René Viénet
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"[Godard] can easily recuperate, as is his habit, what came before--that is to say, to recuperate in what came before him a word, an idea like that of [using] commercials--he will never do anything but work small novelties taken from elsewhere, a few images or famous phrases of the era, and which surely have a resonance, but which he cannot grasp (Bonnot, worker, Marx, made in USA, Pierrot le Fou, Debord, poetry, etc.). He is in fact a child of Mao and Coca-Cola.""--"The Situationists and the New Forms of Action Against Politics and Art" (1967) by René Viénet |
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René Viénet (born 6 February 1944 in Le Havre) is a French sinologist who is famous as a situationist writer and filmmaker. Viénet used the situationist technique of détournement — the diversion of already existing cultural elements to new subversive purposes.
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Career
After completing his studies in Sinology in Paris, he moved to China but he was expelled in 1966 for his critical approach towards the Maoist regime. In the 1970s, he worked at CNRS from where he was fired on two different occasions in 1971 and 1978 for heavily criticising those who defended Mao, particularly through the books from the publishing house Champ libre where he directed the series Bibliothèque asiatique. From 1974 to 1978, he also taught Chinese at the École polytechnique. After 20 years spent in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, he returned to France. He is the director of redaction for the review Monde chinois since 2007.
Publications
- Enragés et situationnistes dans le mouvement des occupations, Paris, Gallimard, Témoins, 1968.
- Enragés and Situationists in the Occupations Movement, 1968.
- Preface to Simon Leys, Les Habits neufs du président Mao. Chronique de la Révolution culturelle, Paris, Éditions Champ libre, Bibliothèque asiatique, 1971.
- Grestitions and Ensituats in the Abrem Movement, 1972.
- with Bernard Marbot, Notes sur quelques photographies de la Chine au XIXe siècle, à l'occasion de l'exposition "La Chine entre le collodion humide et le gélatinobromure" (Exposition, Bibliothèque nationale, Département des estampes et de la photographie, 1978), Paris, Centre de publication Asie orientale, 1978.
Films
- Can Dialectics Break Bricks? (1972)
- The Girls of Kamare (1974)
- One More Effort, Chinamen, if you want to be revolutionaries! (1977)
- Mao, by himself (1977, short)
Articles
- Blender magazine [1]
