meutes).
Michaux described the evil, “hitter” and “insubordinate” little girl
in Poltergeist: “For as long as we can observe her, we do not see her
make any suspicious gesture. She usually Stays Still. No effort appears
at all on her face. No contortion. No tension. Nothing Strange in
her composure. [But] she is capable of insubordination, and a famous
insubordination with the force of a giant. Tired no doubt of the
constraining attitudes, she upsets the unbearable interior in which
nothing happens. This is not art—which is a register that does
not interest her nor farce, nothing moving towards the funny or the
tragic, or towards theater.... No plan. Only scattering.... She carries
out attacks. A response to the daily life by the objedts of daily life, she
violates the order of furniture, the apparent leu; o f things inside
a home. Attacks on quietude, on the peacefvd, bourgeois atmosphere,
and on the old prohibition on moving.’
The poet is quite right to remark in these p a g e s-a s Pier Paolo
Pasolini did, in his own way, too—that insubordination becomes

300
all the more radical when it has nothing to do, firft of all, with any
sort o f“will for art.” One rises up in order to demonstrate one’s desire
for emancipation, not to display it like an ornam ent in a window,
a garm ent on the catwalk, or a “performance” in a contemporary art
gallery. The power and the depth of uprisings come from the
fundam ental innocence of the gesture that decides it. Innocence is in
no way an aesthetic quality. Henri Michaux’s “way to insubordination”
is related here to w hat Federico Garcia Lorca had already written
regarding the cante jondo or “deep song” through the popular—
im m em orial and surviving—category of the duende, which is not
unrelated, from an ethnological perspective, to the “hitting spirits” of
the more n orthern traditions. Depth and uprising of the duende: “The
duende rises inside you”(e! duende sube por dentro), a phrase that Garcia
Lorca claimed he heard from an old guitar maeStro from Andalusia.
It is im portant to rem em ber the distinctions established by the
author of Romancero gitano: if the angel was created to elevate us
and the muse to amaze us, the duende raises us up from its unknown
depths, which are our own interior motions, and our moSt extreme
desires: “It is in the ultim ate dwellings of the blood that it muSt be
aw akened” wrote the poet, by which he m eant that, far from any
(religious) transcendence or from any (artistic) ideal, the cante jondo
owes its Strength of uprising to the very depth of its duende as a desire
to be free—im m anent and free to the point of rupture in which there
are “neith er m aps nor exercises to help us find the duende. We only
know th a t he b u m s the blood like a poultice of broken glass, that he
exhauSts, th a t he rejects all the sweet geometry that we have learned,
th a t he smashes Style, th at he leans on hum an with no consolation and
makes Goya (maSter of the grays, silvers, and pinks of the beSt English
painting) work w ith his fiSts and knees in horrible bitumen ” those
blacks th a t come from the depths and then become the very matter
of those cries, all of those dark m ouths through which the painter was
able to show us, figuratively, w hat was the “black sound,” the somdo
negro of the song through which rise up plaints, anger, and the energy
of suffering people’s insubordination.5

A G E S T U R E R ISES

Before ever claiming to be arts or aftions, uprisings surge forth from

k n m m ncurhp as eeStures. corporeal forms. They are forces that
them or make them plaitic or resistant, depending on the circumstances.
AgainSt any “anti-expressive” or a n y “anti-pathetic” vision of politics,
which we find in Alain Badiou for exam ple, Giorgio A gam ben sought
to give to the h um an gesture an intrinsic and even “integral” political
dimension: “Politics is th e sphere o f pure m eans, th a t is, of th e
absolute and complete geSturality o f h u m a n beings.” It is a m agnificent
conclusion to a text whose prem ise is nonetheless debatable, an d
according to which “by th e end of th e n in eteen th century, th e WeStem
bourgeoisie had definitively loSt its gestures.
Yet gestures are things th a t we m ake every day, all day long, and
w ithout even realizing it. We no m ore lose our gestures—w h eth er
we are bourgeois, proletarian, or anything else for th a t m atte r—th a n
we lose our “experience” (as Agam ben wrote, apocalyptically, in
Infancy and Hittory) or our unconscious desires. If we do n o t m aSter
our gestures to the end, it is the sign th a t we have n o t loSt th e m
(or that they have not let go of us). Gestures are transm itted, surviving
in spite of us and in spite of everything. They are our ow n living fossils,
like a duende th at “rises inside us.” The Spanish w ho fought againSt
the French occupation in 1808, raised th eir arm s—notably in th e
images of Francisco de Goya’s Disasters—,juSt as th e workers raised
their arms in EisenStein’s Strike in 1924 (figs. 9- 10). And juSt as th e Black
Panthers raised their arm s in Chicago in 1969. Or, in 1989, as th e
Romanians raised their arm s w hen they cam e to realize th eir victory
over Nicolae Ceau§escu’s dictatorship, as we can see in H arun Farocki
and Andrei Ujica’s Videograms o f a Revolution. The exam ples are
infinite: every m inute th a t passes, somewhere, th ere are, I im agine,
a thousand arms raised in the Streets, in a factory on Strike, or in a
schoolyard. In our dream s our arm s are raised w hen our em otions
are peopled and become riotous. It happens even th a t people in u tte r
despair fall from high up w ith their arm s raised in a final protest
againSt the order of the world.
Aby Warburg forged the notion of Pathosformel— or ‘"pathos
formula” to account for this survival of gestures throughout th e
duration of hum an cultures. Gestures are inscribed in history: they
make up the traces, or the Leitfossilien}as W arburg liked to say,
combining the perm anence of the fossil w ith th e musicality and
rhythmicity of the Leitmotif. Gestures are related to a dynam ic
anthropology of corporeal forms, and as such th e “form ulae of pathos”
would be both a visual and tem poral way to exam ine th e unconscious
at work in the infinite dance of our expressive m ovem ents. W hat
Warburg sought was to create a history and a cartography of the
cultural “fields” and “vehicles” through which our moSt fundam ental

302
fig - 9

Sergei EisenStein, Strike, 1924.

Still frame (worker).

Sergei EisenStein, Strike, 1924.

Still frame (hands raised).
gestures take shape. One of th e moSt im p o rtan t polarities o f those
“cultural form ants” is found, no doubt, in th e psychical an d corporeal
dialedtics of contrition and uprising.
At firSt glance, Aby Warburg appears to have b een very
concerned w ith contrition b u t very little concerned w ith uprisings.
In Mnemosyne, his atlas of images, a central place is given to th e
m otif of the lam ent (plate 42). The introdudtory plates give us th e
idea of a hum anity th a t is unable to escape th e fram es by w hich
traditional knowledge determ ined th e very n otion o f cosmos (plate B).
The Titan Atlas is shown only in his suffering an d p u n ishm ent,
having to bear the entirety of th e sky on his shoulders (plate 2).
In plate 5, we see w om en fleeing a fate th a t we know is ineludtable
and, in plate 6, Laocodn cannot escape th e serpents. Plate 41 shows
the “pathos of annihilation” (Vernichtungspathos) w here we see O rpheus
being slaughtered by th e furious Maenads. The dead and th e injured
in Delacroix’s Massacre at Chios are slum ped in a co m er of plate 77.
And if anything like a popular fervor—n o t to m en tio n uprising—
appears in Mnemosyne, it seems to be included only in th e
camivalesque releases (plate 32), th e resurredted o f Michelangelo
or the deified vidtors (plates 54- 56), even th e Rom an crowds gathered
in 1929 to celebrate the concordat betw een Pope Pius XI an d th e
didtator Mussolini (plates 78- 79).
It seems, therefore, th a t Aby W arburg negledted th e Pathosformeln
of the political uprising—and this is no doubt because he was,
himself, very afraid of it, unable as he was to distinguish betw een
the monflra (the formidable depths of im pulse) and th e aStra
(the beneficent leaps of reason). Thus in th e W arburgian colledtions
of fundam ental gestures it is difficult to find images of social and
political Struggles contem poraneous to him , th e 1917 revolution
m Russia or the SpartaciSt uprising in Berlin in 1919. Yet we know how
lucid Warburg was w hen considering th e history of culture as
a tragedy” or an im m ense/ie/d o f conflicts. This is revealed in his works
on the imagery of political propaganda at th e tim e o f th e Reform ation
(since updated by Robert W. Scribner, th e n broadened in such
exhibitions as Krieg der Bilder, curated by Wolfgang Cillessen). They
coincide with his passionate interest in th e iconography o f th e FirSt
World War, which of course led him to th e monStra of a psychosis
mto which he fell repeatedly betw een endless phases of being
totally overwhelmed, contrition, and very violent episodes of w hat
we could call uprising .6

6.
Badiou 2005,67-87. Agamben
1992,58 and 49. Agamben 1978,
15. Didi-Huberman 2002, 115- 270.
Warburg 1927-1929, pi. B, 5- 6 ,32,
39, 41- 4la, and 77-79. Warburg
1920,597-697. Scribner 1981,
passim. Cillessen, ed. 1997,
passim. Korff, ed. 2007, passim.
Didi-Huberman 2011, 175- 296.

304
FROM C O N T R IT IO N TO UPRISING

Like in Nietzsche and Freud, there is in Aby Warburg’s work an

extraordinary capacity—and even a theory—for inversion
of values applied to the cultural sphere in general. His public work
had begun with the beautiful “uprising” of the mythological Graces
of Botticelli, and the famous Ninfa fiorentina in Ghirlandaio:
nothing more innocent, it seems. Yet, as with Marilyn Monroe’s famous
dress th at rises above a subway grating in Billy Wilder’s Seven Year Itch,
it already had to do with “erotic pursuits” and, therefore, with a
dialedtics of desire from which violence was never completely absent,
as in the case of Botticelli’s Spring or Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne.
Furtherm ore, Warburg’s Ninfa carries with her, over and above her
fundam ental grace comparable to th at of Freud’s Gradiva, a critical
fundtion capable of “inverting all values” attributed to images and
to gestures in the traditional pradtices of historians or art historians.
The “light Step of the servant girl,” with her moving “imaginary breeze”
in the fresco by Ghirlandaio, brings with it, then, something like a great
critical wind, or a kind of methodological Storm destined to revolutionize
our historical and philosophical approach to images and gestures.
Warburg had immediately understood that gestures have a
rem arkable ability to reverse or overturn: physical inversions, while
m aintaining their general m eaning (as with those caresses that
become violence w ithin a loving geStus), or inversions of meaning
while m aintaining their general form. This is the case Studied by
Warburg in 1927, w hen he showed the survival of the gesture of the
Niobids in th a t of Andrea del CaStagno’s David: a survival doubled
w ith an inversion of meaning, since in one case the gesture indicates
the State of the vanquished, the approaching death, while in the
other case it indicates th at of the vidtor and approaching trium ph
(fig. 11). Plate 42 of the Mnemosyne Atlas, for its part, dealt not
only w ith the iconography of the lament, but rather it bore even in
its title—as well as in its m ontage—the more profound and dialedtical
idea of an “energetic inversion of the pathos of pain” (Leidenspathos
in energetischer Inversion); th at which EisenStein had masterfully
Staged in Battleship Potemkin through an “energy inversion”
of the contrition before the body of the sailor Vakulinchuk into
the uprising of an entire people.
It is rem arkable, then, th at the “testam entary” plate of the
Mnemosyne Atlas— on which Warburg was Still working when he died
in Odtober 1929—should have been presented as both an archaeological
and prophetic questioning of absolute powers in politics: on the one
Aby Warburg, Lamentation, 1927.
Detail of a plate from Urworte leidenschaftlicher
Gebardensprache (Primeval vocabulary
of passionate gesticulation), exhibition presented
at the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg,
Hamburg.

306
 hand, the throne of Saint Peter (a theocratic emblem) and,
on the other, the trium ph of Mussolini (a fascist hero). Between the
two, an allusion to the entire history of Western anti-Semitism,
which m ade the work of Warburg, according to Charlotte Schoell-Glass,
seem like a genuine plea for a “politics of the spirit” (Gei&espolitik).
It should not be surprising that, far from the pseudo-innocence
of Botticelli’s nymphs, Warburg’s methodology found its moSt fertile
use in w hat German disciples of the author of Mnemosyne ended up
calling a political iconology, as we can see in the creation of a library,
beginning with Martin Wamke up to Uwe Fleckner, dedicated precisely
to these problems inside the walls of Warburg’s house in Hamburg.
Around M artin Wamke’s pioneering works on iconoclasm and
the role of images in political conflicts, we have seen Klaus Herding go
through the history of revolutionary propaganda, Wolfgang Kemp
create the iconology of the “multitude,” Horft Bredekamp interpret
“visual Strategies” at the time of Jan Hus and Thomas Hobbes,
James R. Tanis and Daniel HorSt collect images from the time of the
Dutch War of Independence (1568- 1648), Dietrich Erben Study figurative
production at the heart of Masaniello’s uprising in Naples (1647- 48),
ChriStoph Frank examine the image of the Fronde (1648-53), Godehard
Janzing discover the “figure of the partisan” in the representations
of w ar in Goya, and Michael Diers develop this type of analysis for the
whole contem porary period. All in all, different ways to recognize in
figures—in the visual history of peoples and their gestures—a capacity
to make tangible the very dynamics of real or imagined uprisings .7

IN ORD ER T O TH R O W YO UR SU FFER IN G OVERBOARD

Our desires are of course w hat make us rise up. But why are our desires
intent on becoming aggravated in the uprising? Why not calmly await
the hoped-for satisfadtion? Why are our desires deployed almost always
in rupture, in a forcing of limits and of such an acute anxiety that we
7 . would call it tragic? This is because what makes us nse up is detached
Warburg 1893,597-697. Warburg from the depths of an inextinguishable pain that is its birthplace, its
1900,198-210. Didi-Huberman place of origin. This place of origin, wrote Georg Simmel, is something
2012,177-206. Didi-Huberman
2015, passim. Warburg 1925-1929,
th a t “h u m a n ity ... tears loose from itself” and “opposes throug a
88-89. Warburg 1927-1929, pi. 42 “tragic opportunity” th at he called, quite simply, culture. Aby Warburg
and 79. Didi-Huberman 2016, undoubtedly prolonged, in his exploration of formulae of p a th o s the
169-395. Schoell-Glass 1998,
idea th a t was dear to Simmel—and Nietzsche too o an unavoi
215-346. Wamke 1973, passim. “tragedy of culture.” It happened th a t he spoke, for example, of his
Wamke 1986,796-804. Wamke
2011,280-287. Herding, ed. 1992, field of iconological Study as a vaSt “treasury of suffering” (Le.denscha z),
passim. Herding and Reichardt
1989, passim. Kemp 1973,249-270.
Bredekamp 1975, passim.
Bredekamp 1999, passim. Tanis
and HorSt 1993, passim. Erben
1999,231-263. Erben 2011,103-
111. Frank 1999,264-275. Janzing
2003,51-65. Diers 1997, passim.
Didi-Huberman 2013,77-114.
whose images were, to some extent, nuggets o r precious ftones.
There is a philosophical trad itio n a t w ork h ere th a t m akes h ifto ry
as such a history o f the pain o f humanity. This is exaftly w h at W alter
Benjamin said in his book on G erm an baroque theater, presented as
a Study on the baroque exposition o f history as a history of th e w orld s
sufferings (Geschichte als Leidensgeschichte der Welt). The fadt th a t this
suffering was “distanced” from an au th o r like Bertolt Brecht did n o t
prevent H annah A rendt from claim ing th a t “w h at brought Brecht back
to reality and almoSt killed his poetry was com passion (Mitleid).
When the famine occurred, he rose u p w ith th e hunger? A nd A rendt
cited these lines from Brecht (whose poetry will have survived,
despite the risks): “I am told: You eat and drink—be glad you do! But
how can I eat and drink w hen I Steal m y food from th e m a n w ho is
hungry, and w hen my glass of w ater is n eeded by som eone w ho is
dying of thirSt?” Meanwhile, in Minima Moralia, T heodor A dorno did
not negledt to push this dark diagnostic to th e full, saying th a t th e
historical dim ension of things is nothing o th er th a n th e expression
of the sufferings of the paSt.
This elem ent of suffering is so w idespread, so easy to observe,
and daily for so m any people, th a t it seems to need m ythologies th a t
would sing its fatality and universality: so, here is poor Atlas u n d e r
his im m ense burden and, at th e other end of th e world, his b ro th er
Prometheus tied to Mount Caucasus, his viscera being to m out.
We know the m ythical explanation for such sufferings: they are
punishm ents, b u t we m ight even say political condem nations. Atlas
and Prometheus m ade the m istake of rising u p against th e gods on
Olympus, but here they are tam ed for good, th a t is to say, forever.
From Pagan to Judeo-ChriStian mythologies we encounter th e fate
of Eve, for example: having renounced th e eternal satisfactions of
Heaven, she now knows desire and knowledge, b u t w ith these she has
gained—we muSt understand th a t she is punished— suffering and
mortality. This is how our traditions present things: th e gods are th e
archk, the beginning and the authority of everything. You will be
punished severely if you violate their eternal laws. But should we n o t
imagine th at some kind of mythological class Struggle m ight begin
again? Should we not imagine an Atlas rising and, by an extraordinary
effort th at would suddenly change the course of things, im agine him
throwing his burden overboard? Should one n o t hope for a Prometheus
unchained returning among m en w ith the great fire th a t he
transm itted to them? Should one not wish for an Eve delivered from
any guilt and from any obeisance towards h er regulatory authority?
Perhaps what Warburg was missing was th a t “destructive character,”

308
 which th at anarchist of sorts, Walter Benjamin, for his part, was not
without. But we should be careful: the “destruction” evoked in the
famous text from 1931 is not simply a tabula rasa, the annihilation
of everything, for it clearly contains that element of prophetic memory
and children’s game th at Jean Vigo was about to Stage in Zero for
Conduct: “The destructive character knows only one watchword: make
room (Platz schaffen). And only one activity: clearing away (raumen).
His need for fresh air and open space is Stronger than any hatred.
The destructive character is young and cheerful (jung und heiter).
For destroying rejuvenates, because it clears away the traces of our
own age; it cheers, because everything cleared away means to the
destroyer a complete reduction, indeed a rooting out, of his own
condition CRadizierung).”
Clearing away, making “a complete reduction” in our own condition,
making room and letting fresh air into present history: this is what
the “destructive character” does. We muSt, therefore, in order to rise up,
know how to forget a certain present and, with it, the recent paSt that
put it in place. But Benjamin also wrote—in the same year or the
next—a magnificent text titled “Excavation and Memory? in which
he outlined how clearing away our fields of actuality assumes that we
bring to light and discover a certain pa§t that the present State sought
to keep prisoner, unknown, buried, or inactive. In uprisings, in short,
memory bum s: it consumes the present and with it a certain paSt, but
also discovers the flame hidden under the ashes of a more profound
memory. It is childish in th at children know very well how to kill
the fathers while reconnecting the thread with the grandfathers and
grandm others. This is why Benjamin did not exempt his character
from a “historical consciousness,” quite the contrary: “The destructive
character has the consciousness of historical man, whose deepest
em otion is an insuperable miStruSt of the course of things and a
readiness at all tim es to recognize that everything can go wrong.”
“The destructive character sees nothing permanent,” Benjamin
wrote finally: “But for this reason he sees ways everywhere. Where
others encounter walls or m ountains, there, too, he sees a way.
But because he sees a way everywhere, he has to clear things from
it everywhere. Not always by brute force; sometimes by the moSt
refined. Because he sees ways everywhere, he always Stands at
a crossroads.” W hether Atlas caSts off his burden, or Prometheus is
unchained, or Eve becomes autonomous, in every case characters
will find themselves at the crossroads—a crossroads far more
open and dangerous th an in the traditional, hum anist choice of
Hercules betw een vice and virtue. When we rise up, there is no simple
 choice between vice and virtue: there is a “sw arm ing of w hat is
possible”— this is Henri Michaux in Miserable Miracle— aas if there
were an opening, an opening which would be an assembling,
which would be a world, which would be som ething th a t m ight
happen, that m any things m ight h a p p e n .. .”
To rise up, then, would include—as Michaux suggested in
Face aux verrous (Facing the locks) —throw ing your p ain overboard
and following, with others, the dynamics of this launching capable
of turning the whole world upside down:

one defenestrated flies away at laSt

one tom from bottom to top
one tom apart all over
one tom apart never again re tie d ...
movements with multiple jets
movements in place of other m ovem ents
that one cannot show, but th a t dwell in th e m in d
ofduSt
of Stars
of erosion
of crumbling
and of vain latencies.
feaSt of Stains, range of the arms
movements
one jum ps into the “nothing”
turning efforts
being alone, one is a crowd
what incalculable num ber is advancing
increasing, spreading, spreading!
Adieu, fatigue...
Gestures of exceedance
Of exceedance
above all of exceedance.8

P O TEN C Y A G A IN S T POW ER, OR T H E A C T O F D ES IR E

Hiduons or beings th a t we would

suddenly, come noisily out of
8.
Simmel 1911,27 and 75. Wamke
1980,113-186. Benjamin 1928,103.
Arendt 1966,235. Adomo 1951,13.
Benjamin 1931,541-542.
Benjamin 1932,576. Michaux
1956,9. Michaux 1954,435 and
438-439.

310
innumerable holes filling the space (Jig. 12). To exceed, therefore,
to throw your burden over your shoulder, to come out of the hole you
fell into. But to exceed what, exadtly? Yourself, or another? Alone, or
with another? To exceed, towards what? And how to exceed? Is it not
m ad to claim, as Michaux did here, that “one defenettrated flies away
at la tt”? Or should we not ask the question differently, and ask
ourselves w hat kind of realism, perhaps, such a phrase could express?
To rise up is to break a history th at everyone believed to have been
heard (in the sense in which we speak of a “case that has been heard,”
m eaning “closed”). It is to break the foreseeability of history, to refute
the rule th at presided, as we thought, over its development or its
preservation. The political reason through which we understand a
history is often expressed in term s of power (pouuoir): for many, history
can be sum m arized in the passages of power (pouuoir) between people.
And so the French Revolution was needed, that “historical m oment” if
ever there was one, for a monarchic power (pouuoir) to find itself
overturned by a republican power (pouuoir). But let us approach things
from a different angle, from their State of emergence: when a people
rises up (or even, in order for a people to rise up), the people muSt
always Start from a situation of “unpoiuer.” To rise up would then be
the gesture through which the subjects of unpower would give rise,
in themselves, to something like a fundam ental potency (puissance) that
would erupt or re-emerge. A sovereign potency that would be marked,
however, by a tenacious unpower, an unpower that would seem to be
marked in turn by inevitability: no less than 8,528 uprisings were needed,
betw een 1661 and 1789, to be able to trigger the revolutionary process
as such, as Jean Nicolas showed in his maSterwork, La Rebellion frangaise.
Uprisings, then: potencies (puissances) of, or in, unpower itself.
Native potencies (puissances), without, as often happens, the leatt aim
or idea of power. Thus, the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza
de Mayo in Buenos Aires, never sought power (pouuoir), but rather
news of their children and grandchildren (Jig. 13). Yet, they made a
whole society, and even the political consciousness of everyone around,
rise up. We m u tt recognize, then, as the necessary premise for any
refledtions on the form of the uprising, the conceptual dittindhon
betw een potency (puissance) and power (pouuoir). We can already
sense, albeit confusedly, th a t potency (puissance) relates to the resource
and the source, as though it indicated the way in which a torrent creates,
by its intrinsic force, the form th at the riverbed will take. We can sense
th a t power (pouuoir) relates more to the canal or the dam, as a very
different way to grasp, from th e source and its resources, an energy
th a t is m ore useful, easier to m atter, and, all in all, easier to govern.
 fig -12
Henri Michaux, £mergences-r£surgences
(Emergences/Resurgences), Geneva: Albert Skira, 1972.
A drawing from the book.

fig. 13
Silvio Zuccheri, Marcha de la Resiftencia, Buenos Aires
(Resistance march, Buenos Aires), 1983.
Photograph.

312
Potency, or potentiality, was defined by Aristotle as “the principle
of process and change” in everything. Everything moves, everything
changes, and the intrinsic motor muSt be called dynamis, potency
or potentiality (puissance). What is very significant for us here is the
example that Aristotle gave when he said, in the same sentence,
th at it is for art (technk) to assume such a function for all things that
will be created by the hum an hand. If we jum p forward a few centuries
to when this question was passionately debated, to the Middle Ages
when God, the supreme artist and creator, was questioned regarding
His “omnipotence” (toute puissance)— Can God only do what He does?
Can God only do the beSt? Can God make the paSt not have happened?
etc.—and we can return at once to that phrase “human, all too
hum an” w ith which, in his conclusion to Traumdeutung, Sigmund
Freud claimed something essential regarding the indeStrudtibility
of psychical potency (potency), that is to say desire: “By picturing our
wishes as fulfilled, dreams are after all leading us into the future.
But this future, which the dream pidtures as the present, has been
m olded by his indeStrudtible wish into a perfedt likeness of the paSt.”
Could we not say regarding the one who rises up what Freud says
here regarding the dreamer? (We should not smile at how little
consistency there is in this: did Freud not tell us juSt how much the
potency brackets [puissance] of our dreams makes us “rise up”—like
the duende for Garcfa Lorca—and transforms, without our knowing,
the very consistency of our moSt adtive, moSt concrete reality?)
Could we not say th at the uprising “leads us into the future” by means
of the potency (puissance) of the desires that it realizes, knowing too
th a t th a t future—which has become “present” for the one who has
risen u p —is itself m odeled by the dynamis of the “indeStrudtible desire
in the image of a paSt? W hether it was through clinical experiments on
unconscious desire or by his philosophical readings of Spinoza and
Nietzsche, Freud saw in the dream and the symptom how the psychical
dynamis makes th em processes th at are both different—new, native,
unexpedted, unpredidtable—and repetitive because they are moved
according to the “eternal return” of our moSt fundam ental desires.
It should not be any surprise th at Gilles Deleuze—taking it from
Freud, w ith a view to taking it quite far—should also have conStrudted
his thoughts on difference and repetition in the wake of his readings
of Nietzsche and Spinoza. His 1962 book on Nietzsche, already contested
the idea th a t the will to potency (puissance) was to be understood m
term s of power (pouvoir\ which is w hat a whole tradition—definitively
refuted by Mazzino M ontinari—had tried to suggest. Nietzschean
potency (puissance) is firft of all,pathos,'‘power to be affedted”; and
it is then “an essentially plaStic principle,” th a t is to say a n em ergence
offorms perpetually m etam orphosing; in this way Deleuze was
to call it “creative and giving,” and consequently ten d ing tow ards
anything but a power over som eone else. This “pow er to be affedted”
would reappear in Gilles Deleuze’s great book on Spinoza an d th e
problem of expression (Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza).
To be affedted does n o t m ean to be passive: th ere is an essential
potency in feeling affedted in us, w hich we see, n o t quite w ritten o u t in
black and white, but w ritten out in gestures in films like Battleship
Potemkin or A Grin Without a Cat, and w hich presides over, preludes all
of our gestures of uprising. It is ano th er way to recognize, after Spinoza,
that potency (potentia) is in no way a pow er (poteftas), w hile it m ay be
in tune with th at “force of existence” th a t th e a u th o r of th e Ethics called
conatus or impulse, “effort,” th a t very energy—an indentrudtible
energy—of our desires. Spinoza claim ed th a t this energy o r potency
(puissance) formed a n “adtual essence” (adtua/is essentia) in which, however
paradoxical it may appear in our traditional categories, the potency
(puissance) is the adt itself and n o t its privation. The potency (puissance)
of desire is never exhausted, except in d eath (or in th e d eath im pulse).
It does not oppose the adt to which it never ceases to offer new forms.
And itis in such a potency (puissance) th at Spinoza found th e fundam ental
principles for w hat makes our desires th e desires for freedom .
It is in the nam e of reason—a reason th a t did n o t t o n its back on
desires or em otions—th a t Spinoza h ated pow er (pouvoir) exerted as
a form of political tyranny. How then, if God exists, can His pow er
(pouuoir) reasonably be obliged to serve us or to tyrannize us? Would
it not suffice to have the potency (puissance)— th a t freedom o f potency
which, consequently, also charadterizes th e h u m an spirit or m ind as
such? A government th at would seek to “com m and m inds” (and it
seems today th at these forms of governm ent are legion) is, according
to chapter twenty of the Theological-Political Treatise, m erely a “violent
government” the m oil detectable of tyrannies. Poor Spinoza, who
had to experience such institutional terror himself, and who, am ong
his many braveries, sought to cover the walls of The Hague w ith
a poster—on which could be read (Jltimi Barbarorum,“th e worSt 9.
Michaux 1972,588-602. Nicolas
of barbarians”—who w anted to raise up peoples’m inds againSt
2002, passim. AriStotle [1998], XII,
t e assassinations of the republicans Johan and Comelis de Witt, 1,1019a. 131. Boulnois, ed. 1994,
on August 20,1672. Spinoza, the philosopher of uprising? It was n o t 21-66. Freud 1900,615. Montinari
until the courageous and rigorous work of Antonio Negri th a t 1972-1982, passim. Deleuze 1968a,
passim. Deleuze 1962,50,62-63,
e capital disconnedtion between potency (puissance) and power and 85. Deleuze 1968b, 83-96,
pou u o ir) was developed as far as possible, th a t is to say towards and 217-234. Deleuze 1970,
mancipatory goals to which we will need to return.9 101-109. Spinoza 1675, in, 6-7
(217). Alqute 1959,347- 368.
Ramond 1994,129-172. Revault
d’A llonnes and Rizk, ed. 1994,
passim. Sportelli 1995,passim.
Rovere 2010,2-6 and 105-141.
Karaoui-Bouchoucha 2010,
passim. Spinoza 1670,896-897.
Negri 1981,passim. Negri 1992,
passim.

314
DUENDE OF TR A N S G R ESS IO N

So in 1921 we could read, all over Europe, this impertinent and

optimistic phrase: Dada raises everything! After the inaugural gesture
of the DadaiSts, it is on the potency (puissance) and the indeStrudtibility
of desire th at Surrealism founded its own poetical and political
tendency towards uprising. As though Une vague de reves (A wave of
dreams), the title of a work by Aragon published in 1924, surged onto
peoples’m inds in order to “win the revolution of forces of drunkenness”
and of the unconscious, as Walter Benjamin showed so well from 1929
on: “Since Bakunin, Europe has lacked a radical concept of freedom.
The Surrealists have one. They are the firSt to liquidate the sclerotic
liberal-moral-humaniStic ideal of freedom, because they are convinced
th a t ‘freedom, which on this earth can be bought only with a thousand
of the hardest sacrifices, muSt be enjoyed unrestrictedly in its fullness
w ithout any kind of pragmatic calculation, as long as it laSts.’”
This is w hat Benjamin finally called “poetic politics” (dichterische
Politik) which, beyond the familiar injunctions of the Communist
Manifesto, founded the possibility of an “anthropological materialism”
(anthropologischer Materialismus) capable of grasping—or even
producing—th a t m om ent when “revolutionary tension becomes bodily
collective innervation” from its intrinsic potency (puissance), which is
desire and its freely invented “image space” (Bildraum). Thus there
will be successive publications, gathering around AndrC Breton, of
La Revolution surrealists between 1924 and 1929, then of Surr^alisme
au service de la Revolution between 1930 and 1933, publications in
which—as shown by authors, following Walter Benjamin, such as
Rosalind Krauss, Michel Poivert, and CICment ChCroux the
photographic image played a paradigmatic role: the role, we might
say, of an operator o f transgression. But no one went as far in this
direction as Georges Bataille regarding visual forms, inner experience,
desire and, even, political economics.
The journal Documents, published in 1929 and 1930, appeared
already like a fireworks display—feux d’artifice, beauty bom of
explosions— of forms risen up or unswervingly “rising.” Bataille thus
saw the black dancers in the Blackbirds at the Moulin Rouge as “sleazy
and charm ing feux follets”(not unlike duendes) who “dance and cry”
as though they were rising up above the “immense cemetery that
will have been built by their cultural dom ination (fig. 14). Du St
in Bataille’s eyes? It does not “rise” exactly the way Marcel Duchamp
and Man Ray had said in 1920: rather, it “rises up” againSt the order
and the tidiness of the bourgeois houses it continues to haunt m
spite of the “maids” recruited to get rid o f it. The large toenails,
photographed for Bataille by his friend Jacques-Andrd Boiffard, com e
to the surface on the pages of Documents (in o u r hands) a n d rise,
though disproportionate and turgescent like sexual and dangerous
organs. If “the dislocation of forms leads to th a t of th o u g h t as
Bataille saw in Picasso—th en it would follow th a t th eir “lugubrious
game” is as subversive as a w riting of Sade called u p for th e occasion.
And if space is capable of “Staying roguish” as Bataille w rote, isn t it
because it manages to rise up againSt architedture itself th e m o m en t
when, for example, the walls of a prison collapse (fig. IS)?
Benjamin was quite right, then, to recognize th e fecundity of
this “anthropological materialism.” Bataille showed, m ore th a n anyone
else, both its relevance and its transgressive value w hen h e w ent,
in a few lines, from the “deviations of n atu re” to th e uprisings in
Battleship Potemkin— according to a fundam ental paradigm th a t
he called the “dialedtics of forms” —in spite of his com parison o f m a n
to a volcano th at rises (eredtion), rises up to projedt its lava (eruption),
before letting himself go in a “vertiginous fall.” On th e ethnological
level, from 1933 on, Bataille m ade potlatch th e principle of an
“expenditure” envisaged as “debauchery” and “rising of pleasure”
over and above any utility—which he w ould call an “insubordination
of m aterial fadts” againSt the fixed order of things reduced to th eir
exchange value. Thus, for him , experience in th e radical sense th e n
has the value of an uprising againSt any rules im posed. Such is
the “potency of unpow er” th at is inherent in sacrifice—th a t “joy facing
death” Bataille often invoked—and, above all, in th e gesture of revolt.
But what revolt exadtly?
Firstly, it is the revolt carried out as a counterattack againSt fascism
between 1932 and 1939. Bataille participated in th e works of th e
Democratic CommuniSt circle diredted by Boris Souvarine, an d in 1933
examined the “psychological Strudture of fascism” before editing Contre-
attaque with Andrd Breton, a journal in which he argued for “violent
outbursts of potency (puissance)” in the Streets againSt th e “im potence”
of political hesitations facing fascist movements. In th e context of the
Colldge de Sociologie, between 1937 and 1939, he would seek a position
that was neither fascist nor bourgeois, nor com m unist, by focusing
in the footsteps of Marcel Mauss—on developing w hat he th e n called
a Sociologie sacrde du monde contemporain, founded entirely on a
philosophical and political notion of the “heterogeneous.” These were
agitated episodes in Georges Bataille’s political course before th e
Second World War, on which specialists have not finished com m enting.
In any case, it is in the retreat and silence of w riting that, betw een 1939

316
fig- M
Anonymous, Kanaks fro m Kroua, Koua-oua , undated. Photograph illustrating Andr£
Schaef&ier’s article “Les ‘Lew Leslie’s Black Birds’ au Moulin Rouge” (Lew Leslie’s
Blackbirds at the Moulin Rouge), D ocum ents, 1929, no. 4 , 223.

Anonymous, Collapse o f a prison in C olum bus, Ohio, 1930.

Photograph illustrating Georges Bataille’s article “Espace” (Space)
in D ocum ents, 1930, no. l, 42.
and 1945 Bataille sought the duende of revolt deep w ithin himself.
It is the period of the Coupable (the “guilty”), in w hich h u m a n
existence was sa id -g iv e n the State of w a r - t o have risen to th e
“summit of a disaster”; th en of Inner Experience, m w hich he a ttem p ted
to tell about his “journeys to the ends o f th e possible”from a “critique
of dogmatic servitude” inherent in traditional religious ideologies
and mysticisms. Consequently, w hat is it th a t m akes us rise u p so
radically in the types of experiences described by Georges Bataille
at that time? Something th a t “rises within.” A hitting spirit o f sorts th a t
does not overrun as such b u t exceeds everything,“like in a fall w here
one shouts out.” It is “something im m ense, exorbitant [that] frees
itself in every way w ith the noise of a catastrophe,” of telescoped
trains or violent riots. Here, for Bataille, is w hat could be “th e moSt
profound revolution”: an experience in which tim e itself becom es
“unhinged.”
Once again, we are close to Nietzschean potency (puissance) as well
as the duende according to G arda Lorca. Was Bataille not, precisely in
this period, in his text on Nietzsche titled Volontt de chance, one of
the firSt to understand the innocence and playfulness of Nietzschean
potency (puissance)? That Dionysian dance is a real potency (puissance),
that baile jondo th at raises souls and bodies far from any “will to pow er
(pouuoir)”It should be no surprise to see th a t in 1945—th e year
he attempted to tear Nietzsche away from his use by nationalists and
fascists—Georges Bataille returned to th e duende as a fundam ental
political potency (puissance), one which, close to an “ethos of revolt”
that inspired French Surrealism, led him from Guernica to th e pehas
flamencas and to anarchist villages in Andalusia, things th a t he w ished
to call “Free Spain,” even while Europe was freed from Nazism yet
Franco ruled Spain, more th an ever, w ith an iron fiSt.
Naturally, then, Bataille, after Nietzsche and Warburg, was fascinated
by the immoderation or the excess of Dionysian processions as
potencies (puissances) unfam iliar to any form of governm ent or power
(pouuoir): “It is necessary for me to represent th e divinity Dionysus
as the Strangest with regard to the need to im bue the divinity
with authority.... It would seem to be the divine in its purest State,
which has not been altered by the obsession w ith eternalizing a given
order. The divine in Dionysus is the opposite of the Father of the
gospel: he is omnipotent, he is the innocence of the inStant
Poetry which he embodies—is not the m elancholia of the poet,
nor the ecStasy of the silence of a solitary person. It is not the isolated
person but rather the crowd, being less th an a being and m ore of an
overturned barrier. The air around him is filled w ith Strident cries,

318

10.
Le Bon, ed. 2005,326, and 333.
Aragon 1924, passim. Benjamin
1929,215, and 217. Breton et al.,
eds. 1924-1929,passim. Breton
1930-1933, passim. Krauss 1985,
197-235. Poivert 2006, passim.
Bajac and Ch^roux, eds. 2009,
20- 61. Didi-Huberman 1995,
passim. Bataille 1929a, 186.
Bataille 1929b, 197. Bataille 1929c,
200-204. Bataille 1929d, 212.
Bataille 1930a, 227. Bataille 1930b,
228-230. Bataille 1930c, 11-47.
Bataille 1933a, 302-320. Bataille
1933b, 339-371. Bataille 1932-
1939, passim. Bataille and Breton,
eds. 1935-1936,passim. Hollier,
ed. 1979,245-251. Bataille 1938b,
passim. M arm ande 1985,39-126.
Surya 1992,353 89-93,195-233,
266-277,318-330, and 385-387.
Kunz Wefterhoff 2013,30-42.
Pic 2013,81-109. Besnier 2014,
passim. Bataille 1939-1944,241.
Bataille 1943,15-17,19, and 58-59.
Bataille 1945a, passim. Bataille
1945b, 17-18. Bataille 1945c, 24-25.
Bataille 1945d, 11-24. Didi-
Huberman 2008,147-177. Bataille
1946,68. Bataille 1948,322-331.
Bataille 1947a, 405. Bataille 1949,
28-33, and 79. Bataille 1951a
74-103. Bataille 1957,35- 162.
laughter, kisses, when the smoking torch of the night veiling
the faces lights t h e ...! Because there is nothing that the mad procession
does not trample.” As in the Andalusian celebrations, it would be
necessary every tim e to recreate the Dionysian mix of religious ecftasy
and the “drunkenness of taverns.”
Who better th an Bataille to have expressed the transgressive
value of desire as the potency (puissance) of uprising. It is significant,
for example, th at in LAlleluiah, written in 1947, he was able to describe
sex adts w ith visual close-ups—“sex organs copulating like naked
“guenilles,”some bald, others like pink caves”—illustrated also with
sound close-ups: yet, it is only rumors of riots (“rumeurs dVmeutes”),
he said. From there, political economy itself (of commerce and
conflicts inherent in hum an societies) is entirely regulated according to
a psychical economy of fantasies, desires, and impulses. Hence
the crucial place given to a notion like “expenditure.” It is in the same
m ovement, therefore, th at the two parts of La Part Maudite
(The Accursed Share) were written, the firSt part concerned with an
economic history of expenditure—or “consumption”—and the second
w ith a cultural history of eroticism. In each case, it is a question
of the same “exuberance "the same “revolt,” the same “exceeding
energy? and the same “transgression,” all of which are notions
th a t Bataille was to return to scrupulously in 1957, in his text
Eroticism.10
T H E T IM E O F T H E R EVO LT
In 1951, Albert Camus’s Uhomme r&volttf (The Rebel) was published,
w ith its well-known existentialist phrase: “I rebel therefore we exi§t.
To rebel is a mix of refusal (of the current State of things) and of
assent (regarding a future movement of things). “What is a rebel?
A m an who says no: b ut whose refusal does not imply a renunciation.
He is also a m an who says yes as soon as he begins to think for himself”
The rebel is, above all, the one who says yes to a desire, the desire to
m ake an about-turn, to be a turncoat: “In the etymological sense,
th e rebel is a turncoat. He a d e d under the lash of his m ad er’s whip.
Suddenly he turn s and faces him. He chooses what is preferable to
w hat is not. Not every value leads to rebellion, but every rebellion
tacitly invokes a value.” It is in this way, Camus wrote, that “an
awakening of conscience, no m atter how confused it may e, eve o
from any a d of rebellion” when, awakening, i t “liberates dagnan
w aters and turn s th em into a raging torrent.
The time of the revolt would th en be th e tim e o f a desiring present,
of a protended present, set in m otion tow ards th e future by a n about-
turn: a present th at challenges itself from th e inside th rough th e
potency (puissance) of desire which escapes from it. Camus suggested
that this is exaftly how time becomes, and how history is constituted:
“The history of m an, in one sense, is th e sum total of his successive
rebellions.” It is also the history of th eir betrayed revolts, an d th e
“Soviet bloc” offered Camus the moSt Striking example: “Dialogue an d
personal relations have been replaced by propaganda o r polem ic,
which are two kinds of monologue. AbStraftion, w hich belongs to th e
world of power and calculation, has replaced th e real passions, w hich
are in the dom ain of the flesh and of th e irrational. The ration coupon
substituted for bread; love and friendship subm itted to a dodtrine and
deStiny to a plan; punishm ent considered th e norm , an d production
substituted for living creation.” And it is in this way th a t th e Russian
Revolution, unfortunately, tu rn ed againSt th e origins of its revolt.
That Camus should speak to us here o f “living creation” againSt any
kind of produdtiviSt logic rem inds us clearly of th e role he w ished to
give to artistic creation as the ultim ate paradigm of any revolt: “Art
should give us a final perspedtive on th e content o f th e rebellion” even
beyond its “metaphysical” foundations (explored in th e firSt p a rt of
the book) or its “historical” incarnations (explored in th e central part).
Was Camus recalling the lessons of th e Dada an d Surrealist avant-
gardes here? Not quite, as we can see in this critique addressed to
the “chief poet” of the Revolution surrdaliSte: “Andrd Breton w anted,
at the same time, revolution and love, which are incom patible.
Revolution consists in loving a m an who does n o t yet exiSt.” To w hich
Breton replied th at “a few rigged cards have slipped into Camus’s
game. Before Jean-Paul Sartre violently consum m ated, in Les Temps
modemes, the political rupture w ith his old friend.
Georges Bataille, who had already h ad a dispute, and a h arsh one,
with Sartre as well as Breton, was attentive to w hat was Stirred up
by the publication of L’Homme revolte. In 1947, he saw in La PeSte
(The Plague) a kind o f “slippage,” through which an “ethos of revolt”
could make the novel’s protagonist retu rn to a “depressed ethos.” But,
in 1951, Bataille—as though to reply to th e attacks m ade by Sartre and
Breton—acknowledged L'Homme revolte as “a capital book.” Adding
immediately that “one would need to be blind or to be of bad faith to
eny it,” he seems to suggest the principle protagonists of th e polemic:
Breton m the role of the blind visionary p ar excellence, and
ean-Paul Sartre in the role of the philosopher of bad faith. To begin,
' en’one m uft paY homage to an author who was—like Bataille—

320
neither a professional philosopher, nor a professional historian,
but who w anted to “grasp the coherence of this excessive and hurried
movem ent which made the recent centuries a sequence of staggering
deStrudtions and creations.”
But Bataille already exceeds Camus’s humanistic position,
for we have moved, here, from living creation in general to the hard
historical chain of uprisings like so many Staggering creations. The
author of La Part Maudite (The Accursed Share), for his part, placed “the
revolt of the oppressed,” who Stagger and overturn their State of
submission, on the same level as the “flotsam and jetsam of language,”
which creates the cultural and psychical conditions for political
uprising (the firSt examples given by Bataille were Sade and Nietzsche).
We understand, then, th at the “coherence of these movements” of
revolt is nothing other th an a gesture capable of creating by overturning
or of overturning by creating. Bataille acknowledged that Andrd Breton’s
early Surrealism achieved this, as though in order to find a common
ground which, despite the polemics on the surface, would unite
the avant-gardes of the 1920s and the existentialism of the 1940s:
“For Albert Camus, as well as for Surrealism, it is a question of finding
w ithin revolt a fundam ental movement in which m an fully takes
on his deStiny”
To fully take on this deStiny? How difficult a task! How it divides us,
how it exceeds us and twiSts us around. Bataille would describe
this image w ith absurd intention: “As though we wanted, through an
adt of violence, to tear ourselves out of the morass that linked us and
(the absurdity of this image alone answers the movement) holding
ourselves by the hair, tore us and threw us into a world never seen
before.” But w hat is the nature of this difficulty (which is also, perhaps,
the source of the debate between Camus and Sartre)? Bataille called it
a dilemma or, better Still, “discordances of revolt”: “It seems often, with
regard to revolts, th a t there are only whim, sovereignty of unstable
humor, and unrestrainedly multiplied contradidlions. In fadt, enough
to subm it revolt indefinitely to the spirit of submission. This necessity
is inscribed in the deStiny of man: the spirit of submission has the
efficiency so lacking in the spirit of in-submission. The revolt leaves
th e rebel facing a dilem m a th at depresses him: if it is pure, untreatable,
he renounces the exercising of any power [pouuoir], and pushes
im potence [impuissance] to the point of nourishing facilities of
unrestrained language; if it participates in a search for power [pouvoir ,
it links up w ith th e spirit of submission. Hence the opposition between
the m an of letters and the politician, the former a rebel at heart,
and the latter a realist.”
It is not difficult to recognize, in all of these “discordances,” th e
fundam ental opposition betw een potency (puissance) an d pow er
(pouvoir). There is indeed w ithin potency som ething th a t Bataille calls
“the firSt m ovem ent of full im m oderation,” w hich is th e m ovem ent
of insubordination or transgression; while power (pouvoir), even for th e
one who exerts it, assumes a logic of subm ission an d of im p risonm ent
in its rules. Yet it is neither as a slave n o r as a m atter th a t one muSt adt,
but rather as a rebel: and even if the rebel finds him or h erself “in th e
m oil equivocal situation,” as Bataille said in 1952, in a conference titled
“Le non-savoir et la rdvolte” (The unknow ing o f th e revolt). Perhaps th e
affair concerning The Rebel gave Bataille, in th e end, th e opportunity
to imagine, beyond Warburg’s Atlas or Camus’s Sisyphus, th e radical
gesture of an Atlas rising who, recognizing th e w eight of things, w ould
refuse it juSt as easily by throw ing it far away.“It is essential for peo p le”
said Bataille to Andrd Gillois,“to m anage to destroy th a t servility to
which they are tied, by the fadt th a t they b uilt th e ir world, th e h u m a n
world, a world to which I hold, a world th a t gives m e life, b u t th a t
nonetheless carries w ith it a kind of load, som ething infinitely heavy
that is found in all of our anxieties and th a t muSt som ehow be lifted.”
In 1958, in his unpublished notes for Le Pur Bonheur (Pure happiness),
Bataille wrote: “The infradtion is all th a t counts.”11

MASSES AND P O T E N C Y

So, there is happiness in violating the rules. Perhaps, then, th e potency

(puissance) of transgression (a word th a t prim arily m eans, th e crossing,
despite everything, of a closed border, disobedience towards a rule
that limited our freedom of m ovem ent) would give its Style to desire.
And perhaps the infradtion (a word th a t m eans, primarily, breaking
a frame or shackles) would give its m ovem ent to desire, though its
form may be broken, breaking, or zigzagging. It is no doubt only a firSt
approximation regarding the gestures of uprising: potency (puissance)
as desire or desire revealing, in the end, its potency (puissance).
In historical uprisings, this potency anim ates, they say, th e masses. This
is a word whose hiS tory-like the history of the word people— seem s to
have been condemned to the unanim ity of revolutionary slogans as
well as to the authontarianism of totalitarian governments
As a result the masses, the crowds, frighten: they even frighten the
psychoanalyst (Sigmund Freud) w hen he questions th e possibilities
a psychology of the masses,”juSt as they frightened the
cosmopolitan writer (Elias Canetti) w hen he risked w riting an
11.
Camus 1951,28,19,20,23,78,78,
120, and 253. Breton 1951,1049.
Sartre 1952,90-125. Bataille
1947b, 248. Bataille 1951b,
149-160. Bataille 1952a, 212.
Bataille 1952b, 230-236. Bataille
and Gillois 1951,98. Bataille 1958,
530.

322
 anthropology of the potency of the masses (Masse und Macht).
Freud, of course, Started—but, for once, he did not go far enough—with
positiviSt and reactionary Studies, like those of HonorC Antoine FrCgier
(1840) or Scipio Sighele on The Criminal Crowd. The latter, like the
criminologists of his tim e such as Cesare Lombroso or Alphonse
Bertillon, attem pted to find the laws for a police theory of “complicity”
th at would open onto a whole arsenal of repressive measures aiming
to anticipate and to eventually get rid of any kind of popular uprising.
Today, these works read merely like manuals of police paranoia.
As in the classic book by GuStave Le Bon titled Psychologie desfoules
(The Crowd: A Study o f the Popular) (1895)—on which Freud leaned—the
masses rem ain, more or less, in this type of discourse, condemned
to be seen either as “beasts” (imbeciles) that can easily be led by the
nose, exploited, or sent to slaughter, or as “beasts” (animals) that muSt
be put in a cage because they are wild, dangerous, and enraged.
Freud saw in the masses a desire th at he called, paraphrasing Le Bon,
“impulsive” and “changing” (and of course hysteria is not far off):
“Nothing about it is prem editated. It may desire things passionately,
b u t never for long; it is incapable of any long-term intention. It cannot
abide any delay betw een its desire and realization of the thing desired.
It has a sense of omnipotence; for the individual in the mass the
concept of impossibility vanishes.”
Freud was the contem porary and the overwhelmed spectator
of warlike nationalism betw een 1914 and 1918, and then of the great
National Socialist masses in Munich, Nuremberg, and Vienna. This
is probably one of the reasons why he felt incapable of detecting
am authentic “potency” (puissance) of desire at work in society at the
time: in it he saw only the “discontent” and immoderation of
an “om nipotence” the Allmacht. The tidal wave of nationalism and of
to talitarianism m ade him envisage the psychology of masses according
to a paradoxical agglomeration of a “gregariousness” (Herdentrieb)
and a “devotion to the ideal” (Hingebung an ein Ideal): the worSt of
the monftra on the one hand, the worSt of the aStra on the other.
Perhaps the masses follow their inStinCt like a watchword and follow
the watchwords of their leaders like an inStinCt inherent in their very
constitution. Hence the radical pessimism expressed in 1929, at the
beginning of Civilization and Its Discontent, regarding values—or, rather,
“false Standards” (falschen MafiStaben)—which, according to Freud,
alm ost inevitably com er the masses, societies, and collectives m general.
Elias Canetti shared this fundam ental pessimism, which came
from the sam e historical torm ents. Yet this did not prevent him from
developing a genuine passion for understanding, which was supporte
by his genius for description: the anthropology of Crowds and Power
is presented as a grand phenom enology of th e gestures o f the crowds.
Starting from the assum ption th a t “there is nothing th a t m a n fears
more th an the touch w ith the unknown,” Canetti im m ediately w onders
what the gesture of liberation m ight be outside of th a t fear. Unlike
Georges Bataille, he does not envisage any role for eroticism in
overcoming this fear of touch, for example. He does n o t envisage
anything other th an the socialized crowd: “It is only in a crowd th a t
m an can become free of this fear of being touched [uon dieser
Beruhrungsfurcht erld§t werden /cann].That is th e only situation in
which the fear changes into its opposite.” T hat opposite is effusion
and fusion: the great celebration—however cruel and violent it m ay
be—of contadt betw een hum ans.
Canetti describes the masses or th e crowds as a form ation :
a morphogenesis. “The crowd, suddenly there w here th ere was nothing
before, is a mysterious and universal phenom enon. A few people m ay
have been Standing together—five, ten or twelve, n o t more; nothing
has been announced, nothing is expedted. Suddenly everyw here is
black w ith people and more come Streaming from all sides as though
Streets had only one diredtion. MoSt of th em do not know w hat has
happened and, if questioned, have no answer; b u t they h u rry to be
there where moSt other people are. There is a determ ination in th eir
movement which is quite different from th e expression of ordinary
curiosity It seems as though the m ovem ent of some of th em transm its
itself to the others. But th a t is not all; they have a goal which is t
here before they can find words for it. This goad is th e blackest spot
where moSt people are gathered.... As soon as it exists at all, it w ants
to consist of more people; the urge to grow is th e firSt and suprem e
attribute of the crowd. It wants to seize everyone w ithin reach;
anything shaped like a hum an being can jo in it. The natural crowd
is the open crowd.”
At the same tim e as it opens and spreads, th e crowd vibrates
rhythmically. It has spasms—as Vidtor Hugo described so well
in Les Mistrables— or has w hat Canetti calls th e “discharge” (Entladung).
The discharge is liberation from any load or burden. This liberty
produces, through its dynamics, som ething like a reign of equality:
Only together can m en free themselves from their burdens of
distance; and this, precisely, is w hat happens in a crowd. During the
discharge diftindtions are throw n off and all feel equal. In th a t density,
where there is scarcely any space between, and body presses against
body, each m an is as near the other as he is to himself; and an
immense feeling of relief ensues. It is for the sake of this blessed

324
 mom ent, when no-one is greater or better than another, that people
become a crowd.” Canetti emphasizes, however, what he sees as
the “fundam ental illusion” in such a feeling of liberty: “the people who
suddenly feel equal have not really become equal; nor will they feel
equal for ever? Moreover, Canetti describes that way in which one
hundred thousand people can become one body from which “every
arm is thrust out as though they all belonged to one and the same
creature”: “They all Stamp the ground and they all do it in the same
way; they all swing their arms to and fro and shake their heads.
The equivalence of the dancers becomes, and ramifies as, the
equivalence of their limbs. Every part of a m an which can move gains
a life of its own and adts as if independent, but the movements are all
parallel, the limbs appearing superimposed on each other. They are
close together, one often renting on another, and thus density is added
to their State of equivalence. Density and equality become one and
the same. In the end, there appears to be a single creature dancing,
a creature w ith fifty heads and a hundred legs and arms, all
perform ing exadtly in the same way and with the same purpose.”
It often happens th at the crowds dance in a unanimous movement
under the baton of a didtator. But it happens too—as Canetti knows—
th a t they dance their refusal to be led by the baton. Consequently, they
dance their desire to overturn everything.“Prohibition crowds” crowds
of “refusal” (Verbotsmassen), wrote Canetti: “A large num ber of people
together refuse to continue to do what, till then, they had done singly?’
The beSt example is the Strike in which “they are equals in relation to
this com m on m om ent of Starting and Stopping work” which they
generally are not in the hierarchy imposed by their tasks. We can think
also of the “reversal crowds” (Umkehrungsmassen) for which everything
is like a “Storming of the BaStille,” th at very deStrudtion calling upon
the ultim ate, transgressive joy of “feaSt crowds” (.Feftmassen).
But the feaSt will be a cruel one, and even a terrifying one. Canetti
does not seem to have imagined—unlike EisenStein in Strike, for
exam ple—th a t an uprising of the masses could be at the same time
fully liberating and innocent. The deStiny of uprisings appears to him
to take shape in w hat he calls “baiting crowds” (Hetzmassen), as though
every riot (emeute) needed to end in the deployment of a pack (meute),
a terrible word th a t signifies a pack of wolves, hunting dogs, mad
m ilitiam en, or lynch mobs. Canetti does not w ant to see that a not
hunts, firft of all, w hat has oppressed it, to throw it literally outside
o f itself; w hereas a pack only hunts in order to trap a prey that is more
fragile or m ore a m inority th an itself. The riot hunts m order to
relinquish and to free itself, while the pack hunts in order to capture
and to kill another. In Battleship Potemkin, th e lam en tatio n scene
transforms into a revolt in w hich a m em ber o f th e Black H undreds—
an extreme far-right anti-Semitic m ilitia th a t raged th ro u g h o u t
Russia and th at fom ented th e great pogrom s o f 1905—was lynched
by the crowd. But the surfaces rise up tow ards th e sky as bodies rising
up towards a surplus of life, unlike th e “lam enting pack” (Klagemeute)
described by Canetti as a process going from d eath undergone
to death given.
This is w hat he calls also the “deStrudtiveness” (ZerStdrungssucht),
the principle em otion of any m ass m ovem ent: “The crowd particularly
likes destroying houses and objedts: breakable objedts like w indow
panes, mirrors, pidtures and crockery; and people ten d to th in k th a t
it is the fragility of these objedts which Stimulates th e deStrudtiveness
of the crowd. It is true th a t the noise of deStrudtion adds to its
satisfadtion; the banging of windows and th e crashing of glass are
the robuSt sounds of fresh life, the cries of som ething new -born....
But there is more to it th a n this. In th e crowd th e individual feels
that he is transcending the limits of his own person. He has a sense
of relief, for the distances are rem oved which used to throw h im back
on himself and shut him in. With th e lifting of these burdens of
distance he feels free; his freedom is th e crossing of these boundaries.
He wants w hat is happening to him to h ap p en to others too; and
he expedts it to happen to them . An earth en pot irritates him , for it is
all boundaries. The closed doors of a house irritate him . Rites and
ceremonies, anything which preserves distances, th reaten him
and seem unbearable. He fears that, sooner or later, an attem pt will be
made to force the disintegrating crowd back into these pre-exiSting
vessels. To the crowd in its nakedness everything seems a BaStille.”
The crowd is therefore a monSter, which is som ething Aby W arburg
would not have denied. Canetti saw Europe ransacked by totalitarian
masses. As a result, he only understood colledtive uprisings as preliminary
Steps in a process of crushing any “distance” and any authentic freedom.
Historically, the limits of this approach—however adm irable it m ay
have been—were a result of an inability to think about certain
phenom ena of riots (tmeutes), rather th a n of packs (meutes), such as
the SpartaciSt uprising in Berlin in 1919 or the KronStadt Com m une
in 1921. It is no surprise that, philosophically speaking, this lim it
was expressed by Canetti in his way of understanding the relations
between “force and power” (Gewalt und Macht).
For Canetti, in fadt, potency is not at all the opposite of power.
Instead, it appears to him to be a sort of super-power allegorized
by the image of the cat playing w ith the mouse it has juSt captured:

326

12 .
Fr^gier 1840, passim. Sighele 1891,
passim. Sighele 1894, passim. Le
Bon 1895, passim. Freud 1921,14,
16, and 55-60. Freud 1929,10.
Canetti i 960,15, 16 , 18,4 9 , 32,55,
36,19-20,
and 281. Saar 2013,177-179.
Friedrich 1999, passim. Holloway
2002, passim. Zibechi 2005,
passim.
“When force gives itself time to operate, it becomes power, but when
the m om ent of crisis arrives, the moment of irrevocable decision,
it reverts to being pure force. Power is more general and operates over
a wider space th an force, it includes much more, but is less dynamic.
It is more ceremonious and even has a certain measure of patience.
The difference between force and power can be illustrated very simply
by the relationship between cat and mouse. The cat uses force to catch
the mouse, to seize it, hold it in its claws and ultimately lull it. But
while it is playing with it another fadtor is present. It lets it go, allows
it to ru n about a little and even turn its back; and, during this time,
the mouse is no longer subjugated to force. But it is Still within the
power of the cat and can be caught again. If it gets right away it escapes
from the cat’s sphere of power; but, up to the point at which it can
no longer be reached, it is Still within it. The space which the cat
dominates, the m om ents of hope it allows the mouse, while continuing
however to watch it closely all the time and never relaxing its interest
and intention to destroy it—all this together, space, hope, watchfulness
and deStrudtive intent, can be called the adtual body of power, or, more
simply, power itself”
Now, Macht is indeed the German translation for Spinoza’s
potential; b u t this word suggests to the German ear, spontaneously,
som ething like the exertion or the possibility of a force, including
m ilitary force (as in the Wehrmacht), or a political power (as in
the Machtergreifung, the “seizing of power” claimed by the Nazis).
It will not therefore be inevitably contrasted with Gewalt, which is
the translation for Spinoza’s poteftas. We should not be surprised
th a t M artin Saar, in his Study on the politics of Spinoza, should have
critiqued the opposition established by Antonio Negri, and before that
by Gilles Deleuze, between a “power” (pouuoir) and a “potency”
(puissance), which is closer to a German word that appears to be quite
different yet is etymologically related, and that is the word Vermdgen.
Elias Canetti’s philosophical and textual syStem, according to Peter
Friedrich’s detailed analysis, was therefore linguistically prepared,
if I m ay say, to diredt potential towards the political monfter, that
mix of power and potency anim ated by a gregariousness as much as
by a blind obedience to a leader, to an idealized Fuhrer. How, then,
can we find a coherent place for this politics of desire as found
in th e work of Georges Bataille, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Gilles Deleuze,
or Antonio Negri, and even in political thinkers like John Holloway
(who suggests “changing the world w ithout taking power )
or Raul Zibechi (who suggests “dispersing power” rather than
exerting it)?12
EVEN T H E N EW BORN R IS ES UP

We do not exercise power the m om ent we rise up. No doubt th e task

of “taking” power—of setting it up and exercising it falls to a
revolution in due form (but exadtly w hat th a t “due form ” m ight be
is another question). In an uprising we deploy a potency (puissance)
th at is both desire and life. Even Kant was ready to accept it an d to jo in
the three words I have ju ft em phasized together: “Life is th e faculty
CVermogen) of a being to adt in accordance w ith laws of th e faculty of
desire (jSegehrungsvermogen).” This “faculty” or this “potency [puissance]
to desire” will be defined as the dynam ic capable of m aking a
subjedt rise up so as “to be by m eans of its representations th e cause
of the reality of the objedts of these representations”; w hich m eans,
its freedom to produce in reality w hat will have appeared to him
or her in the imagination, u nder pressure from a desire.
I have juSt cited a note from Kant’s Critique o f Practical Reason.
It is fitting to add certain developm ents by Kant in his w onderful
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point o f View regarding, in particular,
desire as the “self-determ ination of a subjedt’s pow er (Kraft) through
the representation of som ething in th e future as an effedt of this
representation.” There is, of course, “passion” or “em otion” in every
desire, and it requires the critical use of reason to tem per or to diredt it
all. If we observe a popular revolt, for example, we u n d erstand
how Kant might have considered a “passion” (Leidenschaft) w hat he
called the penchant or the “tendency towards freedom” (Freiheitsneigung)
that the revolt expresses. But this kind of a passion is not like any
other: it is fundam ental, perhaps even a founding passion for the
hum an subjedt, to the extent that Kant wished to interpret the newborn’s
cries as the very expression of this tendency for freedom: “Even th e
child who has juSt wrenched itself from the m o ther’s womb, seems to
enter the world with loud cries, unlike other animals, simply because it
regards the inability to make use of its limbs as constraint, and thus
it immediately announces its claim to freedom [Anspruch a u f Freiheit]?
Human life, then, is indeed a desire for freedom. In Kant’s view,
it is the task of reason—and the famous “enlightened” thinkers
of the Aufklarung—to find the legitimate forms for desire. However,
something like a “thruSt for freedom”—or Freiheitsdrang as Freud
was to write later—runs through a num ber of, if not all, Kantian texts.
In the Critique of Pure Reason from 1781, the freedom of reason is
posited as the potential to begin from itself beyond any im posed or
outside determining forces. In the Critique o f Judgment, in 1790, the
freedom of imagination” is justified in the “agreem ent of the latter

328
with itself in accordance with universal laws of reason.” In the Lose
Blatter, m ade up of pages taken from posthumous works by Kant and
cited by Rudolf Eisler, political freedom is said to “consist in the fadt
th at everyone can seek his own salvation according to his own designs,
and th at it is, moreover, out of the question that he may be used as
a means [even] for his own happiness by anyone other than himselfT
It is for this reason th at the famous text, Towards Perpetual Peace,
published in 1795, would outline the “republican constitution”—
necessary yet uncreated, according to the philosopher—as the
moSt “sublime” constitution around, agreeing with the principles
of cosmopolitan law and “universal hospitality? The moment he
introduced the phrase “republican constitution,” Kant interrupted its
elaboration w ith a long note on what founded it, in his view, which
is “freedom by right” (rechtliche Freiheit). Popular opinion is incorredt
in its reasoning w hen it defines this freedom as the authorization
to do anything you want, so long as you do not cause any harm to
anyone else. Kant saw th at this clichd contained a sophism, or, rather,
a tautology (“one does not cause harm to anyone... so long as one
does not cause harm to anyone” when one muSt, on the contrary,
im plem ent the principle according to which freedom “is the right
or privilege of not having to obey any laws except those that I could
have consented to.”
This is indeed how the “ftate of peace” m uft be created (ge&iftet):
in other words, it is in no way a State of nature. Consequently,
the rights of citizens to rise up againSt a despotic government will not
be considered “natural” either, as Rousseau had claimed in a famous
passage from his Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of
Inequality Among Men: “The despot is only m atter for as long as he is
the Strongest; as soon as he can be expelled, he has no right to protest
againSt violence. The insurredtion which ends with the Strangling
or dethronem ent of a sultan is juSt as lawful an adt as those by which
he disposed the day before of the lives and property of his subjedts.
Kant cools our enthusiasm in reading these lines by Rousseau, for, in
“The Dodtrine of Right” from the Metaphysics of Morals, written in 1797,
he w ent so far as to refute the legitimacy of a “right to rebellion
(Aufruhr,; rebellio), as well as th at of the “right to sedition (AufStand,
seditio), even if it gives a tension—a compromise, or perhaps a form
of self-censorship, as Domenico Losurdo suggested—to his own
enthusiasm for the French Revolution.
There are several ways to read a great writer. With the work of
th e author of Critique o f Practical Reason, it is possible to find
re tra in in g th a t which engages a certain legalism of reason. But we
can also see things m ore generously, as Frangoise ProuSt did
w hen she revealed in Kant th a t “outburst” againSt reason as a “potency
of freedom.” After 1784, Kant w ould reply to th e fam ous question
“What is Enlightenment?” by referring to th e im age of th e child placed
under the authoritarian tenderness of tutors: th e child’s “State of
nature’ is in no way savage, b u t rath er it is th e State of an im prisoned
subjedt, whereby the “docile creatures” have b een “prevented from
taking a single Step w ithout th e leading-Strings to w hich they
are tied [by their parents].” It is exadtly th e sam e case w ith th e political
subjedts whose governments “show th em th e danger if they try
to walk unaided.” And yet “they w ould certainly learn to walk
eventually Kant affirms, even if the jealous concern of th e ir
governments intim idates th em and “usually frightens th e m off from
further attempts.”
It is in this way th a t Kant claims th e term “E nlightenm ent”
(Aufklarung) as an expression, if n o t of an uprising in th e Stridt sense,
then, at leaSt, of a liberating emergence: “m an’s em ergence from his
self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is th e inability to use one’s ow n
understanding w ithout the guidance of anoth erf In The Conflict o f
Faculties, in 1798, the famous “progress of h u m a n reason” was to be
thought about only in the dynamics o f such a n “em ergence”— a notion
in which we can already sense th e harm onics o f evasion, escape, of
crossing borders, of transgression out of th e “leading-strings”
everything from which uprisings can be inferred. The moSt pressing
philosophical question, before even knowing “how to diredt one’s
thoughts,” would be the question of “how to bring th o u g h t itself” out
of that im m aturity or guardianship th a t precedes and oppresses it.
The question th en becomes, again in th e Conflict o f the Faculties,
how to give content and a form to our desire for freedom . How, Kant
asked, should we give ourselves th e “predidtion o f free adtions”? It is a
difficult question. We can predidt the revolution of th e Stars thanks to
the laws of astronomy, b u t who can predidt th a t of peoples in history?
What German philosopher was not surprised by th e event of th e
French Revolution? Moreover, w hat is an “event”—th e taking of th e
BaStille, for example—w hen the one who observes it from Konigsberg
does not know w hat outcome to expedt? W hat is a historical event th a t
bears the mark of such an “emergence” and th a t fundtions, then, as
an integral “historical sign” (Geschichtszeichen)? This, Kant claimed, is
not to be judged only by the current efficiency of th e event—m eaning,
whether or not and by w hom the BaStille has been taken—b u t by
a complete temporal beam whose “sign” muSt be th e bearer: “signum
rememorativum demon&ratiuum pronoSticum”w rote Kant in Latin;

330

13 .
Kant 1788,7 note 4,54. Kant
1798a, 149 and 168. Kant 1781-
1787,535. Kant 1790,288. Eisler
1929, D, 626. Kant 1795,7,11,6, and
10. Rousseau 1755,135. Kant 1797,
55 Losurdo 1983, passim. Renaut
and Sosoe 1991,369-387. ProuSt
1991,5-38. Kant 1784,43-44. Kant
1798b, 149-153. Foucault 1984,
32-50.
th at is to say, with the authority given to the moSt fundamental
precepts. In other words, a sign is not “historical” unless it is those
three things: carrying a memory, showing an adtuality, and announcing
a desire, which Kant called a fundamental “tendency of the human
race viewed in its entirety”
It is clear th at for Kant the French Revolution provided the major
“historical sign” of its time, memorial of very long-term efforts towards
em ancipation—the innumerable uprisings during the Ancien Regime
or the m em ory of the Roman Republic, for example; it was current in
its political adventures; and it was prognostic in its capacity to open a
universal future for this “tendency of the hum an race” to emerge from
its plurisecular im m aturity and guardianship. It is here that we see
the return of th at fundam ental “enthusiasm” that the peoples’uprising
is capable of producing beyond itself—beyond even, says Kant,
its fadtual success or failure: “The Revolution of a gifted people which
we have seen unfolding in our day may succeed or miscarry; it may
be filled w ith misery and atrocities to the point that a sensible man,
were he boldly to hope to execute it successfully the second time,
would never resolve to make the experiment at such coSt—this
revolution, I say, nonetheless finds in the hearts of all spectators (who
are not engaged in this game themselves) a wishful participation that
borders closely on enthusiasm, the very expression of which is fraught
w ith danger; this sympathy, therefore, can have no other cause than
a m oral predisposition in the hum an race. This moral cause inserting
itself [in the course of events] i s ... firSt, that of the right, that a nation
muSt not be hindered in providing itself with a civil constitution,
which appears good to the people themselves.”
Michel Foucault com m ented on these lines and proposed to join
the question “W hat is Enlightenment?” with the following, equally
burning question: “What is Revolution?” His intention was to insist
on w hat Kant called the moral predisposition of humanity, which
increases the enthusiasm in all hearts when a people rises up againSt
tyranny—and regardless of the outcome, whether great or small,
successful or failed, of the event which is then understood as an
uprising of historical tim e itself. An uprising whose potency (puissance)
would need to be imagined—potency in the sense of force and
virtuality—rather th a n merely the capacity to seize power (pouvoir):
“The Revolution, in any case, will always risk falling back into the rut,
b u t as an e v e n t... its existence attests to a perm anent virtuality that
cannot be forgotten.” It is for this memory to reconfigure our desires
w ith regard to Foucault’s eloquently formulated question: “What is the
current field of possible experiences?”13
d e s ire , s t r u g g le , d o m in a tio n , r e c o g n it io n

Anyone who examines the queSUon of desire, in th e c o n ttx t o f W e lte r,

modernity cannot avoid returning to Hegel. It is in th e chapter in th e
“ I n e l o g , o /sp iri. on the c o n s t i t u t i o n ' ° f ^ » T « d
we see desire irrupt. The Other is presented in front of th e Self, and
* e philosopher 1 tell us w hat happens th en , even if it appears to
be slightly abftradt. On the one hand, w rites H e g e l , “self-consciousness
is thus certain of itself only by superseding (durch das Aufheben) this ^
Other th at presents itself to self-consciousness as an in d ep en d en t life ;
on the other hand, th at “superseding” is n o t entirely a superseding
since it is a dialedtical operation of “raising” (Aufhebun g) th a t signals
towards the constantly reviewed force of'“desire” (Begierde): “Thus self-
consciousness, by its negative relation to th e objedt, is unable to
supersede it; it is really because of th a t relation th a t it produces th e
objedt again, and the desire as well. It is in fadt som ething o th er th a n
self-consciousness th a t is th e essence of desire.”
The fadt th at this relation of desire is a t th e sam e tim e a principle
element, a reproducible one, and one th a t can be launched ad
infinitum in the tension th a t it creates, reveals its fecundity, its power,
and, as Freud was to say, its “indeftrudtibilityf’ But we know too w hat,
in the Hegelian drama, this relation of desire becomes: a “life and
death Struggle” (Kam pfauf Leben und Tod), a Struggle through w hich
the potency (puissance) of desire engages w ith th e moSt prototypical
of pouter (pouuoir) relations: th e relation of “dom ination an d servitude”
(Herrschaft und Knechtschaft) in which, of course, th e position o f th e
master will be defined as th a t of “potency [puissance] th a t dom inates”
the Other. We m ight be surprised, in Spinoza’s term s, w hen such a
“potency” (puissance) (Macht), being dissatisfied w ith expressing itself
by itself or in the desire th a t links it to th e Other, should finally, as
Hegel wrote, be raised “above” (fiber) th e Other. Doesn’t an authentic
desire place us at the same height as, and on an equal level w ith,
the Other?
It is, however, in a different—and crueler—direction th a t things
go in the Phenomenology o f Spirit: it becomes th e fate of potency
(puissance) to be raised by a relation of power (pouuoir), and th e fate
of desire to be raised by a relation of dom ination. W hat threw us,
formerly, towards one another and with one another, now throw s
us againil one another or over one another. But this im placable
dialedtics would finally see its m om ent of reconciliation: Hegel
calls it “recognition’’(Anerkennung). It is w hen th e Self and th e Other
recognize each other and initiate the “duplicating of self-consciousness

332
in its oneness.” In the end, therefore, the Struggle and the relation of
domination-servitude occurs in “this m oment of recognition, viz. that
the other consciousness sets aside its own being-for-self”and attains
the ethical Status par excellence—and even the political Status—of
being for the other. It is an innate m oment for all hum an and social
existence: as though Hegel’s grand conStrudtions of the SyStem of Ethical
Life and the Principles of the Philosophy of Right could be developed
from there.
The philosophical narrative of the Phenomenology of Spirit is so
seminal—or so abyssal—th at it has been read, interpreted, and tom
apart in the moSt diverse ways. Should we, in particular, read this text
from the point of view of potency (puissance) or of power (pouvoir)?
In other words, are dom ination and recognition aspedts of or
counterparts to desire? Or inversely, are desire and recognition aspedts
of or counterparts to domination? Alexander Kojdve, in his famous
sem inar on Hegel, given between 1933 and 1939 at the Ecole Pratique
des Hautes fitudes—a seminar th at was attended by the French
intelligentsia, including Maurice Merleau-Ponty, firic Weil, Raymond
Aron, Jean Hippolyte, Georges Bataille, Jacques Lacan, Roger Caillois,
Michael Leiris, Raymond Queneau, and Henry Corbin—rediredted
his reading, in light of the political situation, towards power (pouvoir)
and dom ination, m ade clear by the exergue to his lessons that he
borrowed from Karl Marx. No doubt, he wrote, “the hum an being is
form ed only in term s of a Desire diredted towards another Desire, that
is—finally—in term s of a Desire for recognition.” But the Struggle to
the death and the domination-servitude relation will then engage
this desiring potency (puissance) in a relation of force or a relation
of power (pouvoir).
As Judith Butler described in her book, Subjects of Desire: Hegelian
Reflections in Twentieth-Century France in 1987—before Michael Roth
in 1988 or Allan Stoekl in 1992—the French reception of Hegel,
although diredted by the lessons of Alexandre Kojdve, tended
towards an “ontology of desire” rather than a political anthropology
of dom ination, for example. It is a pattern that we encounter from
Sartre to Derrida, and includes, of course, Jacques Lacan. The latter,
in his famous article from i960, tided “Subversion of the Subjedt and
the Dialedtic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious,” sought to take
at face value the Hegelian dialedtic as Kojdve explained it in 1933,
w hen he spoke of a “Desire diredted towards another Desire.” Then
he distributed it, to an extent, in the two concomitant diredtions
of the unconscious, potency (puissance) and the intersubjedtive power
(pouvoir): unconscious, desire “tied to the desire for the Other,” but
initiating also, symbolically, a position of “Absolute Master for
“the Other as prelim inary site of th e pure subjedt of th e signifieif
This is a position taken recently by Slavoj Zifcek in his exploration
of Hegel in the light of Lacan, and Lacan in th e light of Hegel.
Yet, there is another position available, one th a t is less “pu re”
and more risky, for it leaves m any a possibility, plasticity, and even
conceptual erraticism to the im agination, and th a t is th e position
adopted, or rather experim ented, dem anded, and approached painfully
by Georges Bataille. This is very clear, after num erous sketches th a t
could already be glimpsed here and there in Documents, through
a text titled “La critique des fondem ents de la dialedtique hdgdlienne”
(Critique of the foundations of the Hegelian dialedtic). W ritten w ith
Raymond Queneau for the journal La Critique sociale in March 1932—
before Kojdve’s sem inar had begun—th e context was clearly political.
And yet, it was already a question of playing potency (puissance)
againft power (pouuoir). To do this, it becam e necessary to contest th e
philosophical power of ideas developed in syStems, even if these ideas
were, as in the case of Engels, notoriously “m aterialist.” Surrealism
made necessary the renouncing of th e certainties of th e general idea,
and to reclaim the sovereignty o f experience againSt th e authority
of dodtrinal conStrudtions. This assum ed a retu rn to a younger, m ore
romantic Hegel: a dream ed Hegel, perhaps, one th a t in any case
believed in the “fall of the idea” from th e m om ent w hen he accepted
that negation was not a m ere operation of logic, but, as Bataille w rote
later, th at it was “at the same tim e a revolt and a nonsense.”
Five years later, w hen Kojdve was com m enting on th e im posing
edifice of Hegel’s philosophy of history, Bataille com posed the
extraordinary “Lettre k X, chargd d’u n cours sur Hegel” (Letter to X, in
charge of a class on Hegel). It was of course addressed to Koj£ve himself,
and concerned the continuation of a discussion th a t had perhaps been
severe since, in this letter, Bataille m entioned th a t he w anted to give
the philosopher his reply to the “trial th a t you have p u t m e through.”
But it was Bataille, in reality, who was putting the Hegelian system
through a trial th at professional philosophers would call absurd or
even mad: “The open wound which is my life— constitutes all by itself
the refutation of Hegel’s syStem.” This radically subjedtive position,
regulated on the existential sensation of a wound, paradoxically reveals
a great potency (puissance): it has the very notion of potency
(puissance) at Stake, albeit the “potency [puissance] to be affedted”
as we find in Nietzsche. That would be negative potency (puissance) as
such, a potency (puissance) th at Bataille calls “negativity w ithout use”:
an unrecoverable negativity in the dialedtical synthesizing in which

334
the “negation of negation” manages always to reinitiate the reign
of the positive. It is no coincidence that, in a text from February 1938,
Bataille sought to situate this “negative potency [puissance]” around
unconscious desire and around what psychoanalytic experience can
bring to light.
Clearly, this is a rather unconventional reading of Hegel, and
it was enough to irritate numerous philologists and philosophers all
too familiar with Hegel’s text—notably because they were no longer
surprised by the asperities of his language or the boldness of his
theoretical imagination. Thus, Jurgen Habermas criticized a relation
to Hegel in Bataille th at was regulated on “his own efforts to carry
the radical critique of reason with the tools of theory?’Furthermore,
it was only m ade worse by the fadt that he did this through writing,
in the way th at his reader is “assaulted by obscenity, gripped by
the shock of the unexpedted and unimaginable, is jolted into the
ambivalence of loathing and pleasure.” It is difficult, then, to join Inner
Experience by Bataille with The Theory of Communicative Aftion by
Habermas, The Accursed Share (Bataille) with Between Fads and Norms:
Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (Habermas),
or The Tears o f Eros w ith Justification and Application: Remarks on
Discourse Ethics. Habermas seeks norms for social relations where
Bataille invoked the enormity of a desire understood both as
a m atrix and an irreducible negativity of social relations and political
Standards.
It is a new retu rn to Hegel th at drives the work of Axel Honneth—
m ajor figure, after Habermas, of the Frankfurt School today. A Study
from 2008, titled “From Desire to Recognition,” clearly shows the
distance th a t separates the French reception of Hegel, diredted by a
wide anthropology of desire, and this new approach destined to make
recognition itself the central concept of social, moral, and political
sciences. While Lacan, for example, defined desire and recognition
very Strongly in his reading of Hegel and in his reconceptualization
of psychoanalysis, H onneth firmly separates them, making desire a
m ere “failure” of self-consciousness, a process o f“self-referentiality
which is very surprising— or “satisfadtion” o f“animal or ‘erotic ...
organic needs”; som ething well beyond, in fadt, any ethical or political
sphere. For Honneth, desire would be purely “egocentric,” deprived of
th a t reciprocity th a t characterizes recognition. It is essentially a matter
of knowing w hether recognition is a m om ent that is inherent to desire
itself (as Kojfcve, Bataille, Lacan, Derrida, and Foucault thought) or if,
as H onneth thinks, recognition can only be understood as separated
from desire as such.
This choice of paradigm , in H onneth’s thinking, im plies an explanation
with the contributions of th e poSt-Hegelian and M arxist traditions
—focused, notably, on Georg Lukdcs, inventor o f th e concept of
“reification”—and a particular attention to th e jo u rn ey th a t unites,
in Hegel himself, the Struggle w ith recognition, som ething th a t is
therefore also, as H onneth calls it, a Struggle fo r recognition. In this
conflidt—visible everywhere in life in society—H onneth pertin en tly
identified w hat he called the “pathologies of freedom,” even if this
means redefining, by this choice of words, th e relation to th e histories
of Critical Theory and of Freudian psychoanalysis; even if this m eans
suggesting th at we should—b u t w ho w ould th a t life-saving “w e” be?—
cure such pathologies rather th a n rise up againSt th e unjuSt and
aberrant norm s of the societies we inhabit. The fateful reification of
consciousness and social relations, on w hich H onneth w rote an entire
Study, would be the central “pathology” againSt w hich th e ethical norm s
and the “right to freedom” would Stand up. We get th e impression,
however, th at the conflidt, introduced in a rem arkable way by H onneth
in his interpretation of the “Struggle for recognition,” leaves room , in
the end, for a consensual issue of “recognition of no rm s” in ten d ed to
“institutionalize social freedom,” as explained recently by Louis Carrd
or the researchers brought together in 2014 by Mark H unyadi.
But w hat is a recognition w hen unilateral positions of dom ination
persist? The Hegelian horizon of reconciliation, w ith w hich th e m aSter
also ends up “recognizing” his or h er slave, is far from th e real historical
world in which our m asters are very unw illing to recognize or
acknowledge the smallest am ount of dignity in th e ir slaves. W hat, then,
in these circumstances, does the notion o f ethical n orm s becom e,
a notion th at is inherent in the theories o f H aberm as an d H onneth? 14 .
Paul Audi explained it recently w hen he w rote th a t “th e issue could Hegel 1807,1,109,114,112 and 116.
Hegel 1802-1803, passim. Hegel
be sum m arized as follows: w hat is to be said about th e respedt (and, 1821, passim. Hegel 1822-1830,
therefore, the recognition) th at we owe to those w ho say no to th e passim. Kojfcve, 1933-1939,7 and
common rule or general regulations, and who experience their constitutive 14. Butler 1987,61-100 and 175-
238. Roth 1988, passim. Stoekl
freedom in the subversion of the norm s in effedt, o r in th e refusal to 1992, passim. Lacan i960,683.
reinforce the arm ature of the social and political order th a t they cannot Z itek 2012, passim. Bataille 1932,
tolerate and th at oppresses them ?” Shouldn’t this respedt and this 279. Bataille 1937,369-371.
Bataille 1938a, 321-322.
recognition be tom from those who refuse from th eir maSter position?14
Haberm as 1985,237. Habermas
1981,passim. Haberm as 1991,
passim. H aberm as 1992, passim.
P O LITIC A L EROS H onneth 2008,76-90. Honneth
1981,80-96. Honneth 1989,23-37.
H onneth 1990,79-90. Honneth
Would it not be necessary, then, to rise u p - a gesture of desire, and 1992, passim. Honneth 1994,
s too for even the least am ount of recognition on th e p art 39-100. Honneth 2001a, passim.
Honneth 2001b, 151- 180.
H onneth 2001c, 231-238.
Honneth 2003a, 231-252.
Honneth 2003b, 325- 348.
Honneth 2005, passim. Honneth
2006,263-288. Honneth 2011,
passim. Carrg 2013,101-113.
Hunyadi, ed. 2014, passim.
Audi 2015,26.

336
 of those in front you who want to preserve their dominant position?
In a recent preface to the French edition of his texts, Axel Honneth
emphasized th at in the French readings of Hegel, from Kojdve to
Derrida, Bataille to Lacan, “the Struggle triggered by the desire for
recognition can [never] open onto a superior Stage of integration or
freedom ... which is something we could describe as a negativism.”
It is as though desire m aintained its negative position—all the more
negative when the unconscious is involved—and regardless of its “Stage
of integration or freedom,” as Honneth calls it. It is not impossible
th at this difference in philosophical traditions is the result of the
acceptance (with Honneth) or the refusal (with the French) of Anglo-
Saxon developments in psychoanalysis, “positive” works, or even
“positiviSt” works, bitterly criticized by Lacan as normative illusions
and attem pts to place unconscious desire outside of the playing
field—th at desire which Bataille never Stopped elaborating, right up
to Tears o f Eros, the “lugubrious game,” the rebellious game, or the game
o f the negative.
Facing this negativity of Eros, the position taken by the theorists
of the Frankfurt School was not at all unanim ous—as we can see
in the great histories of th at movement, those by Martin Jay, Rolf
Wiggershaus, and Jean-Marc Durand-Gasselin. For example, negativity
does not at all have the same Status or the same use value in Adorno,
on the one hand, or in Habermas or Honneth on the other. JuSt as
desire itself does not have the same place in different people. But why
is this so? It is because the fundtion given to desire is the result, every
time, of a crucial philosophical decision which was itself determined
by the anthropology th at supported it. All of the members of the
Frankfurt School m ore or less agreed to undertake a relentless critique
of the “reification” diagnosed in 1923 by Georg Luk&cs in History and
Class Consciousness: inherent in the commercial Structure of capitalist
society, “reification” touches all social relations and engenders a
“dislocation of the subjedt,” as though the “fetish charadter of
com m odities” analyzed by Karl Marx in the firSt book of Capital, were
able to spread to the moSt intim ate or spiritual domains—those of
psychology and culture in particular.
It is no coincidence th a t LuMcs chose, as the exergue to his central
chapter o n “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat,”
a phrase by Marx from his Critique o f Hegel’s “Philosophy of Right":
“To be radical is to go to the root of the matter. For man, however,
th e root is m an himself” In short: tell me w hat your anthropology
is and I will tell you (or I will have an idea) who you are, not only
on th e philosophical and psychological levels, but also on the ethical
and political levels. Consequently, th e n otion of reification depends
entirely on how we understan d th e h u m a n subjedt from th e Start,
and, above all, how we u n d erstan d its fu n d am ental desires. This is how
Axel H onneth claims his retu rn to Lukdcs, w hich was som ething th a t
certain critics, like Yves Charles Zarka, w ould challenge nonetheless.
This is how Herbert Marcuse took an extrem ely original approach,
which w ent from a psychological critique of reification to a flam boyant
political assum ption of desire.
It required the reconstruction of a m ore general anthropological
hypothesis taken—unsurprisingly—from Hegel’s phenom enology
as well as Freudian psychoanalysis. Hegel's Ontology and the Theory
o f Historicity appeared in 1932, and was based on Marcuse’s ow n thesis,
w ritten under the direction of M artin Heidegger. It is an attem p t
to formulate, from Hegel, a historical ontology already at odds w ith
Heideggerian notions of being and time (since temporality, for
Heidegger, is in conflict w ith historicity). It offers close com m entaries
on the Logic and the Phenomenology o f Mind. It defines “being as
motihtY? “happening as movement,” and “m otility as transform ation
or perpetual dialectical m etam orphosis.” Then, at th e h e a rt of this
“universal motility of life” (allgemeine Bewegtheit des Lebens), we
discover the fundam ental instance of h u m a n desire th a t engages us,
as a n “originary”(ursprung/ich) m ode of being, well beyond any StriCtly
psychological m atter. Desire does n o t require a psychology alone,
but rather, at leaSt, a metapsychology or an anthropology.
Desire, writes Marcuse, appears for th e h u m a n being as th e
“essential becoming” (wesentlich), indicating “th e aCtual task lying
ahead of Life, namely, to become ‘essential’for itself”: “The desire for
being expresses the longing for one’s own proper being.” This longing
is nothing less th an a m ovem ent of assum ption towards being fo r
the other, as Hegel said. And Marcuse describes, in his particular way,
the famous master-slave dialectic, w ith th e image of th e Struggle,
of domination, and of recognition. This would be to say th a t such
a model remains im perfect so long as history itself has not yet created
the political conditions for w hat Hegel called, later in his
Phenomenology o f Spirit, the “free nation” o r ufreie Volk"— which m ade
him w nte, in turn, th at “in a free nation, therefore, Reason is in tru th
realized.”
There are therefore m any different ways of “being for th e o th e r”:
we can be so by submission or by dom ination: to be underneath or
above. We can be so through em ancipation or liberation too: we can
nse UP—be againSt— in order to construct the historical conditions
to accomplish being-towards or being-with:“The free and tru e

338
 independence of Life can realize itself only in and through this
being-for-another,” wrote Marcuse regarding Hegelian desire, while
subtly delivering the conditions for his own philosophy, a “philosophy
of emancipation* as Gerard Raulet called it. It is worthwhile
recalling how Marcuse, in 1919—when he was twenty-one-years
old participated in a soldiers’council during the Spartacift uprising
in Berlin. Disgusted by the compromise with the far right, he had left
the Social Democratic Party after the assassination of Karl Liebknecht
and Rosa Luxemburg. Then, because he was both Jewish and leftist,
he had to leave Germany from 1933 to go, after Switzerland and France,
to the United States, where he became involved in the Institute of
Social Research in New York under the diredtion of Max Horkheimer.
In 1939, he published, in English, his Reason and Revolution: Hegel and
the Rise o f Social Theory, a work in which he developed, againSt “fascist
Hegelianism” his com m entary on Hegel on the level of a “birth of social
theory” th at prefigured the contemporary positions of Critical Theory.
It was th en th at the explanation with Hegelian desire was
succeeded— via an anthropological and political point of view inspired
diredtly by Marx—by an explanation with Freudian desire. Eros and
Civilization appeared in 1955 as a double response, if you will, to Hegel’s
Reason in History and to Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents. The
opening line of the book claims that the “psychological categories”
employed by Marcuse will be used with the critical awareness that
“they have become political categories.” It is not a question of “applying
psychology in the analysis of social and political events” but the
contrary: “to develop the political and sociological substance of the
psychological notions.” In this way we are informed that to speak of
desire will immediately be to speak about politics; and thinking about
politics will not be done w ithout thinking about desire. How can a
history and how can social relations be possible without the process of
desire? But how are these very processes used, diredted, reconfigured
by political relations, choices, or events? It is a crucial question, one
th a t is both pradtical and theoretical, in which it is not difficult to see,
once again, the alternative between potency (puissance) and power
(pouvoir).
With regard to power (pouvoir), here is how things appear to
Marcuse: firSt o f all, Freudian theory assumes a generally admitted
equivalence betw een the process of civilization and the methodical
sacrifice of libido, its rigidly enforced defledtion to socially useful
activities and expressions.” But socially useful to whom? Freud does
no t seem to ask the question and appears to overlook, beyond the
class Struggle in general, any relation between sacrifice of subjedts
and domination of those whose subjedts they are. This is w here
Marcuse focuses his work: in the space of this paradox one th a t
is inherent in the m o d em history of th e Weft— according to which
“intensified progress seems to be bound u p w ith intensified
unfreedom.” The impulsive renunciation becom es renunciation
of desire, th at is to say of repression, and th e latter becom es a large
ftrudture of alienation or m ental reification, leading to an ethos of
slaves th at was fom ented and dem anded by th e m afters of th e social
game. We can th en u n d erftan d how Marcuse was able to dispute th e
evidence according to which “civilization dem ands a m ore an d m ore
intense repression.”
The paradox is cruel and in a way leads to th e conclusions found
in the Dialectic o f Enlightenment, published ten years earlier by Max
Horkheimer and Theodor Adomo. It recognizes th e bitter tru th th a t
the safeguard of the “reality principle,” or th e psychical ftrudtures of
guilt, easily becomes the prison guard of our desires and thoughts.
Perhaps it is the m ental necessity of repression? No doubt. But should
this necessarily develop into th e political scandal of repression? Is
the only choice left one th a t is betw een a firft-level barbarousness
(one th at is regressive and inftindtual) and a second-level
barbarousness (which is rational and progressive), bo th of th em
coming from unhealthy uses of desire and repression? Between the
two, everything is, of course, a m atter of dialedtics— or politics— of
desire. This is w hat appears very clearly w hen th e potency (puissance)
of uprisings is diluted into the power (pouvoir) of counter-revolutions,
recurrent phenom ena th a t Marcuse saw in Freud’s perspedtive, th a t
of guilt: “At the societal level, recurrent rebellions and revolutions have
been followed by counter-revolutions and reftorations. From th e slave
revolts in the ancient world to the socialift revolution, th e ftruggle
of the oppressed has ended in eftablishing a new,‘b etter’ syftem of
dom ination.... An elem ent of self-defeat seems to be involved in this
dynamic (regardless of the validity of such reasons as the prem aturity
and inequality of forces). In this sense, every revolution has also been
a betrayed revolution. Freud’s hypothesis on the origin and the
perpetuation of guilt feeling elucidates, in psychological term s, this
socio-logical dynamic: it explains th e ‘identification’of those who
revolt with the power againft which they revolt.”
It is as though things were fixed, reified only on the level of
relations of identification and power (pouvoir). But Marcuse sought
to re-examine his approach by returning to Hegel’s idea of desire
(domination and recognition), and Nietzsche (pleasure and joy). Before
proposing this (which cannot be reduced to Wilhelm Reich’s idea

MO
 of desire): “In a world of alienation, the liberation of Eros would
necessarily operate as a deStrudtive, fatal force—as the total negation
of the reality principle which governs the repressive reality? If the
famous “reality principle” has become a prison guard destined to block
any new reality, and therefore to preserve our State of alienation or
“unfreedom ” then we muSt wonder what might be “Beyond the Reality
Principle,” which is the title of the second part of Marcuse’s text. What
is to be done? FirSt of all, it is necessary to assure a critical and precise
consciousness of the conditions of our servitudes: the way, for example,
in which the “performance principle” in contemporary societies leads
to w hat Marcuse calls a “repressive organization” which touches our
inffa-subjedtive Structures—in the intimacy of our sexuality—as well
as our social relations.
It is necessary, in the end, to move towards potency (puissance).
Marcuse claims th at we will find in the imagination, “phantasy?
all the premises for a liberation that should not be limited to the
private sphere or the mere personal “fantasy? It is a matter, for him,
of introducing—via a reference to Theodor Adorno speaking on
contem porary music—the question of the work of art as “negation
of unfreedom.” For Marcuse, there is a true “critical fundtion of
phantasy” as soon as desires, including sexual desires, find a form that
can liberate from the barriers of social domination: a form both of
affirm ation and of “great refusal” as he says. A form of “protest.” An
image of the “Struggle for the ultim ate form of freedom,” he will say.
And it is as though the “tears of Eros” were making room for Eros
himself, understood as a decisive arm againSt our contemporary
servitudes.
In 1964, Marcuse published One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the
Ideology o f Advanced Industrial Society, an indidtment againSt modern
capitalist society. After the forced, brutal integration of classic
totalitarianism s, capitalism proceeds with its social integration by
other m eans. In so doing it brings back a type of closed society; and it
is a closed society because, as Marcuse explains, it curbs and integrates
all dim ensions of existence, including the public and the private. It is
closed because it becomes a society w ithout any opposition, capable
of diluting every thought into the torpor of criticism. And Marcuse
exam ines—before Foucault and Deleuze—the “new forms of control”
by which a “State of well-being” agonizingly coexists with a “State of wax?
immobilizing any attem pt at social change, absorbing any antagonisms
into a general indifference th at is no weaker than future indifferences
in the postm odern age. Marcuse then endeavors to dismantle the logic
inherent to the “language of total administration,” which he calls
the “closed universe,- in pages th at, once again, suggest Michel
Foucault’s future analyses on th e discursive order of pow er (pouuoir).
But in this analysis of systems, Marcuse never abandons th e p o in t
of view of desires. He does this, logically, through Hegel firSt of all (for
example, w hen analyzing w hat he calls “th e conquest of th e unh ap p y
consciousness”) and th en through Freud (w hen he returns, for exam ple,
to the question of guilt). If it is tru e th a t desire is indeStruCtible, th e n
it is necessary to find w hat, in th e folds or in th e holes of this “on e­
dimensional society? in the shadows or in th e fraCtures of these “reified
forms,” allows for a possibility fo r desire to create, n o t a m ere p hantasm ,
but a reality, an alternative to com m on servitudes. Eros, therefore, is
the Marcusian way to take back and to re tu rn to th e m otifs of hope
in Walter Benjamin (cited at th e very end of th e work) or of utopia in
EmSt Bloch.
In so doing, Marcuse created a bridge betw een th e Critical Theory
of his Germanic culture and the practices of th e “Great Refusal,” as he
called it, in those he observed in th e A m erican social an d political
Struggles of his time: “However, u n d ern eath th e conservative popular
base is the substratum of the outcasts and outsiders, th e exploited and
persecuted of other races and other colors, th e unem ployed an d th e
unemployable. They exiSt outside th e dem ocratic process; th eir life is
the moSt im m ediate and the moSt real need for ending intolerable
conditions and institutions. Thus th eir opposition is revolutionary
even if their consciousness is not. Their opposition hits th e syStem
from w ithout and is therefore not deflected by th e syStem; it is an
elem entary force th at violates the rules of th e game and, in doing so,
reveals it as a rigged game. When they get together and go out into th e
Streets, w ithout arms, w ithout protection, in order to ask for th e moSt
primitive civil rights, they know they face dogs, Stones, bom bs, jail,
concentration camps, even death. Their force is b ehind every political
demonstration for the victims of law and order. The faCt th a t they Start
refusing to play the game m ay be the faCt w hich m arks the beginning
of the end of a period.”
Marcuse, as we know, followed his critique of “one-dim ensional
society” to the very end, castigating, w ith regard to power (pouuoir),
the hypocritical “repressive tolerance” of contem porary democracies;
and seeking, with regard to potency (puissance), th e way to a “liberation”
that would be possible through the “subversive forces” in herent in th e
assumption of Eros and all the “new revolutionary sensibilities” th a t
he will decry, in 1972, in Counter-Reuolution and Reuolt. It is no surprise
then to find that Marcuse was a leading figure in the Student uprisings
of 1968. In a series of photos taken at the Freie Universitat in Berlin by

342
 fig -16
Michael Ruetz, Freie Uniuersitat, Berlin, August 5, 1968.
Photograph.

fig - 17
Michael Ruetz, Herbert Marcuse in the main ledure theater,;
Freie Uniuersitat, Berlin, May 13,1968. Photograph.
Michael Ruetz, we can see two very interesting images. The firSt, dating
from May 8,1968, shows a Student dem onstration at th e Konvent, th e
university “parliam ent”: on the blackboards all kinds of slogans are
written, including Studium z'St Opium (Study = opium ) and alle
Professoren sind Papiertiger (AU professors are p ap er tigers) (fig- ^ )•
In a photograph taken five days later, we can see num erous dissenting
Students speaking together in th e university’s large auditorium , after
listening to Herbert Marcuse on the them e of “History, transcendence
and social change”: the old philosopher is in shirtsleeves, seated in th e
middle of his Students (on his left we see Jacob Taubes), and attentive
to everything th at is being said (fig. 17). As though som ething pow erful
is going on betw een the old SpartaciSt in exile and th e young Students
from Berlin—but modeStly, since Marcuse was n o t there in a position
of maStery nor of prom inence— a com m on desire for liberation.15

R EFU SA L, OR T H E P O T E N T IA L T O DO O T H E R W IS E

The evidence of uprisings is perhaps, firSt of all, th a t of th e gesture by

which we refuse a certain State— one th a t is unjuSt and intolerable— of
things th at surround us, th a t oppress us. But w hat does to refuse m ean?
It is not simply not to do. It is not, inevitably, to enclose refusal in th e
realm of mere negation. To refuse, a fundam ental gesture of uprisings,
consists above all in using dialedtics: by refusing to do w hat one has
been abusively prescribed, we can and indeed we muSt not leave it at
that. We do not refuse a certain m ode of existence by choosing n o t to
exiSt. We only refuse, therefore, to decide to exiSt and to do otherwise.
Where some think they refuse by merely not, taking away— depleting
—their potency (puissance), others take th e risk of exposing th eir
refusal to the point of giving potency to do something other. And w hen
I say that they expose themselves, I m ean th a t they do not fear—from
their m inor position, the place of “unpow er”—“to do som ething” in
the public sphere in spite of all. It is probably w hat Walter Benjamin
wanted to show by his phrase “to organize our pessimism.”
This often Starts with arm s being raised: despair, indignation, 15 .
H onneth 2013,21. Bankovsky and
then anger, then a call “to do something.” This Starts also w ith a Le Goff, eds. 2012, passim. Bataille
clamor, a shout. In 1793, in the wake of the French Revolution, Johann 1961,passim. Jay 1973,passim.
Gottlieb Fichte wrote a Reuendication de la liberty, which appealed Wiggershaus 1986, passim.
Durand-Gasselin 2012, passim.
diredtly to a shouting out as a firSt way, or a firSt voice, towards political
Marx 1867-1883,152-167. Lukdcs
emancipation: “Shout, shout out on every level to th e ears of our 1923,83,84, and 110-256.
princes, until they hear it, th at you will not let th em take away the Honneth 1990,79-90. Honneth
freedom to think, and show them by your behavior th a t they can 2005,21-32. Zarka 2015,39-53.
Marcuse 1932,243,256. Hegel
1807,1,214. Marcuse 1932,256.
Raulet 1992, passim. Marcuse
1939, passim. Marcuse 1955, xxi,
xxii, 3,4,91,95, and 149. Marcuse
1965-1968, passim. Marcuse 1969,
passim. Marcuse 1972, passim.
Ruetz and Sachsse 2009,8-9, and
60.

344
 truSt what you assert. Do not let yourselves be dissuaded by fear.”
Fear, indeed, seems to be the greatest enemy of uprisings: it imposes
silence and immobility on bodies, gestures, desires and the will.
It is when they get rid of their fear that people produce a murmur
firSt of all, th at “dull sound” or that “dull plaint” that, in the expression
“the m urm uring of the people,” used to mean entering into rumor,
th at is to say into sedition or uprising itself, as Jean Nicolas showed,
citing the Encyclopedic, in his im portant book La Rebellion frangaise.
Murmur, rumor: soon an exclamation, a great clamor. The shout
muSt however not be loSt in the desert. We muSt, therefore, know
how to work our shout, to give it shape, and to labor over it, long and
patiently. Our cries can come in thousands of different forms. One
form is the book, th at banal, discreet form, reproducible and extremely
mobile, with its black letters on a white background, its words and
phrases wisely—in appearance—arranged on the reftangle of the page.
When the shout is worked in this way, the adt of refusing consists in
fusing together new images, new thoughts, or new possibilities of adtion
in the public consciousness, which receives it in this form. To refuse
only has m eaning if it invents new forms of living and adting.
One example among many others: on June 27,1957, Germaine
Till inn’s UAlgerie was published by Editions de Minuit, followed by two
colledtive works—Pour Djamila Bouhired and La Question algerienne—
then, followed, in early 1958, by Henri Alleg’s La Question and UAjfaire
Audin by Pierre Vidal-Naquet. “Between 1957 and 1959,” wrote Anne
Simonin in Le Droit b la desobeissance, “Editions de Minuit confronted,
alm ost single-handedly, the denunciation of the Algerian War, relayed
by the La Joie de lire bookshop, which was juSt as small and stubborn
as they were, founded and diredted by Francois Maspero, who
circulated the books of Editions de Minuit even (and above all) when
they were b anned Among the twenty-three books published by
Editions de Minuit concerning Algeria between 1957 and 1962, only
nine were seized, three of which were seized twice, making a total
of twelve confiscations... for reasons as serious as an attack on State
security or inciting disobedience among the military”
We know how m uch Jdrdme Lindon made Editions de Minuit into
a perpetual “actualization of the resistant p a S T -a n expression used
by Anne Simonin in another work, titled “Le devoir d’insoumission —
which traced the clandestine adventures of this publishing house
betw een 1942 and 1944. It is as though, before even publishing Leon
Trotsky’s La Revolution permanente, Lindon had sought to regulate
all of his activities according to a permanent resistance that in 1957
th e Algerian War and the behavior of the French army made more
necessary th an ever. Between 1944 and 1956, intellectual and literary
life in France was haunted by th a t dream ed revolution whose hope
the Resistance had outlined, as shown in th e m ajor Study, Revolution
revte by Michel Surya. The books published by JCrbme Lindon betw een
1957 and 1962 undoubtedly deserve to be read as argued refusals of a
situation th at saw, a decade or so after th e Liberation, th e French
army using techniques th a t were sim ilar to those of th e GeStapo.
It required the full rigor and doggedness of som eone like Pierre
Vidal-Naquet to show th a t in June 1957, Maurice A udin— a university
m em ber of the Algerian Com m unist Party— died u n d er to rtu re
at the hands of French soldiers.
Beyond even their patiently argued refusal, th e sm all works
published by JCrome Lindon at this tim e appear like aftive refusals
or aCted refusals, kinds of traCts whose editor knew well, from
experience, th at they risked, as soon as they appeared, disappearing
from all bookshops. Three things rem ain Striking w hen we see—before
even opening them —these works: they are sm all (good for hiding
in a pocket), their titles are w ritten in red (like m iniscule political
posters); and the words of th eir titles appear like political Strategies
that are very simple, very subtle, and very efficient. For exam ple,
La Question (fig. 18) appears at once in w hat it questions as a principle
(is it possible th at a republican arm y carried out torture?) and in
the thing it designated (the “question” of th e inquisitors signifying th e
torture itself). Similarly, La Gangrene, an anonym ous work published
with a postscript by JCrome Lindon in 1959— it was com posed of
seven direCt testimonies of to rture— shows in red letters th e notorious
word turned againSt the m ilitary authorities th a t used it to indicate
the dispute w ithin the arm y itself; but, moreover, it plays phonetically
with the word vulgarly used for the in stru m en t of torture th a t was
moSt common at the time, the gCgCne, th e hand-operated electrical
generator for field telephones.
We could say the same about the work by Charlotte Delbo— an o th er
im portant figure, along w ith Germaine Tillion, of th e Resistance— and
published in 1961, under the som ewhat ironic title Les Belles Lettres.
Somewhere, therefore, betw een the freedom of any self-respeCting
literature and the faculty of refusal of any political thought attentive
to State compromises and lies, and said w ith words th a t doubtless
Strike the reader with their persistent relevance:

Why do we w nte letters? Because we burSt w ith outrage. Is this

anything new? Have there not always been reasons to be outraged?
Undoubtedly. But whereas before—if we think of the years before

346
 ---------------------------------- D O C U M E N T S -------------------------- DOCUMENTS

HENRI ALLEG

LA PROVOCATION
QUESTION A LA

DESOBElSSANCE
LE PR O C tS DU DfiSERTEUR

*M

l e s Ed it io n s d e m in u it les Editions de m inuit

f i g- ^9
Henri Alleg,Lo Question (The question), Provocation d la dtsobtissance (Call for disobedience),
Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1958. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1962.
Cover. Private collection. Cover. Private collection.
 the w ar in 1939—the outrage exploded into dem onstrations and
collective adtions, and transform ed into adts by m eans of th e unions
and political parties, it has no m ore ways to express itself today.
The Parliam ent no longer exists b u t by nam e, elections are b u t
gratuitous aCts. Citizens are called upo n to answ er yes or no to
questions to which they would like to be able to reply: yes but. The
Ministerial Councils are secret gatherings. There is no m ore political
life.... Deprived of any m eans to reaCt, we w rite letters.

In 1961, JCrome Lindon was indicted for publishing Le D^serteur,

a novel published under the pseudonym “M aurienne”— a choice
equivalent to th at of “Vercors” in the tim e of th e Resistance. The final
judgm ent, ten pages long, had the following conclusion: “The public
prosecutor... declares [JCrome] Lindon guilty of th e offense of public
provocation to disobedience.” The answer—th e aCted refusal—by
the publisher was, the following year, th e work Provocation b la
dtsobtissance (fig. 19), a title th a t could not be attacked since it cited the
judgm ent itself, and becam e a call and, in faCt, a provocation.
The political genius of th e publisher leaned, once more, on the
experience of the Occupation for contesting th e very principle
contained in the accusation by th e Public Ministry:

Every French person knows th at, since June 18,1940, disobedience

does not necessarily constitute a crim e in itself, and th a t one even
risks in some cases—this was seen during th e Liberation, for
example, or after April 22—being sentenced fo r not disobeying
one’s superiors.
This is because there exiSt some illegal orders. Torture is o n e....
Particularly significant was the exchange betw een th e president
and the witness Jean Clay who had juSt explained the
circumstances under which he assisted at th e interrogation, by the
gendarmes, of a young Algerian he had juSt arreSted for not having
his identity papers on him:
Jean Clay: - . . . Then they attached him to a bench and began to
torture him.
The President. - Did you not protest?
Jean Clay: - 1 did protest, but these m en were fifty years old,
and had been in charge of the region for a long tim e ...
The President: - You could have left, protesting!
To leave in protest. It was perhaps the only possible solution.
Yet what the advised in the particular case th a t Lieutenant Clay
brought to the bar, was condemned, in absolute term s, by the

348
 characters in the novel by Maurienne. And it was decided finally
that by allowing them to express such opinions in a book, the
author and the publisher were guilty of public provocation to
disobedience.
I appealed againSt this judgment.

We know th at meanwhile—in July i 960—a Declaration sur le droit

b Vinsoumission dans la guerre dAlgtrie (Declaration on the right to
insubordination in the Algerian War), signed by a group of 121 artiSts
and intellectuals, was a landmark in the historical and political context,
relayed by an im portant publication by Editions Frangois Maspero
(of which Julien Hage recalled the essential elements in a “brief
history” of the publishers). The text was written collectively by Maurice
Blanchot, Jean SchuSter, Dionys Mascolo, and Maurice Nadeau. It is
reprinted in Maurice Blanchot’s Ecrits politiques, where we quickly sense
the right to uprising which the “121” saw as a right for the Algerian people
againSt the colonial police operations carried out by the French army:

In faCt, w ith a decision that was a fundamental abuse, the State

firstly mobilized entire classes of citizens with a view to
accomplishing w hat it considered a police task againSt an oppressed
population, which had rebelled only for reasons of basic human
dignity, since it dem anded to be recognized at laSt as an
independent community.
Neither a w ar of conquest, nor a war of “national defense,” the
Algerian War has more or less become an aCt proper to the army
and to a caSte th at refused to yield before an uprising whose
m eaning even the civil authorities, becoming aware of the general
collapse of colonial empires, seemed to acknowledge.

Georges Bataille did not sign the “ManifeSte des 121,” as he was already
suffering from his illness and, above all, claiming an “unconditional
refusal” th a t charadterized his political position statement, since the
anti-Franco publication A dualitd in 1945, on the basis of a refusal to
take part. He had explained this in advance in a private letter to Dionys
Mascolo—whose 1953 work Le Communisme can be read, in part at
leaft, as an essay on politics in the Style of B ataille-w ho echoed
th e message in the firSt issue of the journal Le 14 Juillet in July 1958.
With a text tided “Refus incondidonnel” (Unconditional refusal),
Mascolo learned about Bataille’s position: it supposes, firstly, that to
refuse is an “enterprise,” th at is to say a long-term projedt, and not
simply a way to say no. But he answers his friend by saying that this
refusal—“againSt everyone”—is not in any way a position of ascetic
or aristocratic solitude: “This [yourU nconditional refusal’] is not solitude.
This is said in a certain way about being together, being num erous.
We are less alone th an ever” This was a way for th e m ilitant to pay his
or her respedts to the solidary form of this solitary position— although
not a haughty or patronizing position—th a t Bataille has adopted.
The fadt th a t this adt of refusal should be founded on a solitary
decision capable nonetheless of engaging a solidary “enterprise,”
is something th a t Maurice Blanchot w anted to indicate, in an article
in the second issue of the jo u rn al Le 14 Juillet, in 1958. It is titled
MLe Refus” (The refusal):

At a certain m om ent, in th e face of public events, we know th a t we

m uft refuse. The refusal is absolute, categorical. It is n o t disputed,
nor does it give its reasons. Yet it rem ains silent and solitary, even
when it is affirmed, as it m u ft be, in th e open. Those w ho refuse
and who are linked by the force of th e refusal know th a t they are
not yet together. The tim e of th e com m on affirm ation has been
taken away from them . W hat rem ains is th e irreducible refusal,
the friendship, the friendship of this certain, unshakable, rigorous
No, which makes them united and solidary.

In the adt of refusal, therefore, it is a solitude th a t exclaims No! How

could the “frankness th a t no longer tolerates complicity? as Blanchot
called it, not be solitary in its principle decision? Refusal becomes
engaged then alone, and solitarily engages th e m o m ent of th e no.
But it does m uch more: it engages solidarity, inclusively, an “enterprise”
that is the work, if not of everyone, at leaft of an us. It is a solidary
adt founded, according to Blanchot, on the “very poor beginning” of
suffering experienced by “those who cannot speak,” those th a t Walter
Benjamin had called in 1940 the Namenlosen, th e “nameless.” Those
of whom Blanchot spoke in 1958: and it is of course th e Algerians as
a people oppressed by the police operations carried out by th e French
army. “When we refuse, we refuse by a m ovem ent w ithout contem pt,
without exaltation, a m ovem ent th a t is anonym ous, as m uch as it can
be, for the power (pouvoir) to refuse is not accomplished by us, nor in
our name, but rather by a very poor beginning th a t belongs firSt
of all to those who cannot speak.”
That insubordination should be considered a right and not a duty,
as Blanchot said in 1961, m eans perhaps the sam e thing again from the
viewpoint of what is supposed by the adt of refusal. The duty is at once
colledtive, when the right allows everyone to avail, or not, of a com m on

350
base. In 1964, Herbert Marcuse sought to conclude One-Dimensional Man
on the them e of the emancipatory “Grand Refusal? in order to give
homage to both Maurice Blanchot (for his “refusal” in 1958) and Walter
Benjamin (for his “hope of the hopeless” in the 1930s). As ChriStophe
Bident explained—in a biography with the evocative title: Maurice
Blanchot, partenaire invisible (invisible partner)—the 1960s were firSt
of all, for the writer, a tim e of “personal distress” made worse by illness.
A m om ent of exclusion. Thus, towards the end of 1967, “the personal
renunciation of any presence in public seems Stronger than ever”But
it is from w ithin this solitary position that the solidary moment par
excellence arose: May 1968.
“With Blanchot, during those few weeks of the ‘May revolution,’”
wrote Bident, “the leaSt surprising element is not his health nor his
continuing energy despite weakness and fatigue, which were to make
him live, in the complicity between his body and his mind, through
nodtum al confrontations, diurnal protests, interminable committee
sessions, and hugely crowded meetings. He rarely shouted, and those
close to him often had to support him, even wait anxiously during
police proceedings. But he liked running riot with the Students, in his
short runs, Started to the sound of Go! Go! Go!, which regularly
accelerated the pace. He spoke at assemblies, presided over committee
meetings, w ith a gentle authority, a slow and dry voice, often out of
breath but that, thanks perhaps to that weakness, immediately
captured its listeners. He scrutinized events, observed movements of
bodies and the bodies of graffiti, writings on leaflets, and spoke on
fam iliar term s w ith everyone except his friends. Every day he walked
along the Streets w ith Dionys Mascolo, Robert and Monique Antelme,
Louis-Ren<* des Forets, Maurice Nadeau, Marguerite Duras, and often
Jean SchuSter and Michel Leiris. This is how he walked until exhaustion,
from Rgpublique to Denfert, on May 13, in the biggeSt demonstration
Paris had seen since Charonne and the Liberation” (Jig. 20).
Blanchot was to participate in this way in the occupation of
the Soctetd des gens de lettres, on May 21. He asked his friend, Jacques
Derrida, to w rite a few leaflets. He sought titles for a bulletin to be
published: Non, or VImpossible, or Rupture, or even Commune ...
or, of course, Le Rejus. He published, on June 18,1968, a declaration that
began w ith “the power of refusal” and continued with “the incessant
m ovem ent of Struggle” necessary for the “revolutionary demand.”
A nother text from this period is titled “Affirmer la rupture” (Affirming
th e rupture). It concerns taking refusal out of its merely negative
position by giving to theoretical discourse—but outside of any dodtnn
or dogmatic p ro g ra m -th a t precious affirmative task: “The theoretical
 20
Anonymous, Cin6-tra£ts (Film tradls), 1968.
Still frame.

352
does not consist in developing a program or a platform, but consists
instead, outside of any programmatic projedt or of any projedt at all,
in maintaining a refusal that affirms, and in freeing or maintaining
an affirmation th at is not resolved, but rather that disturbs and that
disturbs itself!*
This has brought us from the “unconditional refusal” to the “refusal
th at is affirmed ” It is a path along which Blanchot continued, in 1981,
in a reply to a questionnaire on artistic engagement titled “Refuser
l’ordre dtabli” (Refusing the established order). But let us dig a little
deeper into this paradox: what exadtly does the refusal affirm? In
Blanchot’s experience, it is nothing other than that community
imagined ethically and ontologically—in the wake of Georges Bataille
and Emmanuel Levinas, with a num ber of tumultuous interferences
from elsewhere—as friendship. If there is a political thought that is
w orth noting in Blanchot, from VAmitii to UEntretien inflni, it is indeed
here th at it is to be found, in the bridge conStrudted between the
potency (puissance) of refusal and the recognition of the friend:

We muSt give up knowing those with whom something essential

links us; th at is, we muSt welcome them in the relation to the
unknow n in which they welcome us too, in our distance. Friendship,
th a t relation w ithout dependence, without episode and in which
comes nonetheless all the simplicity of life, passes by recognition
of being Strangers both, which does not permit us to speak of our
friends but only to speak to them, not to make them a theme of
conversation (nor of articles), but the movement of the entente in
which, speaking to us, they m aintain, even in the greatest familiarity,
the infinite distance, th at fundam ental separation from which that
which separates becomes a relation.

Jacques Derrida m ade no mistake regarding the political profundity

of this lesson— “the recognition of shared Strangeness by situating
the origins of a whole development of his Spectres de Marx in
Blanchot’s L’Amitid, or by titling two of his later works Pohtiques de
I’am itit (in 1994), and Politique et am itit (in 2011). We know that,
m eanwhile, Jean-Luc Nancy, a disciple and friend of Dem da—but not
of Blanchot—devoted a very im portant essay to the question of both
refusal and community: w ritten in 1983, as an article for the journal
Alta and published as a volume in 1986, La Communautt d&ceuvrte
(The disavowed community) began with the “dissolution, dislocation,
or conflagration of the com m unity A far cry, then, from'“communism
as the impassable horizon of our tim e” announced previously by
Jean-Paul Sartre. And, furtherm ore, loft are th e “im m anence and
intimacy [of our] communion.” All of th a t w ritten through a rereading
of Bataille, whose notion of experience founded an essential disavowal:
“The com m unity cannot come from th e dom ain o f th e work. We do
not produce it, we experience it (or its experience m akes us) as an
experience of the finitude.” If it rem ains a “voice” of th e community,
it can only, however, be the voice o f “interruption,” suggefts Nancy:
“a voice or a music withdrawn.” An “unavow able” voice, in short. This
voice is called literature.
What unusual urgency pushed Maurice Blanchot to publish his
reply to Nancy in La Communautd inavouable in 1983? We cannot deal
with this at length here, b u t it is suffice to note, in order to exam ine
the “reproach,” or even th e “differend” th a t Blanchot held againSt Nancy,
how m uch the latter spoke of community according to Bataille, w ithout
ever embodying it in w hat was his friendship w ith Blanchot (but also
Michel Leiris, Dionys Mascolo, and Still others). Furtherm ore, Nancy
spoke of disavowal and of literature w ithout ever having recalled th e
motifs th at are nonetheless everywhere, even in th eir theoretical
conjundtion, in the texts of Blanchot. Consequently, Bataille’s phrase—
“the com m unity of those who have no com m unity”—used as th e
exergue for La Communautd inavouable, is a reply, perhaps, n o t only
to “the nam e of Bataille,” b u t above all it w ould refer “negative
com m unity” th at the author of Experience interieure had shaped w ith
Blanchot himself, and th a t Nancy h ad negledted to bring into play in
La Communaute desoeuvrte.
Blanchot probably did not intend to retrace Bataille’s thinking— a
task th at Jean-Luc Nancy did so well—so m uch as bear witness,
diredtly, in his own nam e, to a politics o f friendship in his own life: his
life as a w riter for whom “literature” m ean t Part d ufeu and “right
to d e a th ” a work exposed to its own disavowal, as we read everywhere
in UEspace litteraire, Le Livre d venir, and UEntretien inflni. The latter,
moreover, opens w ith texts th a t are as radical as “The moSt profound
question” (which is a political question) or the “Great Refusal” (which
concerns “the absence of a work” in the literary work), and it reaches
into extraordinary essays like “L’insurredtion, la folie d’dcrire”m eaning
“insurredtion, the m adness of w riting” (on the uprising of language
and of thought in all literature w orthy of the name).
The challenge for Maunce Blanchot was, therefore, at the sam e tim e
that of a politics of friendship and a politics of literature, which, as he
wrote at the end of La Communaute inavouable, “makes us responsible
for the new relations th at are always threatened, always hoped for,
between what we call work (oeuvre) and w hat we call lack of work

354
(desoeuvrement)? We muSt therefore know how to refuse even works
th at we believe Strongly built: but we muSt also know how to
work (oeuvrer) even on the refusals that we think we make againSt
the world. Jean-Luc Nancy perhaps pays homage to this dialedtic in
La Communaute ajfrontee (The confronted community), a book
dedicated to Blanchot in recognition of the “reproach” contained
in La Communaute inavouable: “Blanchot means for me, or rather
signals, the unavowable. Appended to but contrary to the inoperative
[idtsceuvre] in my title, this adjedtive suggests we think that under
the uprising there is Still the work, an unavowable work.” He then
published, under the title Maurice Blanchot: passion politique, the
famous “letter-Story” of 1984, concerned with the writer’s adtivities as
a “far-right insurgent” between 1936 and 1939: “the projedt of gathering
non-conformiSts from the right and non-conformiSts from the left—
w hat I called dissidents—was quite familiar to me at that time.”
“Neither right nor left”? We know, clearly, from the historical works
by Zeev Stemhell, th at this was a founding and central motif in fascist
ideology in France (Stemhell evoked Blanchot twice in his Study).
We know too th at following the special issue of the journal Lignes
devoted to “Politiques de Maurice Blanchot” in 2014—with articles
in which the notion of “impossible politics” shifted from an elegiac
value in the m ode of Bataille, to a much more critical viewpoint—
and w ith Michel Surya’s book, UAutre Blanchot, Jean-Luc Nancy wished
to finish, quite recently, battling with the author of UAmitifr. thus,
in La Communaute desavoufe, he situated the “unavowable” in politics
according to Blanchot near a “return to m yth”—which was a severe
way to judge the w riter w hen we imagine the prior work of Nancy
(with Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe) titled Le Mythe nazi. It is a way,
as he said him self—yet w hat a Strange subjedtive position—to “help
Blanchot w ith his avowal” his avowal of fascism or quasi-fascism.
His avowal or his admission at leaSt, of an “aristocratic and anarchic
position (Nancy does not say “anarchistic”), that is, in any case, a
fundam entally anti-democratic position. And this is what allows Nancy
to speak, w ith regard to Blanchot, of an “evaporation of politics in the
doing nothing of the inoperation (desoeuvrement) or—as we can read
in the interview w ith Mathilde Girard titled Proprement dit (Well
said)— of an impossible th at would call upon the myth, the “appeal to a
foundation”: “This is called, in political terms, a right wing, even extreme
right-wing thinking.”
W hat does all of this tell us, to finish, about the economy of refusal
in Maurice Blanchot? And of the refusal of this kind of refusal m
Jean-Luc Nancy? I am Struck, in this debate—which seems far from
its conclusion—by the fadt th a t th e position of th e w riter becom es
progressively isolated and im m obilized as it is questioned. Should
we not imagine a questioning th a t w ould n o t be th e “question” in th e
sense th a t Blanchot himself, w riter and signatory of th e Declaration
sur le droit d I’insoummision, radically disputed in i960? With th e a u th o r
of Thomas Vobscur, there is not only a dialedtics of “w riting of th e day”
(of the extrem e right) and “w riting of th e night” (extremely profound).
His “w riting of the day” itself—its political position—followed th e
dialedtical path, the transform ation of a type of refusal into another,
quite different from the firSt, and which com pletely overturned it.
Blanchot’s political p ath could, from this view point, teach us
something more about a possible dialectics o f refusal. On th e one hand,
we would find the refusal that hates: th a t refusal is a refusal of w hat
is hated, of any possibility of existing. It is an aggressive refusal, a
power-refusal (refus-pouvoir). It is im posed u p o n th e other, and w ants
to be total and deStrudtive. It is totalitarian, claim ing to found its
rejedtion on an “impossible” thought like “myth,” as Jean-Luc Nancy
showed in his analysis. This would probably correspond to everything
that Blanchot, in his texts from th e 1930s, com m unicated to his
readers: “traditionalism ”“feverish passion for France”“obsessive
anticommunism,” and a “certain anti-Sem itism (in th e sense of certain
anti-Semitism and m oderate anti-Sem itism ...),” as Michel Surya p u t it.
But som ething else would happen: som ething th a t doubles firft of all,
like an invisible hem , Blanchot’s participation in th e marCchaliftes
journals during the Occupation; som ething th a t w ould become, soon,
“the turning over of all value” (to echo Nietzsche) and a conversion
of thought.
It has to do w ith his friendship w ith Georges Bataille. In th e 1930s,
Bataille and Blanchot were at opposite extremes: “The very m om ent
Bataille critiqued the idealism of all m aterialism , Blanchot critiqued
the materialism of all idealism ” writes Chriftophe Bident. But, from
the beginning of the 1940s, the m eeting betw een these two w riters
began an essential, profound, transform ing friendship for each of
them; a literary and philosophical friendship; a political friendship,
for indeed, the basis of friendship is political. It is this friendship w ith
Bataille—and th at w ith Em m anuel Levinas—which would, forever,
disorient Blanchot in his positions as a “far-right dissident.” And it this
too, curiously (because they know all of this by heart), th a t neither
Jean-Luc Nancy nor Michel Surya w anted to explore m ore deeply.
Yet, the consequences of this m eeting and this friendship—recounted
in detail by Chriftophe Bident—were th a t a refusal was followed by
a very different refusal: a refusal that exceeds and not one th a t hates.

356
It is a refusal that allows existing and not one that imposes itself
authoritatively, but that exceeds any fixed position: it is a potency-
refusal (refus-puissance). It is linked to the “impossible” as desire
or ethical demand, and not to the mythical foundation of everything.
That is exactly what Blanchot said he admired in the uprisings
of May 1968:

May 68 showed, without any plan, without any plot, in the

suddenness of a happy encounter and like a celebration that shook
the accepted or wished-for social forms, how explosive
communication could be affirmed (affirmed beyond the usual
forms of affirmation), the opening that allowed everyone, without
distinction of class, age, gender, or culture, to befriend the firSt
person they saw, as though with a loved one, precisely because
he was the unknow n familiar.
“W ithout any plan”: th at was the characteristic, one that was both
worrying and fortunate, of a kind of incomparable society that
did not let itself be seized, that did not let itself be called to subsist,
to settle, even through the multiple “committees” with which
a disordered order, an imprecise specialization was simulated.
Unlike “traditional revolutions” it was not only about taking
power to replace it with another, nor about taking the BaStille,
the Winter Palace, the ElysCe, or the A ssem ble Nationale, which
were unim portant objectives, nor about overturning an old world;
instead it was about allowing to show, outside of any utilitarian
interest, a possibility of being together that gave everyone the
right to equality in fraternity through the freedom of speech that
raised everyone up. Everyone had something to say, sometimes to
w rite (on the walls)—what that was didn’t matter. The Saying took
precedence over the said. Poetry was daily.

And w hen Blanchot speaks here of a “presence of the people in

limitless potency [puissance],” when he says that this potency, in order
not to be limited, accepts doing nothing”—he does not mean that its
m anifestation is composed of thousands of Bartlebys preferring not
to, so th a t “politics evaporates,” as Jean-Luc Nancy Stated. What is meant
is simplY th a t doing otherwise led the Parisian people, for a moment
betw een two conflicts, on February 13,1962, to “make a procession
w ith the dead of Charonne [in] immobility, in a silent multitude” of
collective m ourning: this is what Chris Marker, in A Grin Without a Cat,
sought to com pare with the great lamentation scene in EisenStems
Battleship Potemkin (M s. 1-2). It is, Itoally, what Blanchot wished to call
a “declaration of impotence" as “suprem e potency, because it included,
w ithout feeling dim inished, its virtual and absolute potency?
No, then, the refusal did not do “n o th in g ”: to go on Strike, for exam ple,
does not in any way am ount to “doing nothing.” This refusal simply
suspended the carrying out of its own desire for a m om ent, a m om ent
of suspense, in which the gesture of m ourning in order to “walk in a
procession w ith the dead” helped even m ore to announce th e gesture
of future uprisings.16

D ESIR IN G , D IS O B E Y IN G , D O IN G V IO L E N C E

There is nothing m ore ancient, in its very urgency, th a n desire. 16.

If it is true th at desire constitutes us—n o t in th e sense in w hich it Benjam in 1940b, 350. Fichte 1793,
might give us a Stable “constitution,” a nomos, b u t rath er in th e sense 82. Nicolas 2002,27. Tillion 1957,
passim. Alleg 1958, passim. Vidal-
that it raises us, gives us the very force of our dynamis—th e n we
Naquet 1958, passim. Simonin
could say th at there is nothing m ore ancient th a n desire, even 2012.9-13. Sim onin 2008,309-
though it is w hat always gives the rh y th m to our present, to every 324 and 474-504. Trotsky 1923-
1936,245-439. Surya 2004,7-33.
inStant, in our m ovem ents to w hat will happen, tow ards th e future.
Evans 1997, passim. Vidal-Naquet
When he published his explosive (although genuinely n eu tral and 1958, passim. Vidal-Naquet 1998,
“objective”) book, Provocation ti la d&ob&issance (Jig. 19), Jdrdme 13-160. Alleg 1958, passim.
Lindon rem em bered perhaps a clandestine leaflet p rinted by Liberation La Gangrene 1959, passim. Delbo
1961.9-10. Maurienne i960,
and circulated in France during th e Occupation. In th e republication passim. Provocation d la
of the book by Pierrette Turlais, we can read: “Disobedience is the tesobtissance 1962,136-139.
wiseSt of duties” (Jig. 21). And th e subsequent text clarifies m any things: Le Droit d I’insoumission 1961,
passim. Hage 2009,106-112.
Blanchot et al. i960,28-29.
You will sabotage the enforcem ent of G erm an law by all m eans; Mascolo 1953, passim. Mascolo
You will slow the census operations by delaying and giving inexadt 1958,81-83. Blanchot 1958,11-12.
Blanchot 1961,38. Marcuse 1964,
declarations;
279 and 281. Bident 1998,469,
You will use any excuse regarding health and family to avoid 471-472,
your deportation to occupied territory, th e n to Germany. and 479. Blanchot 1968a, 87.
Blanchot 1968b, 105. Blanchot
You will be professionally dow ngraded if necessary;
1981,151-153. Blanchot 1971,328.
You will oppose to the very end any requisitioning by passive Derrida 1993,39-66 (reference to
and absolute disobedience. Blanchot 1971,109-117). Derrida
AgainSt a general disobedience, the police will be im potent. 1994, passim. Derrida 2011,
passim. Nancy 1986,11,35,78, and
TO VANQUISH THE ENEMIES OF THE HOMELAND: DISOBEDIENCE, 156-157. Blanchot 1983,9 and
AGAIN DISOBEDIENCE, AND ALWAYS DISOBEDIENCE. 23-25. Blanchot 1949,291-331.
Blanchot 1955,48-52,60, and
225-232. Blanchot 1959, passim.
To disobey: here is a verb th at works well w ith the verb to desire.
Blanchot 1969,12-34,46-69, and
To disobey is as ancient, and often as urgent, as to desire. Lindon knew 323-342. Blanchot 1983,93.
this well, having translated in 1955 the biblical Book of Jonah, a m ajor Nancy 2001,9 and 38-39. Nancy
2011 (and Blanchot 1984), 49.
prophetic text—which is read, during the celebration of Yom Kippur,
Stemhell 1983,212 and 534.
Amar 2014,140-152. Manchev
2014,196-215. Surya 2015, passim.
Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy
1980, passim. Nancy 2014,73-78,
125,131, and 134. Girard and
Nancy 2015, HO. Surya 2015,18.
Bident 1998,62 and 167-180.
Blanchot 1983,52-55.

358
 LA D ESO B EISSA N C E
est le plus sage des devoirs
Le honteux chantage de la R elive a ichoue.
Laval avait prorais pour le 30 Septembre 150.000 sp6cialiates k l ’indus-
trie de guerre nazie. C’est par la force que de nouveaux otages seront
livres a l ’ennemi. La loi du 4 Septembre 1942 institue la mobilisation
civile au service de l ’Allemagne, le travail force au profit de l ’envahis-
seur.
EMPLOYEURS, SALARIES :
. Vous saboterez 1’execution de la loi allemande par tous les moyens ;
Vous ralentirez les operations de recensement par le retard et l’inexac-
titude de vos declarations ;
Vous invoquerez tous les motifs de sante et de famille pour eviter
votre deportation en zone occup6e, puis en Allemagne ;
Vous vous ferez declasser professionnellement s ’il le faut ;
Vous vous opposerez jusqu’au bout & la requisition par une deso-
beissance passive, absolue. ,,,— ...
Contre une d6sobeissance g6nerale, la police est impuissante.
POUR VAINCRE LES ENNEV1S, DE LA PATRIE : DESOREIS
SANCE, ENCORE DESOBEISSANCE. TOUJOURS DESOBEISSANCE.
f\6f G LIBERATION

fig- 21
Clandestine leaflet printed by the “Liberation”
Resistance group in France’s southern zone, 1942.
Bibliothfcque Nationale de France, Paris.
“at night, the m om ent w hen life and d eath is decided, th e m om ent
when everything shows th a t our fates are being decided”—beginning,
so abruptly, w ith a disobedience against God, and such a radical
about-turn: “Now the word of th e Lord cam e u n to Jonah th e son of
Amittai, saying,‘Arise, go to Nineveh, th a t great city, and cry against it;
for their wickedness is come up before me.5But Jonah rose up [but
only] to flee unto Tarshish from th e presence of th e Lord.” MuSt we
then know how to disobey in order to be a tru e prophet?
How can we not, once again, call on th e m ythologies of Atlas or
Prometheus? Or the Story of Eve? Did she n o t disobey in full knowledge
of the consequences? Not to follow th e pernicious com m andm ents
of the serpent, b u t rath er to undertake fervently h er desire to know
and to desire, even if it m ean t facing all of th e consequences: th e pains
of childbirth, the efforts of work, and even m ortality? To disobey
would be refusal in adtion, and, altogether, th e affirm ation of a desire
as som ething irreducible. With heroes and heroines w ho appear so
close to us only because they are dogged by such a cruel zero tolerance:
Antigone facing the law of th e city, in th e tragedy by Sophocles; or
LysiStrata (whose nam e m eans “she who disbands th e arm y”) in th e
comedy by Aristophanes. It will always be a nomos or a pow er (pouuoir)
th at will be disobeyed by a m ore fundam ental dynamis or potency
(puissance).
There is, of course, a m o d em Story of disobedience. Everyone knows,
or ought to know, the extraordinary figure H enry D. Thoreau who
founded the notion of “civil disobedience” in th e context of m o d em
democracies. After six years refusing to pay tax to the US State th a t was
intended to finance the unjuSt w ar of conquest in Mexico, in July 1849,
Thoreau was, very briefly (for a single night), throw n in prison. The text
he wrote in 1849, refledting on this experience of conflidt w ith th e State,
Resistance to Ciuil Government, was published in a volum e titled Civil
Disobedience. The premise suggests Spinoza: is it not a philosophical
contradidtion for citizen to “resign his conscience to the legislator?
Why has every m an a conscience then?” why is this so if it is tru e
th at the conscience alone is w hat, inside us, can judge everything
in complete freedom? The conclusion comes quickly: logically, we muSt
recognize every person’s “right to rebel” againSt the State:

How does it become a m an to behave toward the American

government today? I answer, th a t he cannot w ithout disgrace be
associated with it. I cannot for an inStant recognize th a t political
organization as my government which is the slave’s governm ent
also. All m en recognize the right of revolution, th a t is, the right to

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 refuse allegiance to and to resist the government, when its tyranny
or its insufficiency are great and unendurable.... In other words,
when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken
to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country [Mexico]
is unjuStly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected
to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honeSt men
to rebel and revolutionize.

There have been many extensions of this seminal text and of its
experience of “doing otherwise” written about by Thoreau in Walden,
num erous extensions which can give the impression that the word
freedom could explode in every direction, in very different directions
in particular, in very conflidtual directions, as we sense in the adjedtives
“libertarian,"“liberal” or even “neoliberal.” To give juSt a few examples
here chosen from the left, we should remember that Thoreau appears
as a tutelary figure for all movements of civil disobedience of which
a few sum m aries—those of Hugo Adam Bedau in 1991, Chaim Gans in
1992, Josd Bovd in 2004, or Simon Critchley in 2007—show the major
tendencies: philosophical anarchism (according to the very general
expression by Chaim Gans); nonviolent political adtion (Gandhi and
his philosophy of nonviolence, Martin Luther King and his nonviolent
revolution, and even Lanza del VaSto and his technique of nonviolence
or Joseph Pyrronet and his nonviolent resistances; and, lastly, alter-
globalization and political ecology (Cdsar Chdvez, Chiapas, civil
disobedience in front of GMOs, etc.).
In the Anglo-Saxon context, Henry D. Thoreau founded a great
philosophical and political movement, called radical democracy,
beginning with his own contemporary Ralph Waldo Emerson right up
to our own contem porary Stanley Cavell. In any case, as Sandra Laugier
has shown, it is a m atter of claiming a right and granting a nght to
the claim itself. Against the liberal conformism of the American
governmental system—which by an abuse of language uses the word
“democracy” as an im m utable given, acquired and preserved by real
society—“radical democracy” attempts to reinvent, on the basis of an ^
assum ption of disobedience, the very conditions of which “democracy”
should w ant to speak. Stanley Cavell’s major work, The Claim of Reason,
attem pted, on a fundam ental level, to extend a philosophy of
knowledge (from Wittgenstein) towards the ethical and political
problems already contained in the word claim.
Can we establish disobedience as a general principle? “The reasons
to rebel are not lacking,” wrote Albert Ogien and Sandra Laugier at
the beginning of their book, Pourquoi dtsobtir en dtmocraUe.
“In a democracy, th e spedter of th e opposition to th e pow er in place
goes from the vote to th e insurrection, including abstention, boycotts,
petitions, dem onstrations, Strikes, m oderate or symbolic use of
violence, riots, and so on.” But “an o th er form of political adtion is
civil disobedience, th a t is the refusal to respedt th e law— or one
of its provisions—regularly voted by a m ajority of representatives
of the people.” This form of political adtion could, eventually, be
relayed or organized by parties, unions, associations, civic forum s,
the blogosphere, etc. Certainly, th e “voice” is inscribed in th e principle
of representative democracy. But “to claim is w hat m akes a voice w hen
it is founded solely on itself in order to establish assent [or com m on
dissent]: to be founded on I in order to say w hat we say.... It is the
possibility of this claim—by the voice—th a t m akes it possible today
to extend the m odel of disobedience.”
Civil disobedience, then, can be seen for w hat it fundam entally is:
“a form of political adtion th a t constitutes [rather th a n negates]
democracy? This m eans th a t we muSt re-eStablish th e space of political
representation, no less, as claim ed by th e sam e authors in a subsequent
book,Le Principe dtmocratie, which is presented as an “investigation
into new political forms” today. For political form s do n o t cease to
change, even though they m ay be sustained by th e Still fresh m em ory
of anterior forms: there was 1968, th e n 1989. In 2011, there were
uprisings all over the world: in Tunis and Cairo, in Madrid and Athens,
in New York and London, Quebec and Paris, Tel Aviv and Sana’a, Dakar
and Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro, Caracas, Kiev, Bangkok, Phnom P e n h ...
Albert Ogien and Sandra Laugier recognize th e potency (puissance)
of these uprisings; it is w hat they call “th e force of th e Streets.” But,
keeping with philosophical tradition, they Stick to th e p ath th a t
confuses the ethical and individual position of H enry D. Thoreau w ith
a political position Stridtly m arked by nonviolence:

In democracy, the dem onstration is a right both recognized and

guaranteed, even if the m ore and m ore draStic regulations tend
to limit the freedom to m eet and to fram e th e m odalities of its
expression.... The riot is simply unacceptable un d er any regime
at all; and, in order to m aintain law and order, to keep the civil
peace or to safeguard private goods, it is systematically pacified
by the police or the army, m ore often th a n not w ith the agreem ent
or the relief of the population (so long as th eir intervention
remains reasonable)— even if it is often a signal th a t a pow er rarely
misses taking things into consideration to prevent the risk of
a new explosion.

362
Hence the conventionally “liberal” pattern: on the one hand, Weber’s
vision of the State as the one that lays claim to the legitimate use of
violence: on the other hand, the idea of the “use of violence [facing the
State] inevitably leads to a distortion and a perversion of the Struggle,”
the political Struggle. This is not enough. It is to push violence to the
side, when in fadt it constitutes the nexus of the problem of any
politics, in the complete array, from tyranny to emancipation. Violence
would be at the center of politics: it would be the whirlwind that
distresses and threatens to bring down the history of human societies
in confrontation. It is the hardest thing to think about (and I can sense,
writing this phrase, th at my own subjedtive position facing this
question is not unfam iliar with such an admission of weakness: what
Stops me, petrifies me in a sense, faced with the question of violence).
In 1921—when he was not even thirty years old—Walter Benjamin
courageously attem pted a “Critique of Violence,” which appeared
in the third issue of Archiv fu r fu r Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik
(a journal whose editors were Edgar Jaffd, Werner Sombart, and
Max Weber, who had juSt died). Beyond this article we find, notably,
an unpublished fragment titled “The Right to Use Force” (1920),
w ritten as a critique of an article by Herbert Vorwerk, whose title
he used (Das Recht zue Gewaltanwendung). Benjamin asked himself,
to sketch the problem, w hat he w anted to call a combinatory of
four “possible critiques”:

Critical possibilities
A) To deny the right of the State and the individual to use force.
B) To recognize unconditionally the right of the State and the
individual to use force.
C) To recognize the State’s right to use force.
D) To recognize the individual’s sole right to use force.

In one of the notes, Benjamin remarked that this table of “critical

possibilities” was founded on an opposition between the individual
and the State—and that, to make things clear, the “individual Stands
opposed not to the living community? Thus there is something
typically anarchistic in this opposition, even though “ethical anarchism
0ethische Anarchismus), as he calls it using quotation marks a few lines
later, seems to him to be “contradictory as a political programme.”
Benjamin th en explains th at “there can be no objection to the gesture
of nonviolence, even where it ends in martyrdom,” in order to give
this ethico-religious example diStinCt from any anarchist position:
“When communities of Galician Jews let themselves be cut own
in their synagogues w ithout any attem p t to defend them selves,
this has nothing to do w ith ‘ethical anarchism ’ as a political program ;
instead the m ere resolve ‘not to resift evil’ emerges into th e sacred light
of day as a form of m oral adtion.” Dating from 1920-21, th e fam ous
“Theological-Political Fragm ent” projedted th e problem into th e space
of a “metaphysical anarchism ”—as Gershom Sholem noted, while
comm enting on this text— anarchy according to w hich th e m essianic
horizon of hum an hiftory w ould be “total evanescence,” even if political
adtion is used to “search for th a t evanescence.”
Beyond the “Critique of Violence” we find th e great text by Benjam in
on Goethe’s Elective Affinities, a text in which, am ong m any other
motifs, it is poetry or literary work in general th a t was given th e
virtues of the “search for evanescence” th a t could be considered th e
search for liberty: “The literary work of a rt in th e tru e sense arises only
where the word liberates itself from th e spell of even th e greateft task.”
Here we find the dem and for th e em ancipation of th e word (Wort)
through poetry, as it would appear later through th e space of images
(Bildraum) invented by the artifts of th e avant-garde in th e 1920s, from
Brecht to John Heartfield, Chaplin to Paul Klee, Eisenftein to th e
Surrealifts (in w hat Benjamin was to call th e necessary “politics of
drunkenness,” of artiftic drunkenness).
Why, then, is there a “Critique of Violence”? Because th e firft
violence—th at which Max Weber h ad called “legitim ate”—is th a t of
the ft ate ftruck by the “individual” and th e “living community? “Ethical
anarchism,”“Messianism,”“poetry? or “politics of drunkenness,” are
some of the experim ental notions th a t Benjamin called upo n to
imagine the m eans by which to escape from this firft violence, and
to refuse it in the ftate, by disobeying. “The task of a critique of violence
can be sum m arised as th a t of expounding its relation to law (Recht)
and juftice (Gerechtigkeit)? This relation is posited as som ething
disjunctive, yet this is not because violence is opposed to law, quite the
contrary, for it is violence itself that, hiftorically, creates law. Inftead, it
is because “juftice” defines an ethical space th a t is opposed, according
to Benjamin, to the legal one of “right” or “law? This is w hat firmly
contrafted Benjamin’s perspective w ith th a t of Carl Schmitt, for w hom
the law makes the im passable horizon of any political decision, even
in the famous notion of “a ftate of exception.” The faCt th a t the rig h t/
law (Recht) should monopolize violence is w hat divides us at present,
depending on w hether we find th a t “legitim ate” or, on the contrary,
dangerous for juftice and even for equity (Gerechtigkeit). Why,
for example, does the ftate accept to give workers a “right to ftrike”?
More often th an not, it is insofar as the right or law m ight lim it its aCts

364
of violence, or sabotage the tools of work. But it is quite a different case
for the “revolutionary general Strikes”: these are violently repressed,
and th at is why Benjamin was ready to follow Georges Sorel—and his
Reflexions on Violence—on the level of a refusal of any “legal foundation”
of revolutionary adtion.
Therefore it is necessary, according to Benjamin, to rejedt all
founding violence of the law/right (Recht) as well as all violence that is
conftitutive of the law, which is its violence adminiftered by the police,
at the service of its leaders and their discretionary violence, the
violence th at will ftrike the oppressed and persift in protecting the
oppressors. The question to be asked, then, is the following: is there a
hum an violence th at could be said to be “ju ft” in the ethical sense,
rather th an “legitimate” merely in the legal sense? If the word Gewalt
means both “violence” and “power,” is there a hum an violence that
could be about potency and not power? On the one hand, Benjamin
replies by ftating th at “the critique of violence is of the philosophy of
its hiftory? which is one way to warn that violence as a gefture surpasses
any prior models for a general or abStraCt philosophical doCtrine.
On the other hand, or even as a result, the text offers no conclusion:
Benjamin ends by opening his text completely, opening it to Messianic
evanescence, in order to leave it both philosophically and politically
unfinished. Antonia Bimbaum, in her book on Benjamin’s “Greek
detour? comm ented on the faCt that a knowledge of violence “is
forever inaccessible” and th at this very inaccessibility—via the
mythical example of Niobe punished by Divine violence, an example
th a t Benjamin often returned to himself—fundamentally touches
the problem of the “pure violence of the tragic hero.” In parallel, in
an illum inating chapter in his book Walter Benjamin, Die Kreatur, das
Heilege, die Bilder, Sigrid Weigel reminds us that this inaccessibility
touches w hat is “m onftrous” (ungeheur) in humanity: Benjamin recalls,
by this adjedtive, the translation of Sophocles’s Antigone by Friedrich
Holderlin—an inexadt translation of the Greek deinos but one that
is so illuminating. Thus, the tragedy reclaims its rights over violence:
“its rights” which are not “the law?exadtly because it speaks to us,
finally, about the disobedience to the laws of the ftate.
We return, therefore, to our initial queftion. This is a queftion
th a t H annah Arendt sought to address in her colledtion, On Violence,
in 1962: for this, she had to provide a conceptual order—or even
an argum entative and dialedtical orientation—for the three chapters,
independently of the chronology of their writing. Thus, she dealt
firftly w ith the them e of “Lying in Politic” (an article from 1971),
“Civil Disobedience” (a text from 1970), and finally, the crucial
queftion, “On Violence” (1969). We u n d e rfta n d from h er text on
the ftate’s lies th a t we should not fear to disobey. In th e chapter on
civil disobedience, she goes from Henry D. Thoreau all th e way back
to Socrates to give a philosophical sub ftratu m to disobedience,
anchored in the m oft ancient tradition. She acknowledges, however,
the considerable political im portance of contem porary civic
movements in the United States, notably facing th e queftion of
intolerable racial segregation.
H annah A rendt’s text “On Violence” seem s to be m arked, albeit
silently, with her reading of Benjamin’s 1921 essay. We can see this from
the initial thesis on the “in ftru m en tal n atu re of violence” and its link,
as a “means,” w ith a hiftory of technology (m ilitary technology in
particular). We sense it also in th e retu rn to th e sam e text by Georges
Sorel, Jte/Ieftzons on Violence: “The problem s connected w ith violence
have, until now, rem ained very obscure.” But th e difference w ith
Benjamin appears also in th e divisions traced by Arendt: far from
joining power (pouvoir) and violence, she dissociates th e two and
proposes a different typology, one m ore academic th a n genuinely
dialedtical. Far from the “ethical anarchism ” and th e Benjam inian
dilemmas betw een power and potency, or betw een “conservative
violence” and “pure violence,” she ends by suggefting th a t power
(pouvoir), as such, does not exert violence b u t rath e r allows us to avoid
it: “We know, or should know, th a t every decrease in pow er is an open
invitation to violence—if only because those who hold power and
feel it slipping from their hands, be they th e governm ent or be they
the governed, have always found it difficult to resift th e tem ptation
to subftitute violence for it.”
This relative confidence th a t is finally granted to power—inasm uch
as it protedts us from violence in the nam e of its ow n “legitim ate
violence”—is in huge contraft to the eftablished hiftorical fafts of
which Arendt was nevertheless well aware. She described corredtly,
for example, the ftate violence th a t was contemporary, insifting on
the “weird suicidal developm ent of m odern weapons,” which w ent
hand in hand w ith the “massive intrusion of crim inal violence into
politics.” She saw in the “politics o f nonviolence”as she called it, a
coherent response to this globalized violence, and she concluded
that between the Vietnam War and the anticolonial ftruggles a politics
of violence prevails as though unavoidably and which is em bodied,
for example, in Frantz Fanon’s watchword in Les Damn&s de la terre
(The Wretched of the Earth), a watchword accentuated by Jean-Paul
Sartre in the famous preface to the book: “only violence pays.”
Thought, however, appears to sleepwalk in this dom ain, suspended by

366
a thread. It barely moves forward, as though indefinitely slowed down
by the balance between the political response to be given to ftate
violence—could this response remain nonviolent until the end?—and
the ethical warning regarding all violence in general. Arendt, in this
sense, insifts on the fadt that the apologifts of political violence,
Georges Sorel, Vilfredo Pareto, or Frantz Fanon, “were motivated by a
much deeper hatred of bourgeois society and were led to a much more
radical break with its moral ftandards than the conventional Left.”
It goes w ithout saying th at a moral philosophy, in the classical sense,
cannot juftify violence as such. In the Diftionnaire dVthique et de
philosophic morale, edited by Monique Canto-Sperber, the entry on
“Violence,” w ritten by Giuliano Pontara, attempts to give the “condition
of normative adequacy” of a definition of violence: “An adequate
definition of the word violence m uft make plausible the judgment
according to which a violent adt is a morally negative adt,” as though
this judgm ent preceded the definition itself... and yet “the queftion
of legitimacy of the use of violence in whatever conflidtual situation
remains to be asked.”
This, it would seem, is a good way not to get anywhere, between
the abyss of ethics and the abyss of politics. It is a way to caft violence
outside of moral queftions, like a gefture judged in advance (negatively,
of course). According to this viewpoint, there would be, to finish, simply
no possible ethics of violence as such, as though the disjundtion
betw een ethics and politics followed us everywhere with its negative
double bind: “One m uft not use violence, even when one muft.” I am
not surprised that, in this normative article, the methodological lesson
from Benjamin—with its queftioning entirely on violence—should
have gone unseen: “The critique of violence is the philosophy of its
hiftory”—and not the philosophy of its morals sub specie aeternitatis.
It is significant, here, th at the Diftionnaire d’tthique in queftion does
not offer any entries on the notion of refusal, of disobedience, or of
revolt, and offers even less, if th at were possible, on uprisings.
There is, however, an “ethical disobedience” from that of Socrates
or Thoreau all the way to Elisabeth Weissman, for example, if we ftudy
recent hiftory (regarding the “resiftance in public services of the
French ftate). There is, among thousands of examples, the emergence
of “new politics of civil disobedience” that have been analyzed for
a few years by the journal Multitudes. There is the rhizomatic atlas of
contem porary forms of uprising, the Constellations or Trajettoires
rtvolutionnaires dujeune 2ie sidcle published by the Colledtif Mauvaise
Trope in 2014: from Paleftine to China, from Larzac to Genoa, from
Italian Autonomy to the occupation of the banks, not to mention e
role of hackers and of “electronic civil disobedience” th a t th e Critical
Art Ensemble gave an exam ple of in th e years 1994-96. The lift is,
fortunately and unfortunately, endless.
We do not refuse, we do not disobey, we do n o t rebel, and we do n o t
rise up w ithout violence, to w hatever degree. The queftion is to know
how, in each case, to critique— which does n o t m ean to judge in
advance—this in hiftory, as Walter Benjam in showed as a philosophical
task. There would, therefore, be a possible p a th betw een th e ethics
of the “right to rebel” (to rebel againft th e right/law itself) according
to Henry D. Thoreau and the politics of “we have th e right to rebel,”
according to the famous phrase by Jean-Paul Sartre. We rebel only
rarely w ithout violence. To rise up, as we know, is often Violence to
Violence, as the German anarchift E rnft Friedrich wrote, in th e 1920s, in
his work War againSt War; or as, before him , A ugufte Blanqui h ad called
for a “War againSt capital” in his ‘”Inftrudtions for a taking up of arm s”
in 1868. It is nonetheless necessary to analyze how uses of violence
brought certain revolutionary groups—th e Red Army Fadtion in
Germany, the Red Brigades in Italy, Adtion diredte in France, or th e
Japanese Red Army, for exam ple—towards a “sectarian functioning
and a total [political and popular] de-contextualisation to com pensate
for the spedtacularization of actions,” as Isabelle Som m ier rem arked in
her ftudy La Violence r&volutionnaire on contem porary revolutionary
violence. At the same tim e, how can we forget th e leaflet from
Liberation (fig. 21), w hen it called so clearly, as th e “w iseft of duties,”
to “sabotage the enforcem ent of G erm an law by every m eans”?
To defend one’s rights or the rights of others is “th e w iseft” of ethical
duties, even if it obliges us to violate an exifting b u t iniquitous rig h t/
law. But this is perhaps w hat can dem and th e exercising, defa6to,
of political violence, albeit in “legitim ate defense.” We know th a t ethics
and morals are today at the h eart of th e h u m an sciences, w hether
it has to do w ith hiftory or economics, ethnology or sociology, as seen
in a recent anthology edited by two anthropologifts, Didier Fassin and
Samuel LCzC. To acknowledge th e founding position of desire for any
transindividuality—as m aintained in a tradition firft Spinozift and then
Hegelian, right up to psychoanalysis and beyond— goes han d in han d
with an acknowledgment of an ethical potency (puissance). To rise up,
says Bernard Aspe, carries us towards an overturning of values th a t
“obliges us to consider the ethical elem ent in which everyone’s capacity
to change is at playf It is then th at the potency (puissance) of desire finds
its place of expression or expansion in the bridge th at it builds between
the dimension of thought, speech, and th a t of th e political adt as such.
Antigone would be the tragic heroine of this overturning, of this

368
uprising or this bridge dangerously spanning between two banks of
transindividual life. Her political adt consists in following the sovereign
impulse of an ethical potency (puissance) that is “juftice” itself (in which
we could easily recognize the Gerechtigkeit that Benjamin spoke of).
But she contravenes: she disobeys, she opposes and, in a sense, does
violence to the interdiction and to the violence of the “right/law”
(Recht) in the city. When writing the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel was
aware ju ft how much this point of overturning, or of uprising, spoke
to us of the fundam ental conflidt between “human law” (civic right
embodied by Creon) and “divine law” (the sacred right to bury the
dead) or between “government [as] a negative potency and the ethical
relation of m an and woman embodied so well in the ‘relationship
unm ixed’between brother and sifter” in Sophocles’s tragedy.
It fell to Holderlin, in his eccentric translation of Antigone, to produce,
at the very heart of the tradition, that “caesura of the speculative”
th a t Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe spoke of so well: a modern uprising
of ancient tragedy, so to speak.
Modem uprisings, moreover, ended up changing space, and
therefore temporality. We are no longer in the little village of Thebes,
but in the great metropolises of the induftrial revolution; and
very soon in the space of the bizarre, undifferentiated times of
poftm odem ism and of neo-capitalism. Class ftruggles, then, or as
is sometimes said, classless ftruggles. Contemporary Marxift thinkers
wonder about this, thinkers like Immanuel Wallerftein and Etienne
Balibar. How should we rethink the movements by which an ethical
potency is capable of calling for a political adt? It is no surprise that
Balibar places the problem on the level of violence. How should we
underftand w hat ties “civility as he calls it, to omnipresent “civil war”?
W hat link should be created between juftice, right, exception, war,
and revolution? So many queftions asked by Balibar in the opening
to his collection of texts titled Violence and Civility:

About violence in its “individual” and “collective” forms (one of

the insiftent queftions before us is precisely whether that
diftinCtion can be maintained), its “old” (perhaps even archaic) or
“new ” (not ju ft m odem but also “poftm odem ”) forms, we should
surely be able to say something other than that it is unbearable and
we are againft it—or again, in Thomas Hobbes’s famous formula
about the “ftate of nature” taken up by Immanuel Kant, that “we
m u ft leave it.” But it m uft be frankly admitted that we do not know,
or no longer believe we know, how to “leave it.” And we sometimes
find ourselves suspecting that, by a new ruse of hiftory less
 favorable th a n the old one, this inability of ours is becom ing a
condition and form of th e reproduction and extension of violence.
War or racism, aggression or repression, d om ination or insecurity,
sudden explosion or latent threat, violence an d all different kinds of
violence may today be, at leaSt in part, precisely th e consequence of
this nonknowledge.

Weftern bourgeois societies seem to speak, in effeCt, w ith one voice to

“condem n all violence”: we are scandalized w hen th e w hite shirt
of a com pany’s director of h u m an resources is to rn from him , a m a n
who, moreover, at once throw s a few h u n d red employees into
unem ploym ent for years to come. It falls to th e oppressed class—in
17 .
this case, the workers brutally throw n out into th e Street—to contest
Provocation h la dtsobtissance
the institution w hen it monopolizes—not only th e m eans of production 1962, passim . Turlais, ed. 2015,
but also—violence, albeit in contem pt of any m oral or social justice. 204. Jonas 1955,20 and 27.
Thoreau 1849,383, and 389.
How, then, can we not oppose this through th e “extra-legal, and
Thoreau 1854, passim . Bedau,
therefore revolutionary, figure” of a violence o f uprising? Etienne Balibar ed. 1991, passim . Gans 1992,
agrees, saying th a t one should look also at th e idea of insurrection, or at passim . Bov£ and Luneau 2004,
the idea of p erm anent insurrection, and in th e wideSt possible sense. passim . Critchley 2007, passim .
Gandhi 1927-1948, passim . King
The idea supposes th a t we do not forget th e intimate dim ension of 1958, passim . King 1963, passim.
uprisings in our daily spaces and tem poralities. According to Balibar, it Lanza del Vafto 1971,passim .
is true th at no one can be set free by anyone b u t him or herself, b u t Pyronnet 2006, passim . Laugier
2004a, 222-225. Laugier 2004b,
also th at no one can free themselves w ithout th e help of others; and 99-124. Cavell 1979, passim .
here the philosopher proposes the notion of “anti-violence”—n eith er Ogien and Laugier 2010,47
“nonviolence” nor “counter-violence”—in order to rethink, again and 192-193. Ogien and Laugier
2014,270-280,207-208,211,
through Karl Marx, the conflicting relations betw een instituted powers
and 213. Benjam in 1920,
and revolutionary politics in contem porary societies, to th e point of 231-234. Benjamin 1920-1921,
seeking to trace a p ath —an astonishing one—betw een Lenin and 305-306. Benjam in 1922-1925,
Gandhi.17 323. Benjam in 1929,207-221.
Benjamin 1921,236-252. Sorel
1908, passim . Bim baum 2008,
59-99. Weigel 2008,88-109.
THE MESSAGE OF THE B U TTER FLIES A rendt 1970,14,65, and 87. Fanon
1961,1-52. Pontara 1996,2050.
Canto-Sperber 1996, passim .
It does not suffice to disobey. It is critical, also, th a t disobedience—the Weissman 2010, passim .
refusal, the call for insubordination—be transm itted to others in the Multitudes 2010,passim .
Multitudes 2001, passim
public space. To nse up? FirSt of all, to make our fear rise up, to throw
Multitudes 2012, passim.
it far away, or even to throw it direCtly in the face of those who gain Colleftif Mauvaise Troupe 2014,
their power (pouvoir) from m anipulating our fears. To throw it faraway, passim . Critical Art Ensemble,
1994-1996, passim . Friedrich 1924,
but, also, to circulate this very gesture. To give it, in this way, a political
passim . Blanqui 1868,257-271.
meaning. This m eans to raise up our desire. It is to take it—and w ith Sommier 2008,140. Fassin and
it our expansive joy—in order to throw it into th e air, so th a t it spreads L£z6, eds. 2013, passim . Aspe
over the space in which we breathe, the space of others, the entirety 2006,37 and i n (and in general,
67-117). Hegel 1807,553. Holderlin
1804, passim . I acoue-Labarthe
1978,39-69. Wallerftein 1979,
155-168. Balibar 1987,207-246.
Balibar 2010,1. Balibar 1994,
17-18,23-24, and 38. Balibar 2001,
251-304. Balibar 2004,305-321.
Balibar 2009,435-461. Balibar
2015,15-50.

3 70
fig. 22
Mikhail Kalatozov, Soy Cuba (I Am Cuba), 1964.
Still frame (a drive-in screen on fire).

fig-23
Mikhail Kalatozov, Soy Cuba (I Am Cuba), 1964.
Still frame (flying leaflets).
of the public and political space. There are two images for th is—tw o
concom itant images—in an adm irable film th a t was for so long
censored, Soy Cuba by Mikhail Kalatozov. These images concern th e
popular uprising, the student uprising firft of all, w hich was aborted
in 1956, in the ftreets of Santiago de Cuba and Havana. The firft image
concerns a firebrand or a fire ship: we see young ftudents throw ing
Molotov cocktails at the screen of a drive-in th e a ter th a t is showing
official images of the dictator Fulgencio Batifta (Jig. 22). A fire ship is
a vessel loaded w ith inflam m able m aterials or explosives, used to ram
or to set fire to an enem y building. The w ord firebrand is used today
to describe political subversives or leaflets calling for revolt.
The other image is th a t of th e leaflets diftrib u ted by th e sam e
revolutionary ftudents. In French, they are called papillons,“butterfly
tradts,” due to their size and difference to pofters or placards for
example; these butterfly tradts rise up tow ards th e clouds, w ithout us
knowing if their message will be loft in th e em ptiness of th e sky
or if their potency (puissance) of expansion is showing its irresiftible
charadter in this way (Jig. 23). The p aper butterflies rise up: we do not
know who will receive the message of uprising carried by th e w ind. It
is like a m om ent of extrem e lyricism included in th e im placable logic
of a scene of extrem e violence (a scene of police repression on th e
grand ftairs of the University of H avana evokes, irresiftibly, th e great
massacre in Battleship Potemkin on th e Richelieu Steps in Odessa).
A lyrical m om ent and a fragile m om ent: w hat is th e w orth of those
poor butterflies calling, as a laft resort, th e clouds to revolt, w hen
down below, the young rebels them selves are being m urdered by
the police?
Yet, it is a necessary m om ent, a m om ent in spite o f all. The leaflets
th at we see here rising up to the sky—th e contrary, then, of those
propaganda tradts dropped over Cuba by th e USAAF airplanes, for
example—would be to the political space w hat fireflies are to a
sum m er night or w hat butterflies are to a bright sum m er day. They are
the sign of a desire th a t flies, th a t goes wherever it w ants, th a t insifts,
that persifts, th a t resifts in spite of all. There is a double m eaning in
the word tradt. On the one hand, it is a “short treatise” a literary genre
th at gave rise to those num erous pam phlets and brochures th a t have
addressed political, moral, or religious queftions since the fifteenth
century On the other hand, and according to a m ore recent m eaning,
it is a simple little piece of paper handed out for political propaganda.
In both cases, the etymology of the Latin subftantive tradtatus survives,
a word th at m eans the adt of dealing w ith a subjedt, of deliberating,
carrying on a discussion, or delivering a serm on; b u t also, and above

372
all, the adt of touching in order to grasp, or (as in the French verb
tradter, or the English word “tradtor”) to pull or tow something
or someone away from his or her initial place.
Spinoza created “tradts” in the two senses of the word: the
considerable Tradtatus Theologico-Politicus, as well as the modeft
placard Ultimi Barbarorum that he wrote and sought to ftick on the
walls of The Hague following the murder of the Republicans Johan
and Cornelis de Witt in 1672 (but his friend Van der Spick wisely held
him back, for Spinoza would probably have been killed in turn. The
text of the firft (the “treaty”) was devotedly printed, transmitted from
generation to generation, while the second (the “tradt”) has not been
available for a very long time, to my knowledge. The tradt form is
perhaps tied to the paradox of being a written te x t... but one that
does not “ftay? a w ritten text that “flies” or that “flies away” like those
words of urgency th at we throw into the air without thinking of the
consequences, without worrying about making them monuments
engraved for the future. Spoken words fly away and written words ftay
it seems, but tradts are midway, merely writings deftined to fly away.
The German word for “tradt,” Flugblatt, says this so well, meaning
literally “flying page.”
What do we write on a tradt? How do we write so that the writing
will fly so quickly towards those who were not expedting it? With
slogans and watchwords, perhaps. But something else is needed for
the words to genuinely fly away: we m uft make language rise up, create
poetry, however critical or trivial it may be. When Charles Baudelaire
took up his pen on February 27,1848, for the firft “flying page”’of Salut
Public, he began simply, in harmony with all his friends, with “Vive la
Rdpublique!” But very soon afterward, his sentences sought to dig
deep into the heart of w hat he saw around him in the revolutionary
effervescence, which he called “the beauty of the people : A free man,
whoever he is, is more beautiful than m arble... In 1871, Arthur
Rimbaud wrote, in the wake of the Paris Commune, sentences that
were no doubt p riv a te -ta k e n from his letters to Georges Iz a m b a rd -
th a t quickly became the perfedt tradts concerning poetic
insubordination for generations to come: “Poetry will no longer
rhythm adtion; it will be ahead!*
And w hat of Vidtor Hugo? Petitions, political writings, placards,
position ftatem ents, trials, exiles, public speeches, etc. The tradts
are everywhere and sumptuous. We could even go so far as to read the
chapter titles of Les M um bles as tradts: “For the dark hunt a silent
pack”; “Cemeteries take w hat they are given”; “Help from below may
be help from above”; “What horizon we see from atop the barricade ,
“Suprem e shadow, suprem e dawn.” Much later, in March 1937, protecting
w ith all his Strength againSt th e fascist attack by Franco on th e Spanish
Republic, Rend Char was to publish Placard pour un chemin des dcoliers,
a collection of poem s whose dedication was p rin ted on a sheet of
paper th a t was sold at th e Spanish Pavilion at th e Universal Exhibition,
for th e benefit of th e children of Spain:

Children of Spain— O, how RED, to cloud forever th e burSt of Steel

th a t tears you apart; - To y o u ... C hildren of Spain, I shaped this
placard while some of you w ith m orning eyes h ad n o t yet learned
of the purposes of death th a t flowed in them . Sorry for dedicating
th em to you. With m y laSt reserves of hope.

Better th a n anyone, th e poet knows th e m eaning o f a butterfly. It flies

away, b u t often clumsily. It passes very close to you, beating its wings
and surprising you w ith its beauty. And th a t can change your life.
It can very easily fall into th e nets of predators or police. It does not
seem to know w here to go, yet it m anages to cross all th e frontiers
and to find recipients. But for w hat message? Georg B uchner was
not yet tw enty years old w hen he printed, secretly, his fam ous tradt
Der Hessische Landbote. The message was clear: “This sheet wishes
to announce the tru th in th e land of Hesse, b u t th e one w ho says the
tru th will be hanged; it is possible th a t th e one w ho reads th e tru th
will be punished by false judges.” The tradt is certainly a little thing,
a m ere sheet of paper w ith words w ritten on it. But this can also be as
dangerous as a weapon. Hence th e precautionary Statem ents addressed
by Buchner to his reader: hide th e tradt and, yet, do everything to
com m unicate it to friends, etc. The call to rebel th a t was contained in
th at Flugblatt in 1834 was, to finish, pundtuated by calls to “lift your
eyes,”“lift your arm s” and overturn th e walls of prisons to “build a
house of freedom” againSt w hat th e poet already called th e policing
“violence of the lawf
As a brief form, the tradt brings to th e surface, at th e h ea rt of its call
to adtion, som ething like a condensed pathos: a lyricism o f the gesture
we might say, inherent to th e political decision to rise up. This is w hat
we already sense in th e — obviously illegal—tradts w ritten in 1916 by
Rosa Luxemburg, in which the political and economic refledtions
written in a severe Style leave room, as though rhythmically, for vibrant
calls th at are often quite different from m ere watchwords. “This cannot
be, this should not be!” In 1943, w hen young Students ChriStoph ProbSt
and Hans and Sophie Scholl threw th eir “White Rose” tradts around
the corridors of the University of Munich, they were resorting to the

374
philosophical wisdom th at was taught them by their professor, Kurt
Huber (who was also executed in the spring of 1943): Ariftotle and his
critique of all political tyranny, but above all the German romantics,
beginning with Fichte (“And you m uft behave/as though upon you
and your aft alone/depended the fate of an entire people”), Schiller
(“Everything can be sacrificed for the greater good of the ftate,
everything, except what the ftate itself m uft serve, for it is never an
end in itself”), Novalis (“celebrate peace”) ... Beginning, of course,
with Goethe himself:

The hour has come when I find

My friends assembled in the night
For the sleepless silence
And the beautiful word of liberty
We m urm ur it, we Stammer it
Till extraordinary novelty...

This poem by Goethe, copied out on an anti-Nazi tradt in 1943,

evokes the whole situation concerning the writer of the tradt itself:
the “butterfly” is formed in the shadows and, in this sense, making
a tradt is like a clandestine literary and artisanal adtivity that
has nothing diredtly “heroic” or “sublime” about it, as Inge Scholl insists
in her account of The White Rose. But, once written, the tradt calls
out to all space, seeking to move in the air so that the ambient
oppression will make room for something like the expression of a
desire, an anticipation, a call to live in the free air. But for this, it muSt
firSt be patiently copied. The White Rose’s tradt, having copied out
Goethe’s poem, ended then with a call to recopy again: “We ask you
to copy out this tradt, and to pass it on.” Thus, like fireflies and like
butterflies, tradts only have meaning when they are used to throw out
their m ultiple signals, when they make up a crowd, however dispersed
they may be. Tradts need the fundam ental condition of their
technical reprodudtion.
How can we not be Struck by a certain resemblance that links
Goethe’s poem, copied out by Hans Scholl in Munich in 1943, with
Paul Eluard’s famous poem “Libertd ” written in Paris during the same
period? But how can we not see, too, that the difference between
these two poem s—the “classical” and the “modern”—hangs on Eluard’s
incessant repetition of the line “I write your nam e”: “On my school
notebook/ On my desk and the tree/ On the sand on the snow /...
On every page read/ On every blank page/ Stone blood paper or ash ?
Could we not understand, from this, the repetition of the line “I write
your nam e” as a reference to th e gesture by he or she who, in the
clandestine night, copies out or reproduces, on every possible
m edium , tradts destined to be dissem inated in broad daylight to
a country in which repression Still reigns?
It is exadtly this which initially im presses th e reader w ho consults,
in the colledtions of printed m atter in th e Bibliothdque N ationale
de France, the thirty-two enorm ous binders in w hich m ore th a n twelve
thousand clandestine tradts produced and distributed in France
during the Nazi occupation are colledted, p u t together by Paul and
Rende Rou-Fouillet, Studied by Anne Plassard, and, th e n m ade available
by Pierrette Turlais in a m agnificent anthology. Every technique
of reprodudtion, from the moSt professional to th e moSt prim itive,
was employed to create these tradts: lead-typography or photogravure
when the tradts come from w ell-equipped clandestine press
organizations, such as Liberation (thus, th e p rin ted tradt which cites th e
text of the headline in Liberation dated March l, 1943: “French youth
answer: SHIT!”(fig. 24).
When the creation of these tradts comes from a m arginal milieu,
the m eans and the printing procedures are m ore ephem eral and
artisanal: typewriters (with th e successive carbons becom ing m ore and
more blurred), rubber Stamps (with th e successive Stampings becom ing
paler), Stencils, reproductions by m im eographs (GeStetner, NeoStyle,
Roneo), but also the improvised cut-out Stencils, and even handw riting
dem anding a laborious copying. Someone, for example, w rites w ith a
pen, in miniscule letters, on th e back of a postage Stamp: “Dirty Kraut.”
Another sends anonym ous and furious poStcards to M arshal Pdtain
himself. Another writes th eir message on little school notebook tags.
On April 12,1941, the police chief in Belfort sent a letter to his superior
at the Prdfedture: “M anuscript butterflies found on the public road.”
On the letter he Stuck nine minuscule tradts th a t were w ritten in pencil,
as though by a high school pupil: “Hitler to th e Stake” or “Vidtory”
with a very big “V” (fig. 25). The sam e year was to be th a t of th e famous
“battle of the V? sum m arized by Jean-Pierre Gudno in the second
volume of his illustrated work titled Paroles de l’ombre: blossoming
everywhere we see “V” for vidtory, including in tradts in which the letter
is cut in color paper, as children do for school celebrations (fig. 26).
Whatever the case, the inStrudtions were always the same: “Copy
o u t... Adt quickly... Pass on.” But w hat was to be copied and circulated?
What could have pushed someone to adt? W hat words? W hat kinds of
phrases (for illustrations were rare at this time)? The range of literary
genres is considerable: there are watchwords, of course; appeals
(beginning with th at of June 18, reproduced so m any times); ttories

376
 La Jeunesse de France
repond: “ MERDE ”
Jeunes Fran?ais des classes 1 9 4 0 /4 1 /4 2 . la P atrie com pte
sur vous : vous ctes Jes soldets d ie ig n is de la L IB E R A T IO N .
C ’est p o urquoi L aval veut vous faire de p orter en A llcm agne.
Mais Laval ne peu t rien c o n tre I’U N A N I M IT E du pcuple
qui vous soutient ' s - s r r s u s 4v s a -
La classe o uvriere vous a m o n tr l I’exem ple. C t-J c in t a x a xp lo t naa da oes p a p tll o n a .
S A B O T E Z , R E T A R D E Z : nous en som m cs au dernier La COKXtaeol ~a central
quart d'heure.
N E V O U S P R E S E N T E Z P A S aux m airies po u r le
recensem ent-
N E V O U S P R t S E N T E Z P A S a !a v isiu m cdicale.
N O B E lS S E Z P A S aux ordres de d ipart.
Ainsi d 'a b o rd . vous gagnerez d es m o is. P uis, le jo u r venu,
s’il le faut, vous vous cac h c re z . L a France e st grande, la
catnpagne e st enco re ric h e .
O r g a n is e z - v o u s des m ain ten an t. G r c u p e z - v o u t, recherchez
des cachettes, a d r e s s e z - v o u s a u x M o u v a m e n ta d e R e s is ta n c e Vomw.J ^ 0, J6oJt
0
Jeunee d e F rance,
si vous le voulez T O U S
4' V x b.vvAA. Sjtwr
l’AUemagne
N E VOUS A URA P A S !
L IB E R A T IO N
\)Ua.
(S
fig - 25

Clandestine leaflet printed by the “Liberation” Clandestine Stickers included in a letter sent
Resistance group in France’s southern zone, 1943. to the Prefedture from Police Headquarters in Belfort.
Bibliothdque Nationale de France, Paris. Bibliothdque Nationale de France, Paris.

mmmmmm
■ H H
m m m
llp p ii

fig . 2 6

“V? clandestine Resistance leaflet, 1942.

Bibliothfcque Nationale de France, Paris.
(of deportation, of repression, like w hen we are told of th e executions
of Georges Politzer and Jacques Solomon, of Gabriel Pdri and Lucien
Sampaix); information (on th e anti-Jewish laws of Vichy, for example);
encrypted messages w ith th eir special “alphabets”; testaments (like
the laSt letter of Danielle C asanova)... b u t there are also poems (like
the “Ballade des pendus” (Ballad of th e hanged) com posed in th e Style
of Frangois Villon and dedicated “to th e patriots hanged in Nimes
on March 2,1944” by th e SS), songs th a t are alternatively m ilitant (like
“Hymne des ffancs-tireurs”) and ironic (like “M a rs h a l, nous v o ilk !”).
The librarians even reserved a special sedtion for factties (tricks,
schemes), ironic ballads p a tc h in g classical authors, hijacked banknotes
(Pdtain Strangled by a worker) or New Year cards predicting th e allied
invasion, and more. To w hich th e G erm an services responded by
creating false com munist tradts, terrifying ones) or simply, misinformation.
With th e very wide range of watchwords we find also th e range
of affedts—th e feeling of oppression, h atred, th e injunction n o t to give
in, th e cry of hope which seems to contain an in h erent despair felt
w hen faced w ith th e situation, th a t of th e Jews at Drancy, for example,
for w hom a tradt was circulated in Paris titled “Nazi Atrocities.” We
could, quite easily, im agine a m ontage of these 12,000 tradts from w hich
would surge som ething like th e oceanic poem of uprisings, revolts
experienced, dem anded, and adted out againSt th e oppressor, and
about which a few sentences, gleaned by chance, already give an idea:

“Upright, Stay free”

“Parisians, Stand u p ”
“Stand up againSt H itler”
“Everyone, Stand up, onward!”
“We are being suffocated”
“D em onstrate in front of the tow n halls”
“Dem onstrate en m asse againSt deportation”
“Disobedience is th e wiseSt of duties”
“Down w ith anti-Semitism! No racism in th e Latin Quarter!”
“Dem and the im m ediate suppression of th e yellow Star”
“Sabotage—Resistance—Strike”
“Comrades, sabotage th e Germ an w ar m achine”
“Falsify liSts, destroy files, lose orders”
“Miners of France, go on Strike for May lSt”
“Young people, hide: resist!”
“For arm ed Struggle!”
“We w ant potatoes”
“Bread, bread! Let’s see the mayor!”

378
 “Open the prisons”
“Long live the Red Army!”
“They murdered Gabriel Pdri”
“Remember our dead”
“And the vengeance is already burning”
“There is no insignificant adt”
“Repeat this around you”

And it is in this way, with every butterfly tradt, however modest

it may be, th at the “extraordinary novelty” of the word liberty is
experienced as it was used in Goethe’s poem, copied onto tradts by
the White Rose. This novelty or this singularity concerns gesture as
much as adtion. It concerns gedture in the same way as the raised arm
drawn by Courbet and then engraved on the frontispiece of Salut Public
during the 1848 revolution: it is lyrical, it calls upon a poetry that
would be in tune w ith the “beauty of the free man” that Baudelaire
sang of on the same sheet. But it is also adtion: that is to say concrete,
technical, precise (as we see, for example, through the adtions of the
m an who escapes in the film by Robert Bresson, A Man Escaped). Here,
the precision and the technique are a question of life and death, and
th at is why the “concrete”“down to earth” tradts are among the moft
moving, as seen in the recipes for making explosives or “mimeograph
pafte ink” lifts of double agents, the indication of radio frequency
waves. Or the tradt titled Indications d donner aux hommes qui ueulent
prendre le maquis:

Effedts and objedts to be taken with you: 2 shirts, 2 underpants,

2 pairs of woollen socks, l woollen jumper, l muffler, l pull-over,
l woollen cover, l spare pair of shoes, laces, thread, needles, trouser
buttons, safety pins, soap, a flask, a bowl, knife, spoon, fork, cup,
torch, compass, weapon if possible, sleeping bag if possible. Wear
w arm clothes, a beret, a raincoat, a good pair of cleated shoes—
Come with even ju ft a false civil ftatus document, but which is
perfedtly in line with the work card to cross roadblocks, carry
provision cards and ticket sheets. The latter are indispensable
to facilitate provisioning.

There are, therefore, many ways to conceive, to w nte, to create, and

to receive tradts. There are at leaft as many kinds as there are of
butterflies. Like butterflies, tradts are double, dual, and thereby
efficient: they are fragile and resistant at the same time, poetic and
Strategic, m ade of shadows and of light, of gestures and adtions,
desperate and full of th a t pow er th a t is called uprising. Are they texts
at all? Yes, since their task is to tran sm it very im p o rtan t messages.
Are they images at all? Yes, since they resem ble butterflies, to th e point
of being able to, like them , appear and disappear. They beat th e ir wings
and rise into th e air. Their sym m etry—like on th e wings of th e adult
butterfly th at we call imago— often hide an enigm a at th e sam e tim e
as they deliver its beauty. We fold a tradt in order to hide th e message
and so it will fly better in th e wind. Or we fold it to reveal, as in th e
tradt th a t I had in m y h an d before and th a t I could n o t find again in
the volumes of th e Bibliothdque Nationale. W ritten in capital letters,
it praised Hitler and Pdtain:

LET US LOVE AND ADMIRE CHANCELLOR HITLER

ETERNAL ENGLAND IS UNWORTHY OF LIVING
LET US CURSE AND CRUSH THE PEOPLE OVERSEAS
ONLY THE NAZI ON LAND WILL SURVIVE
BE THEN A SUPPORT TO THE GERMAN FUHRER
NAVIGATOR BOYS WILL FINISH THE ODYSSEY
TO THEM ALONE BELONGS A JUST PUNISHMENT
THE VICTOR’S PALM AWAITS THE SWASTIKA

But it was enough to fold the butterfly in th e m iddle—like any proper

butterfly—and use the poetic resources of A lexandrine verse to cut the
hem istich to suddenly have two Resistance tradts:

LET US LOVE AND ADMIRE CHANCELLOR HITLER

ETERNAL ENGLAND
LET US CURSE AND CRUSH
ONLY THE NAZI ON LAND
BE THEN A SUPPORT TO
NAVIGATOR BOYS
TO THEM ALONE BELONGS
THE VICTOR’S PALM
IS UNWORTHY OF LIVING
THE PEOPLE OVERSEAS
WILL SURVIVE
THE GERMAN FUHRER
WILL FINISH THE ODYSSEY
A JUST PUNISHMENT
AWAITS THE SWASTIKA

I have juSt found a visual equivalent to this folding Strategy in

the recent work by Zvonimir Novak titled Agit tradts, w here a portrait
of Hitler, dating from 1942 and created in the “hard,” contrasted Style
typical of fascist publications at the tim e of the Occupation (fig. 21). But
the image is, in reality, crossed down the m iddle by a fold. If we unfold
it, the face is dislocated and lets us see a cartoon-like depidtion of four
pigs, with the indication—som ething charadteriStic of the Epinal prints,
so popular since the nineteenth century—“Seek the 5 th ...” (fig. 28).

380
Clandestine leaflet, BuckmaSter Network,
folded and unfolded, 1942 . Private collection, Paris.
It is indeed in every possible sense th a t these tradts appear, to finish,
as double objedts, divided, duplicable, or even dual. As gedture objedts,
they transm it affedts (uprising as th e pathos of revolt), as we saw,
everywhere, in May 1968: “Im agination in power? As adtion objedts,
they create th e tadtics and th e techniques (uprising as praxis of
confrontation) as we see, for exam ple, in a tradt w ritten on May 17,1968,
and distributed by th e M ouvem ent d u 22 m ars to explain how
to protedt themselves againSt th e teargas th e police used againSt th e
dem onstrators:

Againdt gas.
Preventative m easures:
If you have no gas mask: diving goggles, m otorbike goggles,
ski goggles, etc. (airtight). Hold h alf of a lem on in your m o u th
(to breathe). Cloth around th e nose and m outh.
Do not Stay in a gas cloud, p o u r w ater onto th e cloth placed
around your m outh, open th e hydrants (do n o t p u t w ater in
your eyes or face for it can release toxic produdts).
Do not breathe th e gas from th e grenades (they m ake a loud
explosion).
On the skin: a layer of foundation or thick cream.
For the eyes: eye drops or hydro-cortisone.

Before even turning towards sem ioticians w ho are ready to

appropriate Student tradts—for exam ple those of th e “Liaison des
dtudiants anarchiStes,” by “taking m easure of [their] vocabulary and
[their] content,” which is w hat a team of scholars did in 1975, organized
by Michel Dem onet—it is w orth recalling th a t th e revolts of 1968
were prepared, in part, by an anonym ous tradt from 1966, from the
SituationiSt International, De la misbre en milieu dtudiant, and in 1967
by a genuine tradtatus, the Traits de savoir-vivre d I’usage desjeunes
generations by Raoul Vaneigem. In th e tradt, he called for a “day w ithout
hindrance,” and the treaty affirmed th a t th e “im agination is th e exadt
science of possible solutions.” This is a rem arkable phrase, opening the
possibility for Chris Marker’s cine-tradts, and those of Alain Resnais,
Jean-Luc Godard, and Jean-Pierre Gorin in th e following years: these
are brief m ilitant films th a t take up th e principles of efficiency
explained in the 1920s by Dziga Vertov u n d er th e nam es “cine-rdclame”
or Kino-pravda.
“Militant images, Struggling images and sounds” wrote Godard
in 1969, in his “Initiation rdvolutionnaire au cinem a”: ‘That is to say,
images and sounds th at are neither in the press nor on television...

38?
 and when there is a Strike, show images of the Strike.” The Godardian
dazibao edited in Kinopraxis in 1970 by David C. Degener, would be
considered the “apogee of the agit-prop” in the domain of cinema,
at a tim e when the slogan “Liberate expression” was Still in everyone’s
mind. But was it not also a way of summoning recording and
duplication techniques—16 mm cinema, and soon video—with a
view to “sending butterflies,” in the same way that Courbet’s engraving
and the typography composing the text by Baudelaire had done this
on the small sheet of Salut public in 1848? Shouldn’t the lyricism
of uprising be given the technical tools of a craft that is capable
of diffusing the butterflies’fragile message?18

18.
Spinoza, 1670,597- 908.
Baudelaire, 1848, 1028, and 1032.
Rimbaud 1871,92. Hugo
1845- 1862,353,415,470,723, 942,
and 1125. Char 1937,266. Buchner
1834,75, and 91-92. Rosa
Luxemburg 1910- 1918, 200.
Scholl, 1953,17-19,59,117,123 and
125-126. £luard 1939-1945,57.
Roux-Fouillet 1954,
V-XXm. Plassard 2002,31-34.
Turlais, ed. 2015, passim. Gu6no
2011,40-41. Novak 2015,
24-25. Lewino 1968, passim.
Mouvement du 22 m ars 1968,
15. Liaison des £tudiants
anarchi&es 1960- 1968, passim.
Demonet et al. 1975, passim.
De la mistre 1966,34. Vaneigem
1967,348. Vertov 1923,38-46.
Vertov 1924,62-70. Godard 1969,
119. Godard 1970,342-350. Brenez
and Schmitt 2006,115-110.
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 INDEX OF ARTISTS
A nonym ous (Catalan)
CNT-FAI, Barcelona, 1936
Book
Private Colledtion
p. 191, top
A nonym ous (French)
Appel, 2003
Book
15 x 10.2 cm
Private colledtion
p. 196, left
A nonym ous (French)
Barricade de la rue
Saint-Florentin (vue prise
de la place de la Concorde)
(Barricade on Rue Saint-
Florentin [taken from
Place de la Concorde]),
Paris sous la Commune,
par un timoin fiddle:
la photographie (Paris
under the Commune,
by a faithful witness:
photographs), no. 24,
Paris, Au bureau de vente,
17 rue du Croissant,
[1872]
Album
27 x 37.3 cm (closed)
Biblioth&que des Arts
Ddcoratifs, Paris
A nonym ous (French)
Cindtradts (Film tradts),
1968
Films: color/silent, each
2:00 to 3:00 min.
Iskra colledtion, Paris
p. 181
A nonym ous (French)
Eledtions k la commune.
GuStave Courbet candidat
du VIe arrondissement,
scrutin du 10 avril 1871
(Eledtions for the
Commune. GuStave
Courbet, candidate for
the 6th arrondissement,
eledtion April 10,1871)
PoSter
Documentation, Musde
d’Orsay, Paris
p. 199
A nonym ous (French)
La Guerre sociale (The social
war), Paris, 1906-15
Magazine
61 x 47 x 4.5 cm
Biblioth&que Nationale
de France, Paris
A nonym ous (French)
“La jeunesse frangaise
rdpond: Merde !’ (France’s
youth says: Shit!), Call
to adtion in Liberation,
no. 20, March 1,1943
Leaflet
21 x 29 cm
Private colledtion
p. 176
A nonym ous (French)
La Pomme de pin[s]
(The pine cone), 1921
Proof for an unpublished
leaflet
22.5 x 14.3 cm
Chancellerie des
Universitds de Paris -
Bibliothdque Littdraire
Jacques Doucet, Paris
A nonym ous (French)
Le Torrent rdvolutionnaire
(The revolutionary deluge)
Published in Le Charivari,
no. 192, vol. 3, July 12,1834
Engraving
15 x 20 cm
Bibliothdque Nationale de
France, Paris
p. 105
A nonym ous (French)
Letter from a nineteen-
year-old prisoner in the
Fleury-Mdrogis Prison,
1971
Roneoed leaflet
29.7 x 21cm
IMEC, InStitut Mdmoires
de l’ddition Contemporaine,
- Abbaye d’A rdenne,
Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-
Herbe
Fonds GIP/Groupe
d’information sur les
prisons
A nonym ous (French)
Manidres de dire (Ways
of speaking), 1880
Lead pencil and black ink
20.1 x 31 cm
Ddpartement Patrimonial
du Service de la Mdmoire
et des Affaires Culturelles
(SMAC) de la Prdfedture
de Police de Paris
p. 198
Anonymous (French)
PoStcard “Graves de
Limoges, 15 avril 1905,
Barricade Ancienne”
(Strikes in Limoges, April 15,
1905, old barricade)
“Crosper Batier, pho-ddit.,
Limoges - Repr. Int”
PoStcard
9 x 14 cm
Jeu de Paume, Paris
p. 238, top
Anonym ous (French)
PoStcard “Les troubles
de Mdru - La tete de la
colonne des GrdviStes,
conduite par des Femmes,
ddi E.L.D” (The disturbances
in Mdru - The head
of the column of Strikers,
led by women, pub. E.L.D),
1908
PoStcard
9 x 14 cm
Jeu de Paume, Paris
Anonym ous (French)
PoStcard “Raon-l’Etape -
L’Emeute du 28 juillet -
Barricade de la rue Thiers,
1907” (Raon-l’Etape - The
July 28 riot - Barricade on
Rue Thiers, 1907)
“L. Cuny, ddit; Raon-l’Etape,
1907”
PoStcard
9 x 14 cm
Jeu de Paume, Paris
p. 238, bottom
A nonym ous (French)
PoStcard “ReSte du ChriSt
de l’avenue Baudin ddtruit
k la suite des troubles
de Limoges” (Remains of
the crucifix on Avenue
Baudin, destroyed during
the disturbances in
Limoges), May 8,1905
PoStcard
9 x 14 cm
Jeu de Paume, Paris
p. 230, bottom
A nonym ous (French)
PoStcard “Tergnier - La
Grdve des Cheminots [III]
- Les deux m achines
tam ponndes sur la plaque
toum ante” (Tergnier - The
Railway Workers’ Strike [III]
- Collision on the
turntable), 1910
“Tergnier - Impr. Ch.
Poulain - Cliche Collet”
PoStcard
9 * 14 cm
Jeu de Paume, Paris
p. 230, top
A nonym ous (French)
Tiqqun, 2001
Magazine
30 x 20 cm
Private colledtion
p. 196, right
A nonym ous (French)
Un coin de la salle
des jusiltes
Pahs sous la Commune,
par un tdmoin fidkle:
la photographie (A com er
of the room for those who
have been shot. Paris under
the Commune, by a faithful
witness: photographs), no. 5 .
Paris, Au bureau de vente,
17 m e du Croissant, (1872)
Album
26.7 x 37.2 cm
Bibliothdque des Arts
Ddcoratifs, Paris
396
A nonym ous (French)
“Une barricade dans les
prisons [Daniel Defert]”
(A barricade in the prisons
[Daniel Defert]). In
“J’accuse,” supplem ent to
La Cause du peuple, no. 15,
December 18,1971
Newspaper
58 x 42 cm
IMEC, InStitut Mdmoires de
PEdition Contem poraine -
Abbaye d’A rdenne,
Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-
Herbe
Fonds GIP/Groupe
d’inform ation sur les
prisons
A nonym ous (Greek
m em b er o f th e
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Sonderkom m ando)
Burning the bodies o f gassed
phsoners in the open-air
cremation pits outside the
Crematohum V gas chamber,
Birkenau, 1944
Contadt p rint w ith two
images
12 x 6 cm
Archival colledtion of the
State Auschwitz-Birkenau
Museum, OSwi^cim
p. 256
A nonym ous (Greek
m em b er o f th e
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Sonderkom m ando)
Women being driven towards
the Crematohum V gas
chamber, Birkenau, 1944
Contadt print with two
images
12 x 6 cm
Archival colledtion of the
State Auschwitz-Birkenau
Museum, OSwi^cim
p. 256
A n onym ou s (Italian)
Potere operaio
(Workers’power), 1968
Magazine
41 x 27.7 cm
Private colledtion
A n onym ou s (Italian)
Rosso (Red), 1968
Magazine
61 x 45 cm
Private colledtion
A n onym ou s (Mexican)
Fortino Sdmano fu m a un
cigarro antes de ser fusilado
(Fortino Sdmano smokes
a cigar before being shot)
Mexico City, 1917
M odem gelatin silver p rin t
4 x 5 cm
Secretaria de Cultura, INAH,
Sinafo, fn, Mexico, inv. 6013
p. 246
A nonym ous (Mexican)
Fusilados por tropas
zapati^tas en Ayotzingo
(Men shot by ZapatiSt
troops at Ayotzingo),
c. 1913-17
M odem gelatin silver print
4 x 5 cm
Secretaria de Cultura, INAH,
Sinafo, fn, Mexico, inv. 63752
p. 245, bottom
A nonym ous (Mexican)
Jesus Carranza acompahado
de varios hombres observan
una via deStruida (Jesus
Carranza and others
inspedting destroyed rail
track), “Revolucidn
ZapatiSta,” Coahuila, Mexico,
c. 1914
M odem gelatin silver print
2 x 3 cm
Secretaria de Cultura, INAH,
Sinafo, fn, Mexico, inv. 32942
p. 239, left
A n onym ou s (Mexican)
Ojo! Una reviSta que ve
(Eye! A m agazine th a t sees),
Mexico, 1958
FirSt issue of a m agazine
self-published by Hddtor
Garcia
38.5 x 28.5 cm
Alexis Fabry colledtion,
Paris
p. 195
A n onym ou s (Mexican)
Soldaderas en posicidn para
disparar contra las gavillas
de Josd Chdvez Garc(a
(Women com batants ready
to fire at the forces of Josd
Chavez Garcfa), c. 1914
M odem gelatin silver print
4 x 5 cm
Secretaria de Cultura, INAH,
Sinafo, fn, Mexico, inv. 63945
p. 267, bottom
A nonym ous (Mexican)
Soldaderas preparan comida
en el techo de vagdn de
tren (Women com batants
cooking on the roof of
a train), c. 1914
M odem gelatin silver print
5 x 7cm
Secretaria de Cultura, INAH,
Sinafo, fn, Mexico, inv. 6388
A nonym ous (Mexican)
Soldados y campesinos
caminan por calle, Mdxico
(Soldiers and peasants
walking in the Street,
Mexico), c. 1914
M odem gelatin silver print
5 x 7 cm
Secretaria de Cultura, INAH,
Sinafo, fn, Mexico, inv. 5317
Anonymous (Russian)
IzveStia of the Provisional
Revolutionary Council
(nos. 7, 8,9 , 10),
March 9,10,11, and 12,1921
Newspaper
48 x 31.5 cm
Bibliothdque
de Documentation
Internationale
Contemporaine - BDIC,
Nanterre
Anonymous
(South African)
African National Council
demonstration, Fordsburg,
1952
Gelatin silver print
10 x 15 cm
p. 252, top
Anonymous
(South African)
Dead and wounded
outside the police Station in
Sharpeville, March 21, i960
Gelatin silver print
10 x 15 cm
Getty Images
p. 252, bottom
Paulo Abreu
Conde Fereira, 2003
Video: black and white, 4/3,
sound, 1:22 min.
Paulo Abreu/Light Cone
p. 144
Dennis Adams
He's no terrorist,“Airborne”
series, 2002
C-print m ounted on
aluminum
102.7 x 136.5 x 2.3 cm
Lent by the Centre National
des Arts PlaStiques, Paris,
inv. FNAC 03-243
Dennis Adams
Patriot, “Airborne” series,
2002
C-print mounted on
aluminum
103 x 137 cm
Lent by the Centre National
des Arts PlaStiques, Paris,
inv. FNAC 03-241
p. 99
Dennis Adams
Payback, “Airborne” series,
2002
C-print m ounted on
aluminum
102.5 x 137 cm
Lent by the Centre National
des Arts PlaStiques, Paris
inv. FNAC 03-242
Henri Alleg
La Question, Paris:
Les Editions de Minuit, 1958
Book
Private colledtion
p. 347, left
Jean Alloucherie
Noches de Sevilla.
Un mes entre los rebeldes
(Nights in Seville.
A m onth with the rebels),
Barcelona-Madrid, 1937
Book
Private colledtion
p. 191, bottom
Manuel Alvarez Bravo
Obrero en huelga,
asesinado (Murdered
Striker), 1934
Gelatin silver print
18.8 x 24.5 cm
Musde d’A rt Modeme
de la Ville de Paris, Paris
p. 247
Francis Alys, with Ever AStudillo Delgado
Cuauhtdmoc Medina Cali, 1975-78
and Rafael Ortega Vintage gelatin silver print
When Faith Moves on baryta paper
Mountains, 2002 8.3 x 11.4 cm
Cinematographic Leticia and Stanislas
documentation of an event, Poniatowski colledtion
Lima, Peru p. 202, top
Francis Alys/Galerie Peter
Kilchmann, Zurich Ever AStudillo Delgado
p. 107 Cali, 1975-78
Gelatin silver print
Art & Language 8.5 x 11.6 cm
Shouting Men, 1975 Fondation Cartier pour
Screenprint and felt pen l’Art Contemporain, Paris
on paper p. 202, middle
9 sedtions, 75 x 60.5 cm
(each) Ever AStudillo Delgado
MACBA - Museu d’Art Cali, 1975-78
Contemporani de Gelatin silver print
Barcelona, Barcelona 8.5 x 11.6 cm
p. 155 Fondation Cartier pour
l’Art Contemporain, Paris
Antonin Artaud p. 202, bottom
Notebook no. 321,1947
Manuscripts and drawings Ever AStudillo Delgado
22.5 x 17.5 cm Cali, 1975-78
Bibliothdque Nationale Gelatin silver print
de France, Paris 8.5 x 11.6 cm
p. 168, bottom Fondation Cartier pour l’Art
Contemporain, Paris
Antonin Artaud
Notebook no. 326,1947 Hugo Aveta
Manuscripts and drawings Ritmos primarios,
22.5 x 17.5 cm la subversidn del alma
Bibliothdque Nationale (Basic rhythms: subversion
de France, Paris of the soul), 2013
p. 168, top Video loop: 16/9, color,
sound, 8:11 min
Antonin Artaud Hugo Aveta/NextLevel
Hammer used by Galerie, Paris
Antonin Artaud at Ivry p. 281
for “trying out” his texts
and Stressing his didtion, Ismail Bahri
1947 Film d blanc (Blank film),
50 x 15 x 4 cm 2012
Bibliothdque Nationale Series made during
de France, Paris a residency at Fabrique
p. 130 Phantom
Videos: 16/9, silent,
duration variable
Ismail Bahri colledtion
p. 227
Artur Barrio Francisca B enitez Ruth Berlau Joseph Beuys
Liuro de Came Garde 1’Eft, 2005 Props for Bertolt Brecht's So kann die Parteiendiktatur
(Meat book), 1978 Still fram e Antigone, 1948 uberwunden werden
Photographs Francisca Benitez colledtion Gelatin silver prin t (Thus can the didtatorship
Each 35 * 45 cm p. 286 15 x 10 cm of parties be overcome),
A rtur Barrio colledtion Akademie der Kunfte, 1971
p. 197 Francisca B enitez Berlin, Bertolt Brecht Printed plastic bag, felt
Garde l’Eft, 2005 Archiv, inv. BBA_B101_025 96/ 500, published by art
Georges Bataille Still fram e interm edia, Cologne
and Andrd Breton Francisca Benitez colledtion Ruth Berlau 68 x 48 x 1.2 cm
Contre-ttaque: union de American Strikers, 1941-44 Pinakothek der Modeme,
lutte des intellettuels Ruth Berlau Gelatin silver p rin t Munich
rfvolutionnaires (Counter­ Props for Bertolt BrechVs 10 x 15 cm pp. 178-179
attack: United front of Antigone, 1948 Akademie der Kunfte,
revolutionary intelledtuals), Gelatin silver p rin t Berlin, Bertolt Brecht Joseph Beuys
1936 15 x 10 cm Archiv, inv. BBA_B018_004 Unbetitlet (Untitled), 1971
Leaflet Akademie der KunSte, p. 208, top 15 8 x 16.3 cm
27 * 21 cm Berlin, Bertolt Brecht Pencil on card
Bibliothdque Nationale Archiv, inv. BBA_B101_016 Ruth Berlau Bayerische
de France, Paris p. 270, top American Strikers, 1941-44 Staatsgem aldesam m lungen
p. 165 Gelatin silver prin t - Sam m lung M odem e
Ruth Berlau 10 x 15 cm Kurrit in der Pinakothek
Taysir Batumi Props for Bertolt Brecht's Akademie der Kunfte, der M odem e Munchen.
Gaza Journal intime Antigone, 1948 Berlin, Bertolt Brecht Leihgabe Sam mlung Kluser,
(Gaza diary), 2001 Gelatin silver p rint Archiv, inv. BBA_B126_004 Munich
Video: 4/3, color, sound, 4:52 15 * 10 cm p. 208, bottom p. 131
m in Akademie der KunSte,
Taysir Batniji/Galerie Eric Berlin, Bertolt Brecht Ruth Berlau A lfredo M. B onan no
Dupont, Paris Archiv, inv. BBA_B101_028 American Strikers, 1941-44 La Gioia armata
pp. 276-277 p. 270, bottom Gelatin silver p rin t [Armed Joy], Edizioni
10 x 15 cm di Anarchismo, 1977
Charles Baudelaire, Ruth Berlau Akademie der Kurrite, Book
Guftave Courbet, Props for Bertolt Brecht's Berlin, Bertolt Brecht Jeu de Paume, Paris
Champfleury, and Antigone, 1948 Archiv, inv. BBA_B0l8_003 p. 194, bottom
Charles Toubin Gelatin silver p rint
Le Salut public, no. l, 1848 15 * 10 cm Ruth Berlau Enrique B oftelm an n
Newspaper Akademie der Kurrite, American Strikers, 1941-44 America - un viaje a travis
27.2 x 22 cm Berlin, Bertolt Brecht Gelatin silver p rint de la injufticia (America - a
Bibliothdque Nationale Archiv, inv. BBA_B101_018 10 x 15 cm journey through injustice),
de France, Paris Akademie der Kunfte, Mexico: Siglo XXI Editores,
Ruth Berlau Berlin, Bertolt Brecht 1970
Charles Baudelaire, Props for Bertolt Brecht's Archiv, inv. BBA_B126_010 Book
Guftave Courbet, Antigone, 1948 27 x 20 cm
Champfleury, Gelatin silver print Joseph Beuys Jeu de Paume, Paris
and Charles Toubin 15 x 10 cm Diagramma Terremoto
Le Salut public, no. 2,1848 Akademie der Kurrite, (Diagram of an Bruno Boudjelal
Newspaper Berlin, Bertolt Brecht earthquake), 1981 Sur les traces de Frantz
30.5 x 22.5 cm Archiv, inv. BBA_B101_024 Pencil on ECG paper Fanon (In the footsteps
Bibliothdque Nationale 10 x 340 cm of Franz Fanon), 2012
de France, Paris Isabel and Aguftfn Coppel 6 photographs, m odem
p. 160 colledtion, Mexico prints, 2016
p. 180 40 x 40 cm
Bruno Boucjjelal/Agence
VU’
pp. 274-275

3 98
 Ddsir^-Magloire
Boum eville
HyStero-epilepsie,
hallucinations: angoisse
(Hysterical epilepsy:
hallucinations, anxiety),
1875
Vintage albumen print
9 x 5.5 cm
Private colledtion
Ddsird-Magloire
Boum eville
HyStero-epilepsie: contorsions
(Hysterical epilepsy:
contortions), 1875
Vintage albumen print
9 x 5.5 cm
Private colledtion
D£sir£-Magloire
Boum eville
Untitled, undated
Vintage albumen print
9 x 5.5 cm
Private colledtion
Ddsird-Magloire
B oum eville
Untitled, undated
Vintage album en print
9 x 5.5 cm
Private colledtion
Bertolt Brecht
Modellbuch (Model) for
Mother Courage and Her
Children, January U, 1949-
April 4,1961
Photomontage
Page from a booklet
30.1 x 25 x 0.5 cm
Akademie der KunSte,
Berlin, Bertolt Brecht
Archiv, inv. BBA
MB_031_248
p. 266
Andr6 Breton et al.
La Revolution surrtaliSte,
no. 1,1924
Magazine
29.2 x 20.5 * 0.8 cm
Bibliothdque Nationale
de France, Paris
p. 164
Marcel Broodthaers
Carte d’une utopie politique
et Deux petits tableaux 1
ou 0 (Map of a political
utopia and Two little
pidtures 1 or 0), 1973
Card mounted on canvas,
ink, felt pen, printing,
collage, drawing, and
handwriting
119 x 185.5 cm;
27 x 35 cm (each)
Private colledtion
p. 171
Marcel Broodthaers
Soleil politique et Fig.,
Fig., Fig. (Political sun and
Fig., fig., fig.) (diptych), 1972
Printing and collage
on paper
27 x 36 x 44 cm and
36 x 44 cm
EState Marcel Broodthaers
p. 170
Malcolm Browne
Self-Immolation by BuddhiSt
Monk Thick Quang Due,
Saigon, 1963
Modem gelatin silver print
24 x 30 cm
AP/SIPA Agency
p. 253
Gilles Caron
Manifestations
anticatholiques d
Londonderry (Anti-Catholic
demonstrations in
Londonderry), 1969
Modem gelatin silver print,
2006
30 x 40 cm
Fondation Gilles Caron
p. 139, top, cover
Gilles Caron
Manifestations
anticatholiques
d Londonderry (Anti-
Catholic demonstrations
in Londonderry), 1969
Contadt sheet, modem
print, 2016
30 x 40 cm
Fondation Gilles Caron
p. 139, bottom
Gilles Caron
Manifestations etudiantes d
Paris (Student demonstrations
in Paris), 1968
Modem gelatin silver print
40 x 30 cm
Fondation Gilles Caron
Gilles Caron
Manifestations etudiantes d
Paris (Student demonstrations
in Paris), 1968
Modem gelatin silver print
30 x 40 cm
Fondation Gilles Caron
Gilles Caron
Manifestation paysanne
d Redon (Farmers
demonstrating in Redon),
1967
Modem gelatin silver print
40 x 30 cm
Fondation Gilles Caron
p. 138, left
Gilles Caron
Manifestation paysanne
d Redon (Farmers
demonstrating in Redon),
1967
Modem gelatin silver print
40 x 30 cm
Fondation Gilles Caron
p. 138, right
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Comite Information
Defense, Palais de la
Mutualite, Paris, France, 1969
Vintage gelatin silver print
20.2 x 25.6 cm
Fondation Henri Cartier-
Bresson, Paris
Henri Cartier-Bresson
£cole des Beaux-Arts, Paris,
May 1968
Gelatin silver print, 1984
41 x 28.6 cm
Fondation Henri Cartier-
Bresson, Paris
p. 209
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Funerailles des viftimes
de Charonne, Paris, France
(Funeral of the vidtims
of the “Charonne massacre,”
Paris, France), February 13,
1962
Gelatin silver print, 1980s
20.4 x 25.3 cm
Fondation Henri Cartier-
Bresson, Paris
p. 222, top
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Manifestation AIDA
pour la liberation de too
artiStes argentins disparus,
Paris (AIDA demonstration
for the freeing of
100 abdudted Argentinian
artiSts, Paris), 1981
Gelatin silver print, 1990s
20.4 x 25.3 cm
Fondation Henri Cartier-
Bresson, Paris
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Manifestation AIDA
pour la liberation de too
artiStes argentins disparus,
Paris (AIDA demonstration
for the freeing of
100 abdudted Argentinian
artiSts, Paris), 1981
Gelatin silver print, 1990s
20.7 x 25.7 cm
Fondation Henri Cartier-
Bresson, Paris
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Manifestation AIDA
pour la liberation de 100
artiStes argentins disparus,
Amsterdam, Pays-Bas
(AIDA dem onstration for
the freeing of 100 abdudted
Argentinian artiSts,
Amsterdam, Netherlands),
Septem ber 12,1981
Gelatin silver print, 1980s
20.3 x 25.3 cm
Fondation Henri Cartier-
Bresson, Paris
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Manifestation pro-CaStro,
New York (Pro-CaStro
dem onstration, New York),
Septem ber i960
Gelatin silver print, 1970s
20.5 x 25.3 cm
Fondation Henri Cartier-
Bresson, Paris
p. 222, bottom
Com dlius CaStoriadis
et al.
Socialisme ou barbarie,
no. 23 (1959-60)
Magazine
22.7 x 14.4 cm
IMEC, InStitut Mdmoires de
l’£dition Contem poraine -
Abbaye d’A rdenne,
Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-
Herbe
Pere Catal& Pic
Aixafem elfeixisme
(Crush fascism),
1936
Photomechanical print
29.6 x 19.5 cm
Museu Nacional d’A rt
de Catalunya, Barcelona
p. I l l
Claude Cattelain
Video Hebdo 41 (Weekly
video 41), 2009-10
Pal video: 4/3, color, sound,
3:12 min.
Claude Cattelain colledtion,
Valenciennes
p. 128
400
Claude Cattelain
Video Hebdo 46 (Weekly
video 46), 2009-10
Pal video: 4/3, color, sound,
6:30 min.
Claude Cattelain colledtion,
Valenciennes
p. 129
AguSti C entelles
Barricades, Barcelona, 1936
M odern gelatin silver print
12 x 17.3 cm
Centro Docum ental
de la M emoria HiStdrica,
Salam anca
p. 242, top
AguSti C entelles
Barricades, Barcelona, 1936
Modern gelatin silver p rint
12 x 17.3 cm
Centro Docum ental
de la Memoria HiStdrica,
Salamanca
p. 242, bottom
AguSti C entelles
Barricades, Barcelona,
1936
M odem gelatin silver print
12 x 17.3 cm
Centro Docum ental
de la Memoria HiStdrica,
Salamanca
AguSti C entelles
Barricades, Barcelona,
1936
M odem gelatin silver print
12 x 17.3 cm
Centro Docum ental
de la Memoria HiStdrica,
Salamanca
AguSti C entelles
CNT trade union trucks,
Barcelona, 1936
M odem gelatin silver print
12 x 17.3 cm
Centro Documental
de la Memoria HiStdrica,
Salamanca
AguSti C entelles
Children playing, Montjuic,
Barcelona, 1936
M odem gelatin silver prin t
12 x 17.3 cm
Centro Docum ental
de la Memoria HiStdrica,
Salam anca
p. 271
AguSti C entelles
Children playing, Montjuic,
Barcelona, 1936
1936
M odem gelatin silver prin t
12 x 17.3 cm
Centro Docum ental
de la Memoria HiStdrica,
Salam anca
AguSti C entelles
Amnestied prisoners leaving
the model prison, Barcelona,
1936
M odem gelatin silver print
15 x 17.3 cm
Centro D ocum ental
de la Memoria HiStdrica,
Salam anca
AguSti C entelles
Amnestied prisoners leaving
the model prison, Barcelona,
1936
M odem gelatin silver prin t
15 x 17.3 cm
Centro Docum ental
de la Memoria HiStdrica,
Salam anca
AguSti C entelles
Rioting after the vidtory
o f the Popular Front at the
eledtions o f February 16,1936.
Plaga de la Republica (Plaga
Sant Jaume), Barcelona,
February 17,1936
Gelatin silver print
on baryta paper
16.8 x 23,1 cm
Museu Nacional dArt
de Catalunya, Barcelona
p. 216, top
AguSti C entelles
Belchite, Teruel, Aragon
Frontline, September 1939
Gelatin silver print
24.7 x 36 cm
Private colledtion
Chieh-Jen Chen
The Route, 2006
35 m m film transferred
onto DVD: color and black
and white, silent, 16:45 m in.
Chieh-Jen Chen/Lily
Robert gallery
p. 225
Ldon Cogniet
Les Drapeaux (The flags),
1830
Oil on canvas
19 x 24 cm
Musde des Beaux-Arts,
Orldans
Pascal Convert
Souldvement (Uprising)
Left to right: Paul Vaillant-
Couturier, Charles Michels,
Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 2015
Palladium contadt print
on pure linen paper
47 x 30.7 cm, 47 x 74.3 cm, 47
x 30.7 cm
Crystal on mirror, glass,
and charcoal
H 10 x L 56 x W 11 cm
Edition 1/2
Pascal Convert/Galerie
Eric Dupont, Paris
p. 141
GuStave Courbet
Rdvolutionnaire sur une
barricade, projet de
frontispice pour “Le Salut
public” (Revolutionary
on a barricade: draft
frontispiece for
“Le Salut public”), 1848
Charcoal on paper
9.5 x 12.5 cm
Musde Camavalet -
HiStoire de Paris, Paris
p. 134
Honord Daumier Armand Dayot Edmond, successor Michel Foucault
Les Femmes socialities LTnvasion, le Sidge, to Charles Marville “The situation in the prison
(Women socialists), la Commune (The invasion, (presumed is intolerable...,” 1971
in Le Charivari, the siege, the Commune), photographer) Manuscript of the leaflet
April-June 1849 1870-71 Ruines de I’Hdtel de Ville, accompanying the
Lithograph Original edition Paris. Cour des bureaux investigation by the Prisons
36.5 x 25 cm 35.5 x 28 x 3.5 cm (Ruins of the H6tel de Ville, Information Group (GIP)
Bibliothdque Nationale Bibliothdque Nationale Paris. The office courtyard), in France
de France, Paris de France, Paris c. 1871 21 x 15 cm
p. 264, left Albumen print IMEC, InStitut Mdmoires de
Guy Debord et al. 27 x 36.8 cm l’Edition Contemporaine -
Honord Daumier Internationale Bibliothdque des Arts Abbaye d’Ardenne,
Les Femmes socialities situationnitie... nouveau Ddcoratifs, Paris Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-
(Women socialists), thdbtre d’opdration p. 229 Herbe
in Le Charivari, dans la culture (SituationiSt GIP Colledtion
April-June 1849 International: New theater Carl EinStein
Lithograph of cultural operations), “Unes declarations Leonard Freed
36.5 x 25 cm 1958 sensacionals de Carl Residents of Guernica in
Bibliothdque Nationale Leaflet Einstein” (A sensational front of a mural replica of
de France, Paris 40 x 21 cm Statement by Carl EinStein), Pablo Picasso’s painting, 1977
p. 264, right Bibliothdque Nationale 1938 Gelatin silver print
de France, Paris Article by Sebottomtid 40 x 30 cm
Honord Daumier Gasch in Meridib. Setmanari Magnum Photos, Paris
Les Divorceuses (Divorced Andrd-Adolphe Eugdne de literatura, art i politico: p. 137
women), in Le Charivari, Disddri (attributed to) tribuna del Front Intellectual
AuguSt-0 dtober 1848 Insurgds tuds pendant Antifeixitia (Meridib. Gisdle Freund
Lithograph la Semaine sanglante de la A weekly of literature, International Congress
36.5 x 25 cm Commune (Insurgents killed art and politics: the voice of Writers for the Defense
Bibliothdque Nationale during the Commune’s of the Anti-FasciSt of Culture, 1935
de France, Paris “Bloody Week”), 1871 Intellectual Front) Contadt sheet
p. 265 Albumen print Magazine page 20 x 23 cm
21 x 27 cm 30 x 20 cm IMEC, InStitut Mdmoires de
Honord Daumier Musde Camavalet - Private colledtion l’Edition Contemporaine -
Les Divorceuses (Divorced HiStoire de Paris, Paris p. 188 Abbaye d’Ardenne,
p. 245, top Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-
women), in Le Charivari,
AuguSt-Odtober 1848 £lie Faure Herbe
Lithograph Marcel Duchamp “Portrait de passionaria” p. 174
36.5 x 25 cm and Man Ray (Portrait of La Pasionaria)
“Elevage de poussidre” in Regards, no. 134, Gisdle Freund
Bibliothdque Nationale
AuguSt 6,1936, p. 9 International Congress
de France, Paris (Breeding duSt)
Magazine of Writers for the Defense
Literature, no. 5,1923,
36 x 27.5 cm of Culture, 1935
Armand Dayot p. 10
Private colledtion Gelatin silver print
Joumdes rdvolutionnaires Magazine
p. 143 24 x 30 cm
1830-1848 23.5 x 17.5 x 2 cm
IMEC, InStitut Mdmoires de
(Revolutionary days), Bibliothdque Nationale
Robert Filliou l’£dition Contemporaine -
Paris: Flammarion, 1897 de France, Paris
Optimitiic Box no. 1,1968 Abbaye d’Ardenne,
Book Saint-Germain-la*Blanche-
Wood, sandstone, and
15 x 22 cm Herbe
paper
Private colledtion p. 175, top
11 x 11 x 11 cm
pp. 236-237
Musde National d’Art
Modeme, Centre Pompidou,
Paris
p. 226
Gisdle F re u n d
International Congress
of Writers for the Defense
of Culture, 1935
Gelatin silver print
24 x 30 cm
IMEC, InStitut Mdmoires de
l’Edition Contem poraine -
Abbaye d’Ardenne,
Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-
Herbe
p. 175, bottom
G erard F ro m a n g er
Film-traft no. 1968,1968
16 m m film: color, silent,
2:45 min.
Gift of the artiSt, 2006,
Musde National d’A rt
Modeme, Centre Pompidou,
Paris
p. 184
Federico G arcia L orca
Mierda (Shit), 1934
Calligram
Indian ink
25 x 25 cm
Fundacibn Federico Garcia
Lorca, Madrid
p. 163
M arcel G a u th e ro t
Pblerinage b Voccasion
du jubiie du sanftuaire
dioctsain du Bon Jisus de
Matosinhos (Pilgrimage for
the jubilee of the shrine of
Bom Jesus de Matosinhos),
c. 1950
Modem gelatin silver print
45 x 45 cm
InStituto Moreira Salles,
Sao Paulo
p. 136 , b o tto m
M arcel G a u th ero t
Sanftuaire dioc&sain
du Bon J&sus de Matosinhos
(The shrine of Bom Jesus
de Matosinhos), c. 1947
Modem gelatin silver print
45 x 45 cm
InStituto Moreira Salles,
Sao Paulo
p. 136, top
402
Agnfes G eoffray
Catalepsie (Catalepsy),
“Incidental Gestures” series,
2011-15
M odem gelatin silver
print
35 x 50 cm
FRAC Auvergne,
Clermont-Ferrand
p. 145, bottom
Agnfes G eoffray
Laura Nelson,“Incidental
Gestures” series, 2011-15
M odem gelatin silver p rint
22 x 16 cm
FRAC Auvergne,
Clermont-Ferrand
p. 146
Agn&s G eoffray
Metamorphose II
(Metamorphosis n),
“M etam orphoses” series,
2012-15
Photograph
55 x 75 cm
Colledtion of the artist
p. 145, top
J o c h e n Gerz
Calling to the Point
o f Exhaustion, 1972
Betacam, black and white,
sound, 19:30 m in.
Musde National d’A rt
M odeme, Centre Pompidou,
Paris
p. 148
E d u ard o Gil
Ninos desaparecidos.
Segcunda Marcha
de la ResiStancia (Murdered
children. Second Resistance
March), Buenos Aires,
December 9- 10,1982
M odem gelatin silver print
50 x 60 cm
Eduardo Gil colledtion
p. 269, top
Eduardo Gil
Paraguas. Segunda Marcha
de la ResiStancia (Umbrellas.
Second Resistance March),
Buenos Aires, Decem ber
9- 10,1982
M odem gelatin silver prin t
50 x 60 cm
Eduardo Gil colledtion
p. 269, bottom
Eduardo Gil
Siluetas y canas. El Siluetazo
(Silhouettes and cops.
The silhouette adtion),
Buenos Aires, Septem ber
21- 22,1983
M odem gelatin silver p rin t
50 x 60 cm
Eduardo Gil colledtion
p. 273
Jules Girardet
La Colonne Venddme aprbs
sa chute (The Vendbme
Column after being to m
down), 1871
Oil on w ooden panel
21 x 27 cm
Musde C am avalet -
HiStoire de Paris, Paris
p. 228
Jack G oldftein
A Glass o f Milk, 1972
Film: color, sound, 3:42 min.
The EState of Jack
GoldStein/Galerie Buchholz,
Cologne
p. 132
Julio Gonzdlez
Mb dreta aixecada (Right
hand raised), c. 1942
Bronze
44 x 15.2 x 12.6 cm
Museu Nacional d’Art
de Catalunya, Barcelona
p. 140, left
Ju lio G onzdlez
Mb esquerra aixecada
(Left han d raised), c. 1942
Bronze
37.2 x 19 x 15.2 cm
Museu Nacional d’A rt
de Catalunya, Barcelona
p. 140, right
Ju lio G onzdlez
Cap cridant (Shouting
head), c. 1936-39
Oil on canvas
46 x 33 cm
Museu Nacional d’Art
de Catalunya, Barcelona
p. 151, top
Ju lio G onzdlez
Cap de Montserrat cridant
(Head of M ontserrat
shouting), c. 1942
Bronze
31,5 x 19,8 x 29,3 cm
Museu Nacional d’A rt
de Catalunya, Barcelona
p. 150
Ju lio G onzdlez
Montserrat cridant, num. l
(M ontserrat shouting, no. l),
c. 1936-39
Oil on canvas
46 x 33 cm
Museu Nacional d’A rt
de Catalunya, Barcelona
p. 151, bottom
Je a n -P ie rre G orin
a n d Jean-L uc G odard,
“Que faire dans le cindma ?
Participer aux luttes
et nouvelles m dthodes
de travail” (What is to be
done in the cinema?
Take p art in Struggles
and new working m ethods),
in Politique Hebdo,
no. 23, March 11 ,1971
Magazine
Open: 42 x 55 cm
Jeu de Paume, Paris
Francisco de Goya
The Disasters of War:
“Que valor!,” 1810-20
FirSt edition, 1863, plate
no. 7: etching, aquatint,
burnisher, and drypoint
15.5 x 21 cm
Sylvie and Georges Helft
colledtion
p. 109, bottom
Francisco de Goya
Los Caprichos, 1799
Second edition, 1855,
etching, aquatint, and burin
21.4 x 15 cm
Sylvie and Georges Helft
colledtion
p. 108
Francisco de Goya
Los Disparates (The follies),
1815-24
Third edition, 1891, plate
no. l, etching, aquatint,
burnisher, and drypoint
24.3 x 35.3 cm
Sylvie and Georges Helft
colledtion
p. 109, top
George Grosz
Blutiger Kameual
(Bloody carnival), 1915-16
Lithograph
25.6 x 20.5 cm
Private colledtion
p. 213
Raymond Hains
OAS. Fusillez les plaStiqueurs
(OAS. Shoot the bombers),
1961
Tom poSter on canvas backing
50 x 73 cm
Private colledtion
p. 200
Raymond Hains
Sans titre (Untitled), 1952
Slashed poSter on canvas
backing
50 x 50 cm
FRAC Nord-Pas-de-Calais,
Dunkirk
p. 201
Raymond Hains
Sans titre (Untitled), c. 1957
Slashed posters on canvas
backing
81 x 102 cm
Galerie Max Hetzler,
Berlin/Paris
Private colledtion, France
Ken Hamblin
Beaubien Street, 1971
Modem gelatin silver print
15 x 20 cm
Joseph A. Labadie
Colledtion, Special
Colledtions Library,
University of Michigan
p. 268
Raoul Hausmann
Portrait of Herwarth
Walden at Bonset, 1921
PoStcard sent by
Raoul Hausmann to
Theo van Doesburg
14 x 9 cm
Theo and Nelly van
Doesburg Archive, RKD -
Netherlands Institute for
Art HiStory, La Haye
p. 162
Arpad Hazafi
Budapest, 1956
Modem gelatin silver print
24 x 30 cm
AP/SIPA Agency
p. 217
John Heartfield
“Benutze Foto als Waffe!”
(Use photography as
a weapon!), AfZ magazine,
no. 37, Neuer Deutscher
Verlag, Berlin, Jg. vm ,
no. 37, p. 17,1929
Magazine
37.8 x 27-5 cm
Akademie der KunSte,
KunStsammlung, Berlin,
inv. JH 2265
p. 192
John Heartfield
Kurt Tucholsky,
Deutschland, Deutschland
uber alles (Germany,
Germany above all else),
1929
Book
23.2 x 49.6 cm
Akademie der KunSte,
KunStsammlung, Berlin,
inv. JH 1646
p. 241, bottom
John Heartfield
Art for the duStjacket
of John Reed’s 10 Tage,
die die Welt erschutterten
[Ten Days That Shook the
World], Verlag fur Literatur
und Politik, Vienna-Berlin,
1927
20.3 x 42.5 cm
Akademie der KunSte,
KunStsammlung, Berlin,
inv. JH 722
p. 192, top
John Heartfield
Artwork for the magazine
Jahrbuch fur Politik,
Wirtschaft,
Arbeiterbewegung, Verlag
Carl Hoym Nachf.,
Hamburg-Berlin, 1926
24.7 x 22 cm
Akademie der KunSte,
KunStsammlung, Berlin,
inv. JH 1423
p. 192, bottom
Bernard Heidsieck
Machines b mots, no. 10
(Word machines, no. 10),
Odtober 1971
Handwriting and collaged
press photograph
Ink, photograph, and
collage
64 x 50 cm
Lent by the Centre National
des Arts PlaStiques, Paris,
inv. FNAC 94-257
p. 173
Bernard Heidsieck
Machines b mots, no. 28
(Word machines, no. 28),
Odtober 1971
Handwriting and
collaged press photograph
Ink, photograph, and
collage on Arches paper
64 x 50 cm
Lent by the Centre National
des Arts PlaStiques,
Paris, inv. FNAC 94-258
Bernard Heidsieck
Machines b mots, no. 35
(Word machines, no. 35),
Odtober 1971
Handwriting and collaged
press photograph
Ink, photograph, and
collage on paper
62 x 50 cm
Lent by the Centre National
des Arts PlaStiques, Paris,
inv. FNAC 94-259
Jerdnimo Herndndez
Soldaderas en el eStribo
deun tren en la eStacidn
de BuenauiSta (Women
combatants on the Steps
of a train in BuenaviSta
Station), “Tropas federales”
(Federal troops) series,
Mexico, 1912
Modem gelatin silver print
5 x 7 cm
Secretaria de Cultura, INAH,
Sinafo, fn, Mexico, inv. 5670
p. 267, top
William Hogarth
The Battle of the Pictures,
1744-45
Etching
17.8 x 19.8 cm
Private colledtion
p. 104
Alvaro Hoppe
Concentracidn de la
oposicidn (Santiago de Chile)
(Opposition rally [Santiago
du Chili]), 1984
Vintage gelatin silver print
on baryta paper
21.2 x 31.8 cm
Leticia and Stanislas
Poniatowski colledtion
Vidtor Hugo
“Anniversaire de la
revolution de 1848”
(Anniversary of the
revolution of 1848), 1855
In Adtes et paroles.
Pendant Vexil
Manuscript
44.5 * 38 x 9 cm
Bibliothdque Nationale
de France, Paris
pp. 158-159
Vidtor Hugo
“Pdtition pour l’abolition
de la peine de m ort”
(Petition for the abolition
of the death penalty),
1855
In Adtes et paroles.
Pendant Vexil
Manuscript
45.5 x 37 x 10 cm
Bibliothdque Nationale
de France, Paris
Vidtor Hugo
Toujours en ramenant
la plume (Always coming
back with the quill), 1856
Brown ink and wash
drawing
10.5 x 28 cm
Bibliothdque Nationale
de France, Paris
p. 96, top
Mat Jacob
Chiapas l (marche 1997)
(Chiapas l [March 1997])
Photograph and inkjet
print on textured paper
15 x 20 cm
Mat Jacob/Tendance floue
p. 278
404
Mat Jacob Asger Jorn H erbert Kirchhofif
Chiapas 2,1996-2001, Brisez le cadre q[u]i [d] Revolucidn en La Paz
Photograph and inkjet touflfe] l[}]image (Smash (Bolivia) (Revolution
prin t on textured paper the fram e th a t stifles in La Paz, Bolivia), 1946
15 x 20 cm th e image), 1968 Vintage gelatin silver
Mat Jacob/Tendance floue Five-color offset lithograph p rin t on baryta paper
p. 279, top 50.1 x 32.7 cm 16 x 23 cm
Statens M useum for Kunft, Leticia and Stanislas
Mat Jacob Copenhagen Poniatowski colledtion
Chiapas 3 (Marcos 1996), p. 232 p. 216, bottom
(Chiapas 3 [Frames
1996]) Asger Jorn Kathe Koilwitz
Photograph and inkjet Pas de puis[s]ance d[’] Aufruhr (Riot), 1899
p rint on textured paper imagination sans images
15 x 20 cm puis[s]ante[s) (No power Engraving (etching,
Mat Jacob/Tendance floue of im agination w ithout drypoint, aquatint, em ery
powerful images), 1968 paper, and roller)
Mat Jacob Five-color offset lithograph 55 x 70 x 2.5 cm
Chiapas 4 (Dignity 50 x 33.2 cm Kathe Koilwitz Museum
rebelle 1996) (Chiapas 4 Statens M useum for Kunft, Koln, Cologne
[Rebellious dignity] C openhagen p. 123
1996) p. 233
Photograph and inkjet Kathe K oilwitz
prin t on textured paper Tsubasa Kato Die Freiwilligen (The
15 x 20 cm Break it Before it’s Broken, volunteers), 1920
Mat Jacob/Tendance floue 2015 Charcoal and red chalk
Video: color, sound, 45 x 60 cm
Mat Jacob 4:49 m in. Fritsch colledtion
Chiapas 7 (marche 2001) Cameram an: Taro Aoishi
(Chiapas 7 [March 2001]), Tusbas Kato colledtion Kathe Koilwitz
Photograph and inkjet p. 115 Losbruch (Assault), 1902-03
print on textured paper, Sheet 5 of the Peasants’
2016 D m itri Kessel War cycle
15 x 20 cm Greek National Liberation Engraving (etching,
Mat Jacob/Tendance floue Front rally, Athens, drypoint, aquatint, resist,
p. 279, bottom Decem ber 3,1944 and soft ground)
p. 250, left 68 x 86 x 2.5 cm
Mat Jacob Kathe Koilwitz Museum
Chiapas 8 (marche 2001]) D m itri Kessel Koln, Cologne
Mexico (Chiapas 8 [March Greek National Liberation p. 122
2001], Mexico) Front rally, Athens,
Photograph and inkjet D ecem ber 3,1944 Alberto Korda
print on textured paper p. 250, right El Quijote de la Farola,
15 * 20 cm Plaza de la Revolucidn,
Mat Jacob/Tendance floue D m itri Kessel La Habana, Cuba
Greek National Liberation (Don Quixote of the
Asger Jorn Front demonstrators ftreetlam p, Plaza de la
Fin de Copenhague gathered around the bodies Revolucidn, Havana, Cuba),
(End of Copenhagen), 1957, o f three fellow protestors 1959
Paris: Allia, 2001 shot by police during Vintage gelatin silver print
Book a rally, Athens, on baryta paper
25 x 17 cm December 3,1944 29.9 x 38.1 cm
Jeu de Paume, Paris p. 251 Leticia and Stanislas
p. 183 Poniatowski colledtion
p. 127
 Euftachy Kossakowski
“Panoramic Sea Happening
- Sea Concerto, Osieki”
by Tadeusz Kantor, 1967
Gelatin silver print
45 x 56 cm
Anka Ptaszkowska
colledtion
p. 114
Maria Kourkouta
Remontages, 2016
16 mm film transferred
onto video (loop): black
and white, silent, 5:00 min.
Produdtion: Jeu de Paume,
Paris
p. 133, endpapers
Maria Kourkouta
Idomeni, 14 mars 2016.
Frontidre grdco-
macddonienne (Idomeni,
March 14,2016. Greek-
Macedonian border), 2016
HD video loop: color, sound,
36:00 min.
Produdtion: Jeu de Paume,
Paris
p. 287
Germaine Krull
Die Tanzerin Jo Mihaly
(The Dancer Jo Mihaly),
1925
Modem gelatin silver print
22 x 15.9 cm
Museum Folkwang, Essen
p. 118
Germaine Krull
Die Tanzerin Jo Mihaly
in “Revolution” Paris (Dancer
Jo Mihaly in “Revolution”
Paris), 1925
Modem gelatin silver print
21.3 x 12.3 cm
Museum Folkwang, Essen
p. 119
Hiroji Kubota
Manifestation des Black
Panthers (Black Panthers
rally), Chicago, 1969
Modem gelatin silver print
40 x 30 cm
Magnum Photos, Paris
p. 149
Marie Lechner
Forms of Digital Resistance,
2016
Produdtion: Jeu de Paume,
Paris
p. 280, text p. 406
Jdrdme Lindon (editor)
Provocation d la
ddsobdissance. Le procds
du Ddserteur (Call for
disobedience: The deserter
on trial), Paris: Les Editions
de Minuit, 1962
Book
18 x 11.5 cm
Private colledtion
p. 347
Hddtor Ldpez
Poblado la Vidtoria,
Santiago, Chile (Village
of La Vidtoria, Santiago,
Chile), c. 1986
Gelatin silver print on
baryta paper
20 x 30.3 cm
Anna Gamazo de Abelld
colledtion
p. 220, top
Hddtor Lbpez
Poblado la Vidtoria,
Santiago, Chile (Village
of La Vidtoria, Santiago,
Chile), c. 1986
Gelatin silver print
on baryta paper
20 x 30.3 cm
Anna Gamazo de Abelld
colledtion
p. 220, bottom
Rosa Luxemburg
Die Krise der
Sozialdemokratie [The Crisis
of Social Democracy],
Zurich: Verlagsdruckerei,
1916
Book
15.7 x 14.1 cm
Akademie der KunSte,
Berlin, Nachlassbibliothek
Bertolt Brecht, Nb bb D
01/037
p. 190
Edouard Manet
Guerre civile (Civil war), 1871
Two-tone lithograph on
thick paper
47 x 52.5 cm
Musde Camavalet - HiStoire
de Paris, Paris
p. 244
Man Ray
tilevage de poussidre
(Le Grand Verre de Marcel
Duchamp), New York
(Breeding duSt [Marcel
Duchamp’s Large Glass],
New York), 1920
Vintage gelatin silver print,
with cropping of the glass
negative, c. i960
11.5 x 17.2 cm
Galerie Frangoise Paviot,
Paris
p. 97
Man Ray
Elevage de poussidre
(Le Grand Verre de Marcel
Duchamp), New York
(Breeding duSt [Marcel
Duchamp’s Large Glass],
New York), 1920
Vintage gelatin silver print,
contadt from glass negative,
1990
10 x 12.5 cm
Galerie Frangoise Paviot,
Paris
Man Ray
Fireworks, 1934
Solarized gelatin silver print
29.2 x 22.5 cm
Musde National d’Art
Modeme, Centre Pompidou,
Paris
Man Ray
Sculpture mouvante or
La France (Moving sculpture
or La France), 1920
Gelatin silver glass plate
negative. The image was
obtained by reversing
the values obtained from
the negative.
9 x 12 cm
Donation in lieu of taxes,
1994, Musde National d’Art
Modeme, Centre Pompidou,
Paris,
p. 100
Man Ray
Cover, Mother Earth, IX,
no. 6, New York, edited by
Emma Goldman, 1914
Magazine
30 x 20 cm
David and Marcel Fleiss
colledtion, Galerie 1900-
2000, Paris
p. 187, left
Man Ray
Cover, Mother Earth, IX,
no. 7, New York, edited by
Emma Goldman, 1914
Magazine
30 x 20 cm
David and Marcel Fleiss
colledtion, Galerie 1900-
2000, Paris
p. 187, right
German Marin
Chile 0 Muerte (Chile or
death), Mexico City:
Editorial Didgenes, 1974
Book
22 x 19 cm
Bibliothdque
de Documentation
Internationale Contemporaine
- BDIC, Nanterre
Charles M arville
Ruines de I’Hdtel de Ville,
Paris (Ruins of the Hdtel
de Ville, Paris), c. 1871
Albumen print
36.3 * 27.8 cm
Bibliothdque des Arts
Ddcoratifs, Paris
p. 225
Charles M arville
Ruines de I’Hdtel de Ville,
Pahs (Ruins of the Hotel
de Ville, Paris), c. 1871
Albumen print
27.8 x 36.8 cm
Bibliothdque des Arts
Ddcoratifs, Paris
Charles M arville
Ruines de I’Hdtel de Ville,
Paris. Salle de reception
(Ruins of the Hotel de Ville,
Paris. Reception hall),
c. 1871
Albumen print
25 3 x 36.8 cm
Bibliothdque des Arts
Ddcoratifs, Paris
Cildo M eireles
Insergoes em circuitos
ideoldgicos 2: Projeto C&dula
(Insertions into ideological
circuits 2: Banknote
projedt), 1970
27 offset prints on paper
with ink-stamped texts and
slogans
5 x 15 cm (each)
Museo Nacional Centro
de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid
p. 185
Annette M essager
50 Piques (50 Pikes), 1992-93
Soft toys, colored pencils
on paper, various materials,
and 50 m etal pikes
279.4 x 127 x 71 cm
Annette Messager and
Marin Karmitz colledtion/
Marian Goodman Gallery,
Paris
p. 147
406
Jasm ina M etwaly
Tahhr Square: Cut Skin,
2011
Video-painting, p a rt of
a series of 12 (edition of 7),
5:05 min.
Open Gallery, London
p. 103, top
Jasm ina M etwaly
Tahhr Square: Metro Vent,
2011
Video-painting, p art of
a series of 12 (edition of 7),
4:38 m in.
Open Gallery, London
p. 103, bottom
H enri M ichaux
Emergences-rtsurgences
[Emergences/resurgences]
Geneva: Albert Skira, 1972
Book
21.5 x 33 cm
Jeu de Paume, Paris
p. 166
H enri M ichaux
Face aux verrous
(Facing the locks)
Paris: Gallimard, 1992
Book
Private colledtion
H enri M ichaux
Sans titre (Untitled), 1975
Acrylic on paper
32.5 x 50 cm
Private colledtion
p. 96, bottom
H enri M ichaux
Sans titre (Untitled),
1971
Indian ink and acrylic
on paper
50 x 65 cm
Private colledtion
p. 167
Henri Michaux
Sans titre (Untitled),
1957
Indian ink on paper
56.5 x 76.5 cm
Private colledtion
Joan Mird
Prelim inary drawings
for L’Espoir du condamn#
d mort I, II et III
(The hope of a condem ned
m an, I, II, and III), 1974
Pen on paper
15.5 x 21.4 cm
Fundacid Joan Mird,
Barcelona
p. 257, bottom
Joan Mird
Prelim inary drawings
for L’Espoir du condamn#
d mort I, II et III
(The hope of a condem ned
m an, I, n, and in), 1974
Pen on p aper
17 x 18 cm
Fundacid Joan Mird,
Barcelona
Joan Mird
Homme tortur# s’dvadant
(Tortured m an escaping),
1973
Colored pencils and pen
on p aper
19.8 x 15.5 cm
Fundacid Joan Mird,
Barcelona
p. 258
Joan Mird
L’Espoir du condamn#
d mort, I, II et III
(The hope of a condem ned
m an, I, n, and m),
February 9,1974
Acrylic on canvas
267 x 351 cm
Fundacio Joan Mird,
Barcelona
pp. 260-261
Joan Mird
L’Espoir du phsonnier
(The prisoner’s hope)
Prelim inary drawings
for L’Espoir du condamn#
d mort I, II et III (The hope
of a condem ned m an,
I, II, and m), 1973
Colored pencils and pen
on p aper (notepad)
7.7 x 12.5 cm
Fundacid Joan Mird,
Barcelona
p. 257, top
Joan Mird
Phsonnier crucifl#
(Crucified prisoner), 1974
Colored pencils and
pen on paper
21 x 14 cm
Fundacid Joan Mird,
Barcelona
p. 259
Lisette M odel
Metropole Cafe, New York,
c. 1946
Gelatin silver p rint
50.8 x 40.6 cm
Fundacidn MAPFRE, Madrid
p. 120
L isette M odel
Valeska Gert, (C0l#,” 1940
Vintage gelatin silver
p rint
Gift of the Estate of Lisette
Model, 1990, by direction
of Joseph G. Blum,
New York, through
the Am erican Friends
of Canada, inv. 35154,
National Gallery
of Canada, Ottawa
p. 121
Tina M odotti
Bandolier, Com,
Guitar (Composition for
a Mexican song), 1927
M odem gelatin silver print
29 5 x 22.3 cm
Archivio Riccardo Toffoletti,
Comitato Tina Modotti,
Udine
 Tina Modotti Robert Morris
Bandolier, Cob, Sickle, 1927 Continuous Projett Altered
Modem gelatin silver print Daily, 1969
18 x 23 cm Multiples, New York, 1970
Archivio Riccardo Toffoletti,
10.8 x 30.6 cm
Comitato Tina Modotti,
Bibliothdque Kandinsky,
Udine Centre Pompidou, Paris
p. 110 p. 113
Tina Modotti Pedro Motta
Woman with Flag, Natureza das coisas #024
Mexico City, 1928 (The nature of things #024),
Modem gelatin silver print from the “Natureza das
23 3 x 28.7 cm coisas” series, 2013
Archivio Riccardo Toffoletti, Mineral print on cotton
Comitato Tina Modotti, paper, edition of 3 + 2
Udine artist’s proofs
p. 125 61 x 55 cm
Private colledtion
Tina Modotti p. 106
Worker, Mexico, 1928
Modem gelatin silver print Jean-Luc Mouldne
17.5 x 23.7 cm Series: 39 objets de grdue
Archivio Riccardo Toffoletti, (39 Strike objedts), 1999-2000
Comitato Tina Modotti, Casse-tete
Udine Dirty Protect
p. 124 Holgeir Meins
La Bobine novacore
Tina Modotti La Pantinoise
Peasants reading Le Coftume novacore
“El Machete”, 1927 Les Souliers de la lutte
Modem gelatin silver print Maniuelle de pddalier
16.5 x 22 cm de cycle dit “Le casse-tete”
Archivio Riccardo Toffoletti, Cibachrome prints under
Comitato Tina Modotti, diasec
Udine 47 x 36 cm (each)
p. 189 Jean-Luc Mouldne/Galerie
Chantal Crousel, Paris
Eme&o Molina p p . 210-211
Sin titulo (Untitled), 1977
Newspaper cuttings Saburo Murakami
and paper Passing Through, 1956
Performance at the Second
27.9 x 21.5 cm
Gutai Exhibition, 1956
Anna Gamazo de Abelld
Photography: Kiyoji Otsuji
colledtion
Modem gelatin silver print
p. 218
19.8 x 30 cm
E m efto Molina Seiko Otsuji, Makiko
Sin titulo (Untitled), Murakami, and Musashino
1977 Art University Museum
Newspaper cuttings & Library/Courtesy of
and paper Taka Ishii Gallery
Photography/Film, EState
27.9 x 21.5 cm
Anna Gamazo de Abellb of Saburo Murakami
colledtion and ARTCOURT Gallery
p. 219 p. 112
Friedrich Nietzsche
Gotzen-Dammerung
[The 'rwilight of the Gods],
1921
Leipzig: Alfred Koner
Book
Private colledtion
Hdlio Oiticica
Seja Marginal Seja Herdi
(Be an outlaw be a hero),
1968
Private colledtion
p. 182
Hdlio Oiticica
and Leandro Katz
Parangol# - Encuentrosde
Pamplona (Encounters
in Pampeluna), 1972
C-print on paper and card
23.5 x 49 cm
Museo Nacional Centro
de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid
p. 101
Voula Papaioannou
Barricades During the
Civil War of December ’44
(Dekemvriana), Athens,
1944
Modem gelatin silver print
24 x 30 cm
Benaki Museum
Photographic Archive,
Athens
p. 239, right
Voula Papaioannou
Prisoners’notes written
on the wall o f the German
prison on Merlin Street,
Athens, 1944
Modem gelatin silver print
30 x 30 cm
Benaki Museum
Photographic Archive,
Athens
pp. 262-263
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Iconografia ingiallita
(per un “Poemafotografico”)
(Yellowed iconography
[for a “Photographic
poem”])
Turin: Einaudi, 1975
Book
19 x 13.3 cm
Jeu de Paume, Paris
p. 169
EStefanfa Penafiel Loaiza
Et ils vont dans I’espace
qu’embrasse ton regard
(And they go into the
space taken in by your
gaze) (Study, screenshot),
2016
HD video
Produdtion: Jeu de Paume,
Paris
p. 282
EStefanfa Penafiel Loaiza
Et ils vont dans I’espace
qu’embrasse ton regard
(And they go into the space
taken in by your gaze)
(Study), 2016
HD video
Produdtion: Jeu de Paume,
Paris
p. 283
Pablo Picasso
Marianne, no. 194, July 8,
1939
Newsprint witha drawing
of a dove and handwritten
annotations by Picasso on
the firSt page, “Dora mia,” in
red, blue, and yellow pencil
58 x 38 cm
Musde National Picasso,
Paris, acquisition,
5151AP/H/49/1
Jerzy Pidrkowski
Miafto Nieujarzmione
(City unbroken), Warsaw:
Iskry, 1957
Book
33 x 24 x 2 cm
Private colledtion
p. 243
Sigmar Polke
A Versailles, k Versailles/
(To Versailles, to Versailles!),
1988
Mixed m edia on fabric
229 * 300 x 15 cm
Musde Ddpartem ental
d’Art Contem porain
de Rochechouart
p. 224
Sigmar Polke
Gegen die zwei Supermachte
- f u r eine rote Schweiz
(AgainSt the two
superpowers - for a red
Switzerland) (lSt version),
1976
Spray paint and Stencil on
paper
254 x 339 cm
Ludwig Colledtion, Ludwig
Forum for International
Art, Aix-la-Chapelle
pp. 204-205
Enrique Ramirez
Cruzar un muro (Passing
through a wall), 2013
HD video: color, sound,
5:15 min.
Enrique Ramirez/Michel
Rein Gallery, Paris/Brussels
pp. 284-285
Jacques Rancidre et al.
Les Revoltes logiques,
no. 1, no. 13, no. 14/ 15,
1975-81
Magazine
15 x 11 cm
Private colledtion
Rdseau BuckmaSter
(Buc km aSter network)
Clandestine leaflet,
1942
Paper
17 x 25 cm
Private colledtion
p. 381
408
Hans Richter
Orator-Rebellion-Revolution,
1916
Ink on paper
28 x 21.5 cm
Private colledtion
p. 215
H ans Richter
Revolution, 1918
Pencil, wash, and chalk
on paper
42 x 34.5 cm
Private colledtion
p. 214
Willy Rom er
La Revolution de novembre.
Entree des troupes de
premikre ligne revenant de la
guerre sur la Pariser Platz
(The November Revolution:
Front-line troops returning
from the w ar e nter the
Pariser Platz), 1918
M odem gelatin silver prin t
13 x 18 cm
KunStbibliothek, SMB,
Photothek Willy Romer,
Berlin
p. 126
Willy Romer
La Revolution de novembre:
occupation du quartier
de la presse. Barricades faites
de papier journal.
SchutzenStrasse, Berlin
(The November Revolution:
Occupation of the press
diStridt. Barricades m ade
of newspaper, Berlin), 1919
M odem gelatin silver print
13 x 18 cm
KunStbibliothek, SMB,
Photothek Willy Romer,
Berlin
p. 240
Willy Rom er
La Revolution de novembre:
occupation du quartier de la
presse. Barricades faites de
rouleaux de papier journal.
Devant la maison d ’edition
Rudolf Mosse,
SchutzenStrasse, Berlin
(The November Revolution:
Occupation of the press
diStridt. Barricades m ade
of newspaper. Outside
the Rudolf Mosse
publishing house building,
SchutzenStrasse, Berlin),
1919
M odem gelatin silver prin t
13 x 18 cm
KunStbibliothek, SMB,
Photothek Willy Romer,
Berlin
p. 241, top
W illy Rom er
La Revolution de novembre:
occupation du quartier de la
presse. Barricades faites de
rouleaux de papier journal.
Devant la maison d ’ddition
Rudolf Mosse,
SchutzenStrasse, Berlin
(The November Revolution:
Occupation of the press
diStridt. Barricades m ade
of newspaper. Outside
the Rudolf Mosse
publishing house building,
SchutzenStrasse, Berlin),
1919
M odem gelatin silver p rin t
13 x 18 cm
KunStbibliothek, SMB,
Photothek Willy Romer,
Berlin
Pedro G. Romero/Archivo
F.X.
Tesauro: Vandalismo
(Thesaurus: Vandalism),
2005-16
Paper edition
Private colledtion
p. 231
W illy Ronis
Rose Zehner, grkve aux usines
Javel-Citroen (Rose Zehner
addressing Strikers at the
Javel-Citroen plant), 1938
Gelatin silver p rint
40 x 30 cm
M ddiathdque de
l’A rchitedture et du
Patrim oine, Paris
p. 135
Jesus Ruiz Durand
Lima, Perou (Untitled, Peru),
1969
Vintage gelatin silver p rint
on b aryta paper
17.9 x 22.5 cm
Leticia and Stanislas
Poniatowski colledtion
p. 221
G raciela Sacco
Bocanada (A b reath of fresh
air), 1993-94
9 photographs
50 x 70 cm (each)
Graciela Sacco colledtion
Photograph shown
p. 152: from the “Bocanada”
(A breath of fresh air),
series. PoSters in the
Streets of Rosario,
Argentina
A rm ando Salgado
Halcones (Falcons), 1971
Vintage gelatin silver print
on baryta paper
12.3 x 17.5 cm
Leticia and Stanislas
Poniatowski colledtion
A rm ando Salgado
Halcones nunca mds.
Memoria contra la
impunidad (No m ore
falcons. Memory againSt
impunity), Mexico City:
Editorial Miguel Angel
Pom ia, 2011
Book
17.5 x 20 x o.5 cm
Alexis Fabry colledtion,
Paris
 Alvaro Sarmiento and
Fina Torres,
Neruda. Entierro y
teStamento (Neruda: Burial
and tribute), Las Palmas de
Gran Canaria, Inventarios
Provisionales, 1974
Book
15 x 22 cm
Jeu de Paume, Paris
p. 194, top left and top
right
Allan Sekula
Waiting for Tear Gas (White
Globe to Black), 1999-2000
Photography installation: 81
slides
InStitut d’A rt Contemporain,
Rhdne-Alpes, France.
Acquired from Michel Rein
gallery in 2001
p. 223
David “Chim” Seymour
Dolores Ibdrruri, s’adressant
au S' rdgiment (Dolores
Ibdrruri addressing the 8th
regiment), 1936
Contadt sheet
20 x 30 cm
Magnum Photos, Paris
David “Chim” Seymour
Federico Garcia Lorca,
Dolores Ibdrruri, 1936
Contadt sheet
20 x 30 cm
Magnum Photos, Paris
p. 142
Roman Signer
Heufieber (Hayfever), 2006
Video: color, sound, 2:27
min.
Camera: Aleksandra Signer
Roman Signer/Art: Concept,
Paris
Roman Signer
Rotes Band (Red tape), 2005
Video: color; sound, 2:07 min.
Camera: Aleksandra Signer
Roman Signer/Art: Concept,
Paris
p. 102
Roman Signer
Schwebender Tisch (Floating
table), 2005
Video: color, sound,
2:27 min.
Camera: Aleksandra Signer
Roman Signer/Art:
Concept, Paris
Lom a Simpson
Easy to Remember, 2001
Film: color, sound, 2:56 min.
Loma Simpson colledtion
p. 154
Solidarte Mdxico
Desaparecidos politicos de
NueStra America (Solidarte
Mexico, the political
disappeared of our
America), 1984
Two posters (Paulo Bruscky,
Manuel Marin)
p. 272
Philippe Soupault
Dada soulkve tout (Dada lifts
everything), 1921
Collage
14.3 x 10.6 cm
Chancellerie des Universitds
de Paris - Bibliothdque
Littdraire Jacques Doucet,
Paris
p. 161
Philippe Soupault
Dada sou/due tout (Dada lifts
everything), Paris, January
12,1921
Leaflet on cream paper,
black ink, printed front and
back, l sheet
27.5 x 21 cm
Bibliothdque Kandinsky,
Centre Pompidou, Paris
Thibault
La Barricade de la rue Saint-
Maur-Popincourt avant
Tattaque par les troupes
du general Lamorici£re,
le dimanche 25 juin 1848
(The barricade on Rue
Saint-Maur-Popincourt
before the attack by
General Lamoricidre’s
troops, Sunday June 25,
1848)
Daguerreotype
11.7 x 15 cm
Musde d’Orsay, Paris,
acquired with the
assistance of Patrimoine
Photographique, 2002
p. 234
Thibault
La Barricade de la rue
Saint-Maur-Popincourt aprts
I’attaque par les troupes du
general Lamoriciere, le lundi
26 juin 1848 (The barricade
on Rue Saint-Maur-
Popincourt after the attack
by General Lamoricidre’s
troops, Monday June 26,
1848)
Daguerreotype
11.7 x 15 cm
Musde d’Orsay, Paris
p. 235
Fdlix Vallotton
I/Age de papier
(The age of paper),
cover illustration for
Le Cri de Paris, no. 52,
January 1898
Photomechanical print
and etching
28.5 x 19 cm
Bibliothdque Nationale
de France, Paris
p. 186
Fdlix Vallotton
La Charge (The charge), 1893
Proof
Woodcut on paper
19 x 26 cm
Gift of Addle and Georges
Besson, 1963, Musde
National d’Art Modeme,
Centre Pompidou, Paris.
On loan to the Musde des
Beaux-Arts et d’Archdologie,
Besan<jon
p. 212
Jean Veber
Le Dompteur a ete mange
(The animal tamer
has been eaten), 1904
Engraving
43.3 x 57.2 cm
Bibliothdque Nationale
de France, Paris
p. 98
Jean Veber
Les camps de reconcentration
au Transvaal (no 4) :
“Les progres de la science”
(The concentration camps
in the Transvaal [no. 4]:
“Scientific progress”,
published in LAssiette au
beurre, September 28,1901
Photographic reproduction
of a print
32 x 24.5 cm
Bibliothdque Nationale
de France, Paris
p. 248, bottom
Jean Veber
Les camps de reconcentration
au Transvaal (no 5):
“Les progres de la science”
(The concentration camps
in the Transvaal [no. 5]:
“Scientific progress”),
published in L’Assiette au
beurre, September 28,1901
Photographic reproduction
of a print
32 x 24.5 cm
Bibliothdque Nationale
de France, Paris
p. 248, top
Jean Veber Gil Joseph W olm an
Les camps de reconcentration Sans titre (la tragtdie)
au Transvaal (no 12) : (Untitled [tragedy]), 1966
aLes progrts de la science” Tape art on canvas
(The concentration camps 24 * 41 cm
in the Transvaal [no. 12]: Natalie Seroussi gallery,
“Scientific progress”), Paris
published in UAssiette p. 203
au beurre, Septem ber 28,
1901
Photographic reproduction
of a print
32 x 24.5 cm
Bibliothdque Nationale
de France, Paris
p. 249, right

Jean Veber
Les camps de reconcentration
au Transvaal (no 19):
uLes progr&s de la science”
(The concentration camps
in the Transvaal [no. 19]:
“Scientific progress”),
published in UAssiette au
beurre, September 28,1901
Color photographic
reproduction of a print
32 x 24.5 cm
Bibliothdque Nationale
de France, Paris
p. 249, left

W olf Voftell
Dutschke, 1968
Polymer paint on canvas
104.7 x 103.5 x 3.5 cm
Haus der Geschichte der
Bundensrepublik
Deutschland, Bonn
p. 153

Gil Joseph W olman

Prague occupie par
les Russes ou Art scotch
(Prague occupied by
the Russians or Tape art),
c.1968
162 x 114 cm
Tape art on canvas, ink
Les Abattoirs, Toulouse
p. 172

410
 OVERVIEW OF DIGITAL RESISTANCE
BY MARIE LECHNER

Forms of Digital Resistance, 2016

Production: Jeu de Paume, Paris
p. 280

The early days of the Internet seemed to signal the coming The only people to have really managed to bring crisis to
of an autonomous, global, and connected electronic agora, the political scene would seem to be among hackers and
and with it a promise of more democracy, participation, whiStle-blowers such as Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning,
and power for civil society. Dating from the laSt century, and Edward Snowden: individuals forming a kind of
this utopia has failed to survive the commodification of the virtual collective, Standing out againSt State secrecy and
network and its transformation into an infrastructure radicalizing democratic demands, while at the same
of control by governments and the giants of the web. time eluding such Standard political catchalls as public
Back when the Internet was Still in diapers, the American space, collective commitment, and national loyalty.
collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE, founded 1987), which
operates at the junction of art, technology, and political
aCtivism, was the firSt to conceptualize the idea of
“electronic civil disobedience”because of its realization that
capitalism in a poSt-induStrial world was firSt and foremoSt
a m atter of flows. “Nomadic power muSt be resisted in
cyberspace rather than in physical space,” CAE points out
in its founding manifesto, The Electronic Disturbance (1994).
“JuSt as authority located in the Street was once met by
demonstrations and barricades, the authority that locates
itself in the electronic field muSt be m et with electronic
resistance.” In the course of events numerous artiSts
and hacktiviSts began exploring this new contestation
space and coming up with new ways of resisting, ranging
from the Electronic Disturbance Theater’s virtual sit-ins to
the DDoS (Disributed Denial of Service) attacks by
hydra-headed Anonymous: actions that became more
sophisticated as their network infrastructures were
reinforced. At the same time electronic civil disobedience
is only a tool: the goal is to succeed in “aligning” data bodies
with real bodies in the Streets, as happened with the
protests againSt the WTO sum m it in Seattle in 1999, when
the alter-globalization movement was bom .
As the Internet itself spread through urban space,
energizing Streets and squares with its mobile, wireless
technologies, citizens mobilized online via social networks
felt the need to assemble somewhere physically, and
thus reactivate what Italian philosopher Franco Berardi has
called the “erotic body of society? Despite the massive
mobilizations that accompanied the “occupy movement,”
which began on Tarhir Square in Egypt in 2011 and found
different forms in Spain, the United States, Turkey, and
France, demonstrators did not succeed in changing the
balance of power between the State, capital, and society.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An exhibition like Uprisings requires the work and the help

of too m any people for m e to be able thank each one
individually Concerning those w ith w hom I worked diredtly,
1 can say th a t they listened to m e while I in tu rn was
enriched by them well beyond w hat is norm al, I believe,
in this kind of projedt. Firft of all, Marta Gili offered m e her
incomparable tru ft, generosity, and rigour; and all quite
naturally, with a joy in her work, a profusion of ideas, and
a capacity for making decisions, all of which m ade
everything both simple and exciting.
These paft m onths spent w ith the team at the Musde
du Jeu de Paume have also been a pleasure: m y thanks firft
of all to Vdronique Dabin, Franziska Scheuer, and Chlod
Richez w ith whom everything began for me; and to
Judith Czemichow and Marie Bertran who, w ith patience,
passion, skill, and friendship, fulfilled m y wishes for
particular works as far as possible for this exhibition,
looked for missing item s and found solutions w hen the
obftacles appeared to be insurm ountable.
My great thanks to Muriel Rausch—b u t also to the
entire team at Gallimard—for having so remarkably guided
the creation of this catalogue. Thanks to Nino Comba for
his beautiful scenography. Thanks to Marta Ponsa, Anne
Racine, and Pascal Prieft, who, w ith their team s, broadened
the very message of the exhibition.
I was very touched by the tru ft given to m e by those
who lent the works, by my friends and co-authors of the
catalogue, and by the artifts themselves, particularly
those—Eftefanfa Penafiel Loaiza and Maria Kourkouta—
who created specific pieces for this projedt, as well as Marie
Lechner for her im portant contribution to the queftion
of social networks.
The Uprising exhibition will travel and while travelling
will be transform ed and enriched with new contributions.
The work already sketched out w ith Pepe Serra and Juan
Josd Lahuerta in Barcelona, Anibal Jozami and Diana
Weschler in Buenos Aires, Cuauhtdmoc Medina in Mexico
as well as Louise Ddry and Guillaume Lafleur in Montreal,
already heralds new joys of work and discovery.

Georges Didi-Huberman

412
 EXHIBITION

This book is published on the occasion of the exhibition
Uprisings (Soul&vements) presented at the Jeu
de Paume, Paris, from Odtober 18,2016 to January 15, 2017, at
the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona,
from March to June 2017,
at the Museo de la Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero,
Buenos Aires, from AuguSt to Odtober 2017,
at the Museo Universitario Arte Contempordneo, Mexico,
from December 2017 to May 2018
and at the Galerie de l’UQAM, University du Qudbec,
Montreal, from September to November 2018.
Isabel Marant chose to support
the exhibition Uprisings in Paris.
ISABEL MARANT
The Uprisings exhibition and accompanying catalogue
were supported by the Amis du Jeu de Paume.
The Jeu de Paume is supported by
the Ministry of Culture and Communication.

This exhibition is produced

by the Jeu de Paume, Paris.

Curator o f the exhibition

Georges Didi-Huberman It is supported by Neuflize OBC
and the Manufadture Jaeger-LeCoultre,
Jeu de Paume its principal partners.
Marta Gili, Diredtor
Maryline Dunaud, Jade Bouchemit, General Managers n Neuflize OBC .
1 ABN AMRO «jA E G E R -L E C 0 ULTRfr

Claude Bocage, Administration and Finances

Vdronique Dabin, Exhibitions
Pierre-Yves Horel, Technical Services
Marta Pons a, Public Programs
Pascal PrieSt, Bookshop
Anne Racine, Communications and Fundraising
Sabine Thiriot, Educational Programs

Exhibition
Judith Czemichow, Marie Bertran,
assisted by Chlod Richez and Franziska Scheuer,
Exhibition Coordination
Maddy Cougouludgnes, Registrar
Matthieu Blanchard, Pascale Guinet, Alain Tanguy,
Technical Coordination

Catalogue
Muriel Rausch, Publications

Scenography
Nino Comba [N-workshop] assisted by Kathy Rhine
The Jeu de Paume and the curator of the exhibition Karmitz colledtion
would like to extend their sincereft thanks to all the private Kathe Koilwitz M useum Koln, Cologne
and public lenders: KunStbibliothek, SMB, Photothek Willy Romer, Berlin
Les Abattoirs, Toulouse
Agence AP/SIPA Light Cone, Paris
Agence VU’ Lily Robert gallery, Paris
Akademie der Kunfte, Archiv, Berlin Ludwig Forum fur Internationale KunSt, Sam m lung Ludwig,
Akademie der KunSte, Berlin, Nachlassbibliothek Bertolt Aachen
Brecht MACBA - Museu d’A rt Contem porani de Barcelona,
Akademie der KunSte, Berlin, Bertolt Brecht Archiv Barcelona
Archival colledtion of the State Auschwitz-Birkenau Magnum Photos, Paris
Museum, OSwi^cim M arian G oodm an Gallery, Paris/New York
Archivio Riccardo Toffoletti - Comitato Tina Modotti, Mddiathdque de l’A rchitedture et du Patrim oine, Paris
Udine Musashino Art University M useum & Library
A rt: Concept gallery, Paris Musde Cam avalet - HiStoire de Paris, Paris
Bayerische Staatsgem aldesam m lungen - Sam m lung Musde d’Art M odem e de la Ville de Paris, Paris
M odeme KunSt in der Pinakothek der M odem e Munchen. Musde D dpartem ental d’Art Contem porain, Rochechouart
Leihgabe Sammlung Kliiser, Munich Musde des Beaux-Arts et d’A rchdologie de Besangon
Benaki Museum Photographic Archive, Athens Musde des Beaux-Arts, Orldans
Bibliothdque de Docum entation Internationale Musde National d’A rt M odem e, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Contemporaine - BDIC, Nanterre Musde National Picasso, Paris
Bibliothdque des Arts Ddcoratifs, Paris Musde d’Orsay, Paris
Bibliothdque Kandinsky, Centre Pompidou, Paris Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid
Bibliothdque Nationale de France, Paris M useum Folkwang, Essen
Buchholz Gallery, Cologne NextLevel Galerie, Paris
CNAP - Centre National des Arts PlaStiques, Paris Open Gallery, London
Centro Documental de la Memoria HiStdrica, Salam anca Prdfedture de Police, Paris - D dpartem ent Patrim onial du
Chancellerie des Universitds de Paris - Bibliothdque Service de la Mdmoire et des Affaires Culturelles (SMAC)
littdraire Jacques Doucet, Paris Michel Rein gallery, Paris
EState Marcel Broodthaers RKD-Netherlands Institute for Art Hiftory, The Hague,
EState Jack GoldStein Archives Theo and Nelly van Doesburg Secretaria de
EState EuStachy Kossakowski Cultura - INAH, Mexico
EState Saburo Murakami / Artcourt Gallery Taka Ishii Gallery Photography
Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contem porain, Paris University of Michigan, Joseph A. Labadie Colledtion,
FRAC Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand Special Colledtions Library
FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais
Fundacidn Federico Garcfa Lorca, Madrid
Fundacidn MAPFRE, Madrid And also to the artifts and colledtors who m ade this
Fondation Gilles Caron exhibition possible:
Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris
Fundacid Joan Mird, Barcelona Paulo Abreu
Galerie 1900-2000 Dennis Adams
Galerie Bendana-Pinel, Paris Hugo Aveta
Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris Ismail Bahri
Galerie Eric Dupont, Paris A rtur Barrio
Galerie Frangoise Paviot, Paris Taysir Batniji
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin/Paris Francisca Benitez
Galerie Natalie Seroussi, Paris Bruno Boudjelal
Getty Images Claude Cattelain
Haus Der Geschichte der Bundensrepublik Deutschland, Chieh-Jen Chen
Bonn Pascal Convert
IMEC, InStitut Mdmoires de l’ddition contem poraine - Isabel and Aguftin Coppel
Abbaye d’Ardenne, Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-Herbe Alexis Fabry
InStitut d’Art Contemporain, Rhdne-Alpes David and Marcel Fleiss
InStituto Moreira Salles, Sao Paulo Gdrard Fromanger
Iskra Anna Gamazo de Abelld

A1A
 Agnds Geoffray
Jochen Gerz
Eduardo Gil
Sylvie and Georges Helft
Mat Jacob
Tsubasa Kato
Maria Kourkouta
Annette Messager
Emefto Molina
Pedro Motta
Jean-Luc Mouldne
Anka Ptaszkowska
EStefania Penafiel Loaiza
Leticia and Stanislas Poniatowski
Enrique Ramirez
Pedro G. Romero
Jesus Ruiz Durand
Graciela Sacco
Loma Simpson

And to those who wish to remain anonymous.

The Jeu de Paume would also like to thank all the people
who provided assistance during the preparation
of the exhibition and this accompanying publication:

Catherine Amd, Louis Bachelot, Ana Beldn Lezana, Sylvain

Besson, Dominique Blain, Anne Blondel, Bruno
Bonnenfant, Daniel Boos, Paula Bossa, Emeline Bourdin,
Chlod BraunStein-Kriegel, Marianne Caron-Montely, Doriana
Capenti, Nathalie Chemouny, Alain Chevalier, Nathalie
Cissd, Chriftelle Courregelongue, Ghislaine Courtet, Philippe
Crousaz, Laetitia Dalet, Violaine Daniels, Bdnddidte De
Donker, Laure Defiolles, Rebecca Donelson, Chriftiane Dole,
Raphaelle Drouhin, Marie-France Dumoulin, Sophie
Durufld, Lydie £chasseriaud, SdbaStien Faucon, Vidtoria
Femdndez-Layos Moro, Valdrie Fours, Jean-Marie Gallais,
Hdldne Gasnault, Claire Giraudeau, Friederike Gratz, Valdrie
Guillaume, Genevidve Guilleminot, Laure Haberschill, Heinz
Hanisch, Nadine Henn, Carole Hubert, Jennifer Hsu, Ralph
Jentsch, Alice Joubert, Michiko Kiyosawa, Simone Kober,
Chantal Lachkar, Virginie Lanoue, Emmanuel Lefrant, Joelle
Lemoine, Antonio Manuel, Olga Makhroff, Michel Marcuzzi,
Claire Martin, Gabrielle Maubrie, Nathalie Mayevski,
Isabelle Mesnil, Stefanie Mnich, Brigitte Moral-Plantd,
Patricia Morvan, Julia Mossd, Rabih Mroud, Annja Muller-
Alsbach, Sophie Nawrocki, Marie Okamura, Chiara
Pagliettini, Agnds Petithuguenin, Mathilde Polidori, Aude
Raimbault, Jeanne Rivoire, Annemarie Reichen, Perrine
Renaud, Mdlina Reynaud, Nicolas Romand, Alix Rozds,
Maria Sanz, Anett Schubotz, Frieda Schumann, Chnftina
Sodermanns, Patricia Sorroche, Miriam Stauder, Sally Stein,
Anne Steiner, Ina Steiner, Annabelle Tendze, Corinna
Thierolf, Yoann Thommerel, Aliki Tsirgialou, Anne Verdure-
Mary, Johanna WiStrom
CREDITS

Artists
Paulo Abreu: © Paulo Abreu/Light Cone — Dennis Adams: © Dennis Adam /Courtesy
Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie — Francis Alys: © Francis Alys/Courtesy Galerie Peter
Kilchmann — Art & Language: © Art & Language — A ntonin A rtaud, Taysir Batniji,
Joseph Beuys, Andrd Breton, Marcel Broodthaers, Pascal Convert, Jochen Gerz,
Raymond Hains, Raoul Hausm ann, Bernard Heidsieck, Alberto Korda, A nnette
Messager, Henri Michaux, Jean-Luc Mouldne, Robert Morris, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Wolf
VoStell, Gil Joseph Wolman: © ADAGP, Paris, 2016 — Manuel Alvarez Bravo: © Manuel
Alvarez Bravo — Ever AStudillo: © EState Ever AStudillo — Hugo Aveta: © Hugo Aveta
— Ismail Bahri: © Ismail Bahri — Arturo Barrio: © A rturo Barrio — Francisca Benitez:
© Francisca Benitez — Bruno Boudjelal: © Bruno Boudjelal/Agence VU’— Ruth
Berlau: Copy by R. Berlau/Hoffmann — Gilles Caron: © Gilles Caron/Fondation
Gilles Caron — Henri Cartier-Bresson, Leonard Freed, Hiroji Kubota, David Seymour:
© Magnum Photos, Paris — Pere Catald Pic: EState of Pere Catal& Pic — Claude
Cattelain: © Claude Cattelain — Chieh-Jen Chen: © Chieh-Jen Chen courtesy galerie
Lily Robert — Marcel Duchamp: © succession Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris, 2016 —
Robert Filliou: Courtesy EState Robert Filliou and Peter Freeman, Inc./© EState Robert
Filliou — Gerard Fromanger: © Gerard From anger — Marcel Gautherot: © Marcel
Gautherot/InStituto Moreira Salles Colledtion — Agnds Geoffray: © Agnds Geoffray
— Eduardo Gil: © Eduardo Gil — Jack GoldStein: © The EState of Jack GoldStein —
George Grosz: © The EState of George Grosz, Princeton, NJ/ADAGP, Paris, 2016
— Ken Hamblin: © Ken Ham blin — John Heartfield: © The Heartfield Com m unity
of Heirs/ADAGP, Paris, 2016 — Mat Jacob: © Mat Jacob/Tendance floue — Asger Jorn:
© Donation Jorn, Silkeborg/ADAGP, Paris, 2016 — Tsubasa Kato: © Tsubasa Kato —
Leandro Katz: © Leandro Katz — Kathe Koilwitz: Kathe Koilwitz Museum, Cologne —
EuStachy Kossakowski: © by Anka Ptaszkowska — Maria Kourkouta: © Maria
Kourkouta — Germaine Krull: © EState Germ aine Krull, Museum Folkwang, Essen
— Man Ray: © MAN RAY TRUST/ADAGP, Paris, 2016 — Cildo Meireles: © Cildo Meireles/
Courtesy Galerie Lelong New York — Jasm ina Metwaly: © Jasm ina Metwaly/Courtesy
Open Gallery — Joan Mird: © Successid Mird/ADAGP, Paris, 2016 — Lisette Model:
© The Lisette Model Foundation, Inc. (1983). Used by perm ission — EmeSto Molina:
© EmeSto Molina — Pedro Motta: © Pedro Motta/Courtesy galerie Bendana-Pinel —
Saburo Murakami: EState of Saburo Murakami — Helio Oiticica: © Projeto HO —
EStefanla Penafiel Loaiza: © EStefanla Penafiel Loaiza — Sigmar Polke: © The EState
of Sigmar Polke, Cologne/ADAGP, Paris, 2016 — Enrique Ramirez: © Enrique Ramirez/
Courtesy Galerie Michel Rein — Pedro Romero: © Pedro Romero — Hans Richter:
EState of Hans Richter — Willy Ronis: Mddiathdque de rarchitedture et du patrim oine,
Paris/Donation Willy Ronis - MiniStdre de la culture et de la com m unication (France)
— Jesus Ruiz Durand: © Jesus Ruiz Durand — Graciela Sacco: © Graciela Sacco —
Allan Sekula: © Allan Sekula Studio LLC — Roman Signer: © Roman Signer/Courtesy
Art: Concept — Loma Simpson: © Loma Simpson — Philippe Soupault: EState
Philippe Soupault

416
 Reproductions

- I * * ? «ond Production: TO
Archiv: 190 208 (top and bottom), 266,270 (top and bottom) - Akademie der Kinfte
inSte,
Berlin, KimStsammlung,: 192 (top, inv.-Nr.: JH 722), 192 (bottom, inv.-Nr.: JH 1423) 193 ’
193
r v u A H 2x akg-images/Album/oronoz: 19 (right) — © Manuel Alvarez I
7r'^ ^
Galerie ^ ^ r Kilchmann, Zurich: 107 The Archival CoUe^on of R estate Auschwitz-
BH,1V0
Birkenau Museum m OSwigcim: 256 - Archives de la Prefecture de Police/All rights
reserved: 198 - Archivio Riccardo Toffoletti - Comitato Tina Modotti - Udine - Italy:
110,124 125,189 — Pepe Avallone: 180 — Courtesy Hugo Aveta: 281 — Courtesy Ismail
Bahn: 227 — Courtesy Arturo Barrio: 197 — Courtesy Taysir Batniji and galeries Eric
Dupont and Sfeir Semler: 276-277 — © 2016 by Benaki Museum Athdnes: 239 (right)
262-263 — Courtesy Francisca Benitez: 286 — Bibliothdque des Arts ddcoratifs,
Paris: 229 (top and bottom) — Bibliothdque nationale de France: 96 (top), 98, 105, 130,
158-160,164,165 (left and right), 168 (top and bottom), 186, 248- 249, 264- 265, 359,377
(top right and left bottom) — Bruno Boudjelal/Agence VU’: 274-275 — © BPK, Berlin,
DiSt. RMN-Grand Palais/image BPK: 126,240,241 (top) — © BPK, Berlin, DiSt. RMN-
Grand Palais/Haydar Koyupinar: 178-179 — Jean de Calan: 108- 109,169 — © Gilles
Caron/Fondation Gilles Caron/Gamma Rapho: cover, 138-139 — © Henri Cartier-
Bresson/Magnum Photos, Paris: 209 (PAR104625), 222 (top and bottom, PAR106371 and
PAR35007) — Courtesy Claude Cattelain: 128-129 — © Centre Pompidou - MNAM CCI
- Bibliothdque Kandinsky: 113 — © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, DiSt. RMN-Grand
Palais/image Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI//mage obtenue par inversion des ualeurs du
scan du ntgatif: 100 — © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, DiSt. RMN-Grand Palais/
Georges Meguerditchian: 226 — © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, DiSt. RMN-Grand
Palais/Service audiovisuel du Centre Pompidou: 148,184 — © Centre Pompidou/Musde
national d’art modeme/Clichd Pierre Guenat, Besangon, Musde des Beaux-Arts et
d’Archdologie: 212 — Chancellerie des Universitds de Paris, Bibliothdque littdraire
Jacques Doucet, Paris: 161 — Courtesy Chieh-Jen Chen and galerie Lily Robert gallery:
225 — © CNAP/Dennis Adam/Courtesy Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie: 99 — © CNAP/
ADAGP, Paris/photo: Yves Chenot (inv. FNAC 94257): 173 — Colledtif de l’Hopital social
de Thessalonique, all rights reserved: 21 — Colledtion Eric Coulaud/Published in Anne
Steiner, Le temps des r&voltes, L’dchappde, 2015: 230 (bottom) — © Ivora Cusack/3600
et meme plus: 73 (bottom) — © Andrd A. E. Disddri/Musde Carnavalet/Roger-Viollet:
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of the publishers L’dchappde: 381 Qeft and right) — Espaha. MiniSterio de Educacidn,
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All rights reserved

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 ISBN 9 78 -2 -0 7 2 6 9 -729-6
978207269729655500

9 "7 8 2 0 7 2 116 9 7 2 9 6 " £39 99 / $55 00