Piero Simondo, Co-Founder of the Situationist International, Dies at 93

Piero Simondo, an Italian artist and thinker who co-founded the Situationist International in 1957 in Cosio d'Arroscia, died on November 6, 2020. Simondo, along with his wife Elena Verrone, invited Guy Debord, Michelle Bernstein, Ralph Rumney, Pinot Gallizio, Asger Jorn, and Walter Olmo to Cosio d'Arroscia for the founding meeting. However, Debord later expelled Simondo, Verrone, and Olmo from the movement, effectively erasing Simondo's contribution from official history. Simondo was a scholar of non-Euclidean geometry and Henri Poincaré, and his work offers an alternative, spatial interpretation of situationism, focusing on 'action in situ' rather than Debord's Marxist spectacle. The article argues that Simondo's topological approach is more relevant today, especially in light of the pandemic's emphasis on spatiality, social distancing, and geopolitical fragmentation. Simondo's legacy is only now being reassessed by critics in Italy.