The Leaning Tower of Venice by Ralph Rumney. Introduced by José da Silva

*This introductory essay appears in ARK: Words and Images from the Royal College of Art Magazine 1950-1978, published by Critical Writing in Art & Design.*

‘The Leaning Tower of Venice’ was published in three parts, the first of which appeared in ARK 24 in the spring of 1959. Its author, Ralph Rumney, was one of the founding members of the “radical political and cultural movement”[1] the Situationist International (SI), which was formed in July 1957 in Cosio di Arroscia, Italy. The eight founding members came together from three artistic groups: the Lettrist International, the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus, and the London Psychogeographical Committee. Rumney was the latter’s one and only member as well as being the SI’s only English founding associate. The rest consisted of a mixture of Belgian, Dutch, Hungarian, Danish, Scottish and French artists and writers.

As a young artist, Rumney had met Guy Debord of the Lettrists (and future de facto leader of the SI) five years earlier in Paris. Rumney, who was born in Newcastle in 1934, was on the run from National Service when he found himself absorbed into a group of young artists who would congregate at the Moineau café on the city’s Left Bank. Although Rumney described himself and the rest of the “tribe” as “extremely disreputable, scruffy, scurrilous and penniless”,[2] they formed part of a group who would come to be considered one of the most influential artistic factions of the twentieth century.

‘The Leaning Tower of Venice’ was described by its author as a “psychogeographic map of Venice”.[3] It is a photo-story of a dérive through the streets of the Italian city where Rumney lived with his wife Pegeen Guggenheim, daughter of celebrated art collector Peggy Guggenheim. The format is based on fotoromanzi – popular magazines of photo-stories “mainly aimed at female readers”[4] – that Rumney had encountered in Italy. The typewritten text begins with Guy Debord’s definition of psychogeography as the “study of the exact effects of geographic environment, controlled or otherwise, on the affective behaviour of individuals”.[5]

Rumney described the photo-story as a détournement as it appropriated the language of a popular trash-publication format into a new use. In the piece, American poet Alan Ansen (whose poem, The Easiest Room in Hell is also included in ARK 24) plays through the narrow streets and sun-filled squares of the Italian city. Ansen is pictured “studying a play-environment relationship” as one of the captions explains, after the text affirms “that cities should embody a builtin [sic] play factor”.[6] As the American larks around with a big balloon on a string, feeds pigeons and joins in with children’s street games, it is unclear where play ends and study begins. Some of the photographs are overlaid with a small black or white triangle that – as well as mirroring Ansen’s alternating black-and-white jacket-and-trouser combination – points out ‘A’, as Ansen is referred to throughout the piece.

‘The Leaning Tower of Venice’ was commissioned by Debord for the first issue of the SI’s journal, Internationale Situationniste, which was published in June 1958. However, Rumney was delayed in completing his photo-story due to personal problems, and missed the deadline by two months. Debord replaced Rumney’s contribution with a text of his own titled Venice Has Conquered Ralph Rumney, which was accompanied by two (front and profile) mug shots of the boyish-looking Rumney. The piece summarily announced the expulsion of the English artist, which was not a particularly unusual occurrence – over half of the members of the SI were kicked out over its decade and a half of existence. Debord ended the piece by describing Rumney as a “young man, full of life and promise, who is now lost to us, a mere memory among so many others”.[7] The expulsion was somewhat ironic as it was Rumney who, during the group’s formation, had championed punishment by exclusion for “any lack of the fanaticism necessary” to advance the SI.[8]

Although it is sometimes mistakenly cited in prominent guides to the SI as going unpublished at the time,[9] ‘The Leaning Tower of Venice’ did see the light of day less than a year after its completion, in ARK 24. Roddy Maude-Roxby, editor of ARK 24 and 25, met Rumney in Venice through a mutual friend. The young editor and performance artist found that the SI’s methods were similar to those he had been interested in back in London.[10] He asked Rumney if he had anything that he would like to contribute to ARK, and the artist duly lent him the Venetian photo-story. Rumney also put him in contact with Italian artist Lucio Fontana, best known for his slashed canvases, who provided the image for what has become one of ARK’s most distinctive covers: a simply-drawn rectangle, signature and stab-like perforations on an orange background.

The original artwork for Rumney’s photo-story was thought to have been lost when Maude-Roxby left his position at the Royal College of Art in 1959. However, it reappeared three decades later, in 1989, as part of an SI exhibition at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. Rumney was rather taken aback when he learnt that it formed part of “the collection of Roddy Maude-Roxby.”[11] According to Rumney, when they spoke at the opening of the same show at the ICA in London, Maude-Roxby promised that the original would be returned following the exhibition’s final journey to the United States. When probed once more for its return a few years later, the former ARK editor and now film actor claimed that the original must have been lost again during its travels.[12]

Rumney’s introduction to a 2002 printed reproduction reads as a (somewhat humorous) plea to Maude-Roxby for its return. As the artist recounts the history of the artwork, he refers to its supposed possessor, no fewer than six times over a page and a half, as an “honourable man”.[13] Rumney died that same year. His seminal work, ‘The Leaning Tower of Venice’, remains at large on its long-term dérive.