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The Situationist International was a loose affiliation of European political radicals, socialists and anarchists, which existed between 1957 and 1972. The two leading Situationists were the philosopher Guy Debord (author of The Society of the Spectacle) and the Danish artist Asger Jorn. Although they were a small, fringe group, the Situationists had a profound affect on the European counterculture and the development of avant-garde art in the 1960s�much more so than the superficially similar Yippies in the USA. The essential aim of Situationism is neatly summed up in the title of the Situationist manifesto published by the Scottish writer Alex Trocchi in 1962, Invisible insurrection of a million minds. Or, in the words of a famous graffito that appeared on Paris walls during the �v�nements of May 1968, �Be realistic�demand the impossible!� Asger Jorn (Danish, 1914-1973) Untitled composition Lithograph, 1967 Despite the importance of Asger Jorn to the movement, the Situationists were mo

The painter and lithographer Walasse Ting, who died earlier this year, occupies a unique place in the dialogue between American and European art in the 1960s. Ting was an outsider to both cultures. He was born Ding Xiongquan in Shanghai in 1929. After studying briefly at the Shanghai Art Academy, he left China in 1946, living initially in Hong Kong before sailing to France in 1950. In Paris, Walasse Ting came under the influence of the artists who made up the avant-garde group CoBrA, most notably Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel, and Asger Jorn. In 1958, Ting moved to America, where his closest associate was the Abstract Expressionist painter Sam Francis. In 1964, Walasse Ting and Sam Francis collaborated on one of the greatest artist�s books of the period, a collection of Ting�s stream-of-consciousness Pop Art poems illustrated with original lithographs by a total of 28 artists, entitled One Cent Life . Unfortunately I don�t have a copy of this, but it�s a remarkable work, and particula