I hope that you had a good trip. It's a few days after your departure[1] and already the fuss over your glory grows great, despite the discretion that we maintain. Never in the history of painting has one seen such murmuring about an absolutely unknown painting that suddenly emerged from an entirely foreign world into pictural commerce and, in a single blow, obtained the consecration of the Drouin Gallery, which a large number of mediocre Dangelobajs[2] could not hope to obtain, even after fifteen years of intrigues and efforts. It still isn't known that you only needed to remain in Paris for five days to obtain this result. Modigliani has his revenge.
Obviously our comrades are the ones who are the least astonished -- although your success almost surpasses their hopes -- because the foundation of our agreement is only to expect the extraordinary from Pinot and several others. I will briefly remind you of the difficult work with which you have been charged and that you executed in a short period of three months.
1) The creation of rolls of industrial painting (on telline) designed to cover all of the walls of the Drouin Gallery -- where I go without delay to recover the plans and exact measurements.
2) The creation of a roll of carta dipinta industrialmente [3] designed to be cut into equally sized pieces, folded in two and sold on the day of your private showing at the Drouin Gallery and in the entirety of the intellectual neighborhood by the peddlers of professional newspapers, each selling for 20 francs the "last edition by Pinot Gallizio."
3) The creation of great panels, using populit resin covers, iron and all of the new materials of which you have shown us the experimental use.
4) Research into new perfumes and the organization of the olafactory ambiance of the gallery (pleasant-obsolete).
Special perfumes burned in a brazier placed on a sidewalk of the rue Visconti.
5) The preparation of a new aperatif (in a series of 3 or 4, among which, in my opinion, it would be good to get Drouin himself to choose).
6) The urgent purchase of useful music.
It is useless to remind you of the extent to which we all count on you, and of how decisive your role is in the enterprise in which our situationist friends, as well as Drouin himself, take risks that are not very common (this is the price of research that itself is hardly common). I believe that it is necessary that the work is well-advanced on all points when Drouin makes his trip to Alba.
Write me soon. I wish you the courage of the work [la coeur a l'ouvrage]. Michele [Bernstein] sends you all of her regards. Hafid [Khatid], too. I ask you to please present my respects to Donna Augusta.[4] Quite amicably.
GuyP.S. Think about Claude Viseux's money.[5]
And can you occupy yourself with the translation of my Report [on the Construction of Situations] into Italian? -- I want to say, not you yourself, who have too much work to do -- [Walter] Korun is translating it into Dutch. And since [Piero] Simondo, who was charged with the Italian translation, has been excluded,[6] it will be necessary to find someone else.
[1] After the IId Conference of the SI, held in Paris, 25-26 January [1958].
[2] Compound word formed by (Sergio) Dangelo and (Enrico) Baj of the Nuclear Art Movement.
[3] Industrially printed paper.
[4] Augusta Rivabella, the wife of Gallizio.
[5] Claude Viseux, a surrealist-abstract painter, close to [the journal] Phases.
[6] At the Paris Conference, along with [Walter] Olmo and [Elena] Verrone.
(Published in Guy Debord, Correspondance, Volume 1, 1957-1960. Footnotes by Alice Debord. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! October 2005.)