Protagonists and Events of Italian Futurism
Chronology of the Futurist Movement
Futurist Literature
Fragments from the curatorial text included in the catalog The Futurist Universe: 1909 - 1936
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When Filippo Tommaso Marinetti writes Fondazione e Manifesto del Futurismo (“Founding and Manifesto of Futurism”)i, in February 1909, he has just turned 32 years oldii . Since a young age, poetry and prose have been his true passions. Starting with his precocious experience with the magazine Le Papyrusiii, which results in his expulsion from a Jesuit school in Alexandria, Egypt, and up until 1909, Marinetti makes great strides in this field, though without neglecting his law studies, from which he graduates in 1899, thereby satisfying his demanding father, who had looked to impede his literary interests in every way possible. (...)
What is most striking about the Manifesto is the extreme synthesis of its writing, persuasive and succinct, containing the first true prophecy in contemporary Italy, where all common ground regarding the glorious artistic past of the “Bel Paese” is condemned, and where, for the first time, a concrete idea of modernity takes finished form (...) located in an urban space completely transformed by industrial technology, leading finally to outer space and the conquest of unknown worlds. (...)
After the evening in Turin’s Politeama (March 8, 1910), which can be considered the first official act of adhesion to Futurism by the five signing painters of the Manifesto dei pittori futurista ("Manifesto of Futurist Painters") published February 11, 1910, the second important meeting coincides with the publication of the Manifesto tecnico della pittura futurista ("Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting"), on April 11 of that year. While many of the original and innovative ideas of Futurism were spread by Marinetti on the many evenings organized starting in February 1909, there is no doubt that the first systematic attempt to provide theoretical support for this poetic in the field of painting comes to fruition with this third manifesto, to be considered along with Boccioni’s Manifesto tecnico della scultura futurista ( "Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture"), April 11, 1912, as the true vade mecum of Futurist painting theory.
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It theorizes about a new sort of representation, where the form explodes and implodes in a single time-space unit, dilating and contracting, multiplying and dividing, and turning on and off as a consequence of its centrifugal or centripetal movement; where the color becomes a structural element of the shape itself and the chromatic matter is "divided" into primary and complementary colors, thanks to the touches and filaments, allowing the realization of it all. (...)
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Over the course of six years, from 1909 to 1915, the entire theoretical structure of the Futurist poetic can be considered to have been formediv, from the renewal of painting and sculpture, to architecture, literature and poetry, design, advertising art and music. (...)
The Manifesto tecnico della letteratura futurista ("Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature"), published May 11, 1912, introduces elements that will be taken up unequivocally shortly after in Dadaist writing, and anticipates one year later the second and equally extraordinary theoretical intervention by Marinetti in the field of poetry and literature, contained in themanifesto Distruzione della sintassi. Immaginazione senza fili, parole in libertà ("Destruction of Syntax. Imagination without strings, words in freedom"), published May 11, 1913. An expression of an even more radical linguistic revolution, the Manifesto distruzione... exalts the beneficial impacts of scientific findings on the new sensibility of modern man, and in particular the value of novel content in different forms of communication, transportation and information, from the telegraph to the telephone, phonograph to cinema, car to boat, airship, airplane; all expressions of a progress that necessarily modifies everyday life and, as such, alters the new expressive power of the poet and the writer, to whom Futurism offers valuable tools for writing in poetry or prose, including: onomatopoeia (using words that can represent the sounds and noises of modern life, no matter how cacophonous), words in freedom, the analogy, the typographic lettering revolution, which, from that point forward must match the description of the poet's states of mood. (...)
Excluding the April 1911 exhibition in Milan at Ricordi Hall, which unfortunately has no surviving catalogv, and in which Boccioni, Russolo and Carrà all participate, the first exhibition of the Italian Futurists is not held in Italy but in Paris at the Bernheim Jeune Gallery, from February 5-24, 1912. It is a significant event, especially when viewed in relation to the publication of the Futurist Manifesto in 1909, which appears first in Paris and then in Italy, as proof that Marinetti’s promotional plan extends beyond the confines of his native country right from the start. (...)
There are many theoretical differences between Cubism and Futurism, and Boccioni is the first to set about explaining them. In the short text "Che cosa ci divide dal Cubismo" ( "What Sets Us Apart from Cubism")vi, a sort of declaration of war on those who consider there to be formal and conceptual limits to the Cubist experimentation, he explains: "A Picasso painting has no law, no lyricism, no will. It presents, develops, upsets, divides into facets, multiplies the details of the object into infinity. The division of the object and the fantastic variety of appearances a violin, guitar, glass, etc., can assume in his works, creates a marvelous analogy with the scientific enumeration of the components of an object that until now have been considered as a unit, due to either ignorance or tradition. It was a fatal discovery, necessary in art. It is the precious fruit of an elaboration, but it is not yet emotion, or at least it is only one side of emotion. It is scientific analysis that studies life in the corpse, dissecting the muscles, arteries and veins, studying their functions and discovering in them the laws of creation. But art itself already is creation and has no interest in accumulating knowledge. The emotion in art needs drama. Emotion, in painting and modern sculpture, sings to gravitation, to displacement, to the mutual attraction of forms, masses and colors; or rather, the movement and the interpretation of forces. To propose the comprehensive analysis of volumes and bodies as a singular objective is to create an obstacle. To continue doing this is to want to create contra natura. It is to conceive of the object as an immutable absolute that has already been destroyed and exists outside our conception of life.”vii(...)
The conquest of “Cubist” Paris is something impossible even for the tireless Marinetti. But his disappointment is greatly comforted by the extraordinary opportunity to take advantage of this international showcase to continue his propaganda work supporting Futurism and to make a bit of a scandal, something that does not harm his reputation as a great seducer of women, men and ideas. As such, in the French capital he accepts into the ranks of Futurism the nonconformist painter and writer, feminist ante litteram Valentine de Saint-Point, who in the spring of 1912 publishes under Marinetti's supervision the Manifesto della donna futurista ("Manifesto of the Futurist Woman"), presented to the French public with great clamorviii, a manifesto that does justice to the often less than reverent words that Marinetti had up to that point reserved for women. (...)
However, Futurism goes on existing, unlike many other European vanguards obliged to declare their own end due either to the natural exhaustion of their subversive power or the implacable advance of totalitarianism. At least until the disappearance of Marinetti in 1944, Futurism continues to express a strong creative vitality, often in stark contrast to the rhetorical representations of Roman glories favored by the fascist hierarchy, in search of a historical identity that Futurism could not truly guaranteeix. Starting with the theoretical premises of the manifesto Ricostruzione futurista dell'universo, which due to its particular intuitions, as written, opens the way to the conjunction between art and life, Futurism is engaged throughout the twenties and thirties in expanding its aesthetic to daily life, applying its creed to all disciplines: from art to interior decoration, architecture to design, cuisine to literature, advertising to fashion, poetry to theater; every area of the life of modern man must respond to the aesthetic canons of Futurism. (...)
The next step in testing this new style of experimentation takes form in 1929, with the preparation of the Manifesto dell'aeropittura ("Manifesto of Aeropainting"), which leads to the further development of mechanistic premises. The experience of “aeronautic” painting as simple representation "from above" a landscape or city, or as an extraordinary intuition of cosmic vision, is thus born as the direct offspring of the mechanistic theories of the early twenties.
iHenceforth referred to as Futurist Manifesto, or simply Manifesto.
iiFilippo Tommaso Marinettti (whose real name is Emilio Angelo Carlo), is born December 22, 1876, in Alexandria, Egypt, second son of Enrico Marinetti, native of the the city of Voghera, who in 1872 moves to Egypt, where he begins a prosperous career as a lawyer, and Amalia Grolli, daughter of a Milanese literature professor, woman of great literary interests. The couple is not married due to a previous marriage of Amalia’s.
iiiIn 1894, when he is 18 years old and on the verge of receiving his diploma, Marinetti is abruptly thrown out of school for having defended the prose of Zola and his naturalism in the pages of a small magazine he founded, Le Papyrus, where he writes under the pseudonym Hesperus. In April 1894, to finish his schooling and obtain a high school diploma, he is sent alone to Paris, while his family, in large part due to economic hardship, returns to Milan, to the house that will later belong to Filippo Tommaso, located on the street Senato 2.
iv From a theoretical point of view, the greatest novelties of the Futurist poetic are without a doubt contained in the manifestos published between 1909 and 1915. After the death of Boccioni, especially during the twenties, there are other new theoretical interventions, such as the manifesto of aeropainting or of publicity, texts that are deemed of great value for the continuity of Futurist thought in the decades preceding the death of Marinetti (1944).
v Esposizione di Arte Libera (Free Art Exhibition), Milan, Ricordi Hall, April 30, 1911. On the occasion, Boccioni's painting La risata (The laugh) is damaged by a fanatic.
viU. Boccioni, "Che cosa ci divide dal Cubismo," op. cit. p. 115.
vii U. Boccioni, ibidem, pp. 119-120.
viii C. Salaris, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, op. cit., p. 119.
ix It is now accepted as fact that, despite the personal friendship between Marinetti and Mussolini, born in the days of Duce’s socialist militancy and over the years peppered with many tensions and misunderstandings, caused in large part by Mussolini’s renunciation of the anti-clerical and anti-monarchical principles he had shared with Marinetti in the second half of the 1910s, artistic Futurism enjoyed a life largely autonomous from the more overtly traditional and conservative aspects of fascism, which almost always preferred to use for propaganda the “figurations” of the Novecento artists, a group founded in 1923-1924 by the art critic Margherita Sarfatti.
Excerpts from the Futurist "Chronology" developed by researcher and curator of the Museo di Arte Moderna de Trento e Rovereto (MART), Beatriz Avanzi, and included in the catalog for The Futurist Universe. 1909 - 1936, published by Fundación Proa.
1909 / On February 20, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti publishes in the French newspaper “Le Figaro” the manifesto Le Futurisme (“Futurism”), giving birth to Italian Futurism, also known by the title of Fondazione e manifesto del Futurismo ("Founding and Manifesto of Futurism"), which is published in the Italian magazine "Poesia" (February-March 1909).
1910 / A group of painters sharing Marinetti’s desire for a renewal of artistic culture assemble around the poet. After a series of meetings, the young artists sign the Il Manifesto dei pittori futuristi ("Manifesto of Futurist Painters"), published in pamphlet form by the magazine "Poesia" and recited during an evening at the Politeama Chiarella Theater in Turin on March 8.
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1910 / On April 11, the manifesto La pittura futurista. Manifesto técnico ("Futurist Painting. Technical Manifesto") comes out, signed by Boccioni, Balla, Carrà, Russolo and Severini. The text contains details on the characteristics of new painting.
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Numerous Futurist “evenings” are held in Trieste, Milan, Turin and Venice.
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1911 / On January 11, Marinetti publishes the Manifesto dei drammaturghi futuristi (“Manifesto of Futurist Playwrights”).
On April 30, in Milan’s Ricordi Hall, the Mostra d'arte libera (Free Art Exhibition) opens with works by Boccioni, Carrà and Russolo. During the exhibit, a viewer makes several scratches into Boccioni’s painting La risata (The laugh).
On June 15, writer and critic Ardengo Soffici publishes in the magazine “La Voce” his article Arte libera e pittura futuristia ("Free Art and Futurist Painting"), summarily dismissing the Futurists’ exhibit. Boccioni, Carrà, Marinetti and Russolo respond with a "punitive expedition" to the café Giubbe Rosse in Florence, where they question Soffici, Papini, and other intellectuals associated with “La Voce.” The encounter turns into a “passionate artistic argument,” ending in the conversion of Soffici and Papini to Futurism.
1912 / From February 5 - 24, in the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris, the exposition Les peintres futuristes italiens (“Italian Futurist Painters”) is held, with pieces fundamental to the development of the Futurist poetic and its affirmation at the international level. Among these are: La città che sale (The city that rises), Visioni simultanee (Simultaneous visions), La strada entra nella casa (The street enters the house), and Le forze di una strada (The forces of a house), by Boccioni; Uscita da teatro (Theater exit), Ciò che mi ha detto il tram (What the tram gave me), and I Funerali dell'anarchico Galli (The funerals of the anarchist Galli), by Carrà; Rivolta (The revolt ) and Ricordi di una notte (Memories of a night), by Russolo; and Danse du Pan-Pan au Monico (Pan-Pan’s Dance in Monico) and Souvenir de voyage (Travel souvenir), by Severini. The only piece by Balla planned for the exhibit, Lumière électrique (which is identified as Lampada ad arco, [Arc lamp]), never arrives.
Immediately afterward, the Futurist exhibit is also shown in London’s Sackville Gallery, and in Brussels, Hamburg, The Hague, Amsterdam and Berlin, at the insistence of Herwart Walden, editor of the magazine “Der Sturm.”
1913 / On January 1, the first issue of “Lacerba,” a fortnightly literary magazine founded by Ardengo Soffici and Giovanni Papini, comes out in Florence, giving ample space to the dissemination of the theoretical writings of Futurism.
On February 11, next to the foyer of Rome’s Costanzi Theater, the Prima Esposizione di Pittura Futurista (“First Exhibition of Futurist Painting”) is held with the participation of Balla, Boccioni, Russolo, Carrà, Severini and Soffici. On February 21, a Futurist evening is held at the same location, with Papini delivering the speech Contro Roma e contro Benedetto Croce (“Against Rome and against Benedetto Croce”), and Balilla Pratella interpreting the Musica Futuristica. Inno alla Vita ("Futurist Music. Hymn to Life").
On March 11, Russolo publishes L'arte dei rumori. Manifesto Futurista ("The Art of Noise. Futurist Manifesto"), and in the July 1 edition of “Lacerba” the text Gli intonarumori futuristi ("The Futurist Machine Music) appears. His experiments with the "music machines" - which produce different types of noise - will later be presented on June 2 during a Futurist evening at Storchi Theater in Modena, and then on August 11, at the Casa Rossa Marinetti.
In early 1913, a heated dispute arises between Apollinaire and Boccioni over the issue of Orphism, a term used by French critics to define the Cubist-styled paintings of Robert Delaunay, which they relate to the pursuits of Futurism.
1914 / On January 29 - 30, “Il Piccolo Giornale d'Italia” publishes L'atmosfera-struttura. Manifesto per una architettura futurista ("The Atmosphere-Structure. Manifesto for a Futurist Architecture"), by Enrico Prampolini, which proposes the application of a new “atmospheric” perception of space derived from Futurist poetics to the field of architecture.
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In February, Marinetti finds himself in Russia, giving a series of conferences in Moscow and St. Petersburg ...
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On September 11, Balla publishes the Manifesto del Vestito Antineutrale ("Manifesto of Anti-Neutral Dress"), which sets out a series of ideas regarding Futurist fashion.
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During the last months of 1914, Futurist activity takes on a propagandistic and interventionist tone, with numerous demonstrations all over Italy. The outbreak of the Great War is welcomed as an opportunity to implement the principles of war expressed since the outset of the movement - "guerra sola igiene del mondo" ( "war is the only hygiene of the world") - and the Futurists join to demand that Italy go to war with Austria, considered to be an emblem of passivity and subscription to a cult of the past.
1915 / In January-February, Marinetti, Settimelli and Corra sign the manifesto Il teatro sintetico futurista ("The Synthetic Futurist Theater"). During the following months, theatrical representations are held in Ancona, Bologna, Padua, Venice, Bergamo, Genoa, Savona and San Remo. On March 11, Giacomo Balla and Fortunato Depero publish the manifesto La ricostruzione futurista dell'universo ("The Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe"), a fundamental text for the movement’s new direction, which from then on aims to extend Futurist aesthetics ideology to all areas of art and life.
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On March 11, Balla, Run, Marinetti and Settimelli are arrested along with Benito Mussolini at an interventionist demonstration in Rome.
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On May 24, with the entrance of Italy into the war, the Futurists Boccioni, Funi, Marinetti, Piatti, Russolo, Sant'Elia, and Sironi, together with Anselmo Bucci, Carlo Erba and Mario Bugelli, enlist in the Lombard Volunteer Battalion of Cyclists and Motorists. After a training period in Gallarate, in late July the battalion is sent to Peschiera on Lake Garda, along the front lines of battle. In October, the battalion leaves Malcesine for its only action in battle, the storming of Dosso Casina on October 24.
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In December, the volunteers are temporarily discharged. Following this experience, Marinetti, Boccioni, Russolo, Sant'Elia, and Piatti write the belligerent manifesto L’orgoglio italiano ( "Italian Pride"), which is dated December 11.
1917 / In February, Picasso and Jean Cocteau meet with Diaghilev in Rome to discuss the scenography of the ballet Parade. On this occasion, they get to know Balla and Depero.
1919 / During January and February, Rome’s Bragaglia Gallery exhibits a solo show by Fortunato Depero. Back in Rovereto, that autumn Depero founds his Casa d'Arte, the first Futurist workshop of applied arts.
On January 11, Marinetti participates alongside Mussolini in a demonstration against the rinunciatario Leonida Bissolati at the Teatro alla Scala, in Milan.
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Marinetti is elected to the Central Committee and is named, along with Mussolini, a member of the National Commission for Propaganda and Printing.
On April 15, the Futurists and the Arditi participate in the taking by force of the ¡Avanti! headquarters in Milan.
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In October, Marinetti addresses the Fascist Congress of Florence, and will continue with campaign speeches alongside Mussolini in Milan and Monza.
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After the electoral defeat of fascism in November 1919, relations between Marinetti and the fascist movement cool. Marinetti, anti-clerical and anti-monarchist, does not agree with Mussolini’s growing closeness to the church and king.
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Back in Rovereto, that autumn Depero founds his Casa d'Arte, the first Futurist workshop of applied arts.
1920 / During the Third Fascist Congress, held in May, Marinetti fiercely opposes the Mussolinian "restoration" program, which contradicts the anti-clerical and anti-monarchical positions held by the Futurists. On May 29, Marinetti and other Futurist representatives renounce the Fascist Party.
1922 / In January, the Casa d'Arte Bragaglia de via degli Avignonesi is inaugurated with a speech by Marinetti; it is characterized by an impressive ceiling light designed by Balla. In April, the space will host a retrospective dedicated to Boccioni. Also, Anton Giulio Bragaglia’s Teatro Sperimentale begins activities.
From March 27 - April 27, at the Turin Winter Club, the Esposizione futurista internazionale (International Futurist Exhibition) is presented. In March, a number of Futurists take part in Die Grosse futuristisch Ausstellung (The Great Futurist Exhibition) in Berlin. The show’s catalog later appears in “Der Futurismus,” a periodical founded in May by Ruggero Vasari.
1923 / After the previous year’s October 28 march on Rome and the subsequent rise of the fascist government, Marinetti again approaches Mussolini. Together with Prampolini, he signs the manifesto Diritti artistici propugnati dai futuristi italiani ("Artistic Rights Advocated by the Italian Futurists"), published on March 1 in the journal “Il Futurismo,” and again in April in “Noi.”
1924 / On January 10, Depero’s mechanical ballet Anhiccam del 3000 (“Anhiccam from 3000”), with music by Casavola, shows for the first time at the Trianon in Milan; it is the first show by the New Futurist Theater Company.
1925 / In January, a Mostra futurista (Futurist Show) is held at the Palazzo Madama in Turin, organized by the Futurist Artists’ Syndicates. In the catalog, the manifesto Alfabeto spirituale ("Spiritual Alphabet") by Bracci, Filila and Maino, is published
At the III Biennale romana (III Biennial of Rome) in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, a Mostra collettiva futurista (Futurist Collective Show) is held from March 1 – June 30.
1926 / Marinetti embarks with his wife, Benedetta, on a ship bound for Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. He gives 35 "conference-speeches" in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Santos, Buenos Aires, La Plata, Cordoba, Rosario and Montevideo.
Between May and September, a group of Futurists participates in the XV Biennale d'Arte Internazionale di Venezia (XV International Art Biennial in Venice).
1927 / The publisher Dinamo-Azari puts out Depero Futurista, a "bolted book" that represents one of the most innovative examples of Futurist prints.
1928 / The participation of Futurists in national and international exhibitions continues.
1929 / On March 18, Marinetti is named Academic of Italy.
1930 / On April 11, Marinetti and Tato sign the manifesto La fotografía futurista ("Futurist Photography"), published January 11, 1931, in the magazine “Futurism.”
The Futurists participate in the XVII Biennale Internazionale d'Arte (XVII International Biennial of Art) in Venice, which takes place between May and September (...)
On December 28, “La Gazzetta del Popolo” in Turin publishes the Manifesto della cucina futurista ("Manifesto of Futurist Cuisine") by Marinetti.
1931 / In April, Marinetti publishes the manifesto Teatro Aereoradiotelevisivo.
Shortly after, the I Mostra de aeropittura (First Exhibit of Aeropainting) is held with the participation of the Futurists Balla, Ballelica, Benedetta, Diulgheroff, Dottori, Fillia, Oriani, Prampolini, Bruna, Somenzi, Tato and Thayaht, organized by Marinetti in Rome’s Camerata degli Artisti to celebrate Italo Balbo’s transatlantic flight. Numerous aeropainting exhibitions are held throughout Italy.