Italian Futurism

Die interdisziplinären Beiträge zeigen anhand vielfältiger Beispiele die Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Medien, Kultur und Gesellschaft auf. Hinterfragt wird, inwieweit die medialen Zäsuren zwischen 1900 und 2000 den digitalen Umbruch im Übergang zum 21. Jahrhundert herbeiführen und begleiten. Der Band liefert sowohl in historischer als auch theoretischer Hinsicht einen Beitrag zur aktuellen Diskussion und lädt zur Revision bestehender mediengeschichtlicher Periodisierungen ein. (Abstract zum Buch)

In his 2006 novel Against the Day, set around the turn of the twentieth century, Thomas Pynchon renegotiates his relationship with modernism. His juxtaposition of postmodernism and modernism conforms to Timothy Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker’s account of metamodernism. De Bourcier reads the Kafkaesque story of Lew Basnight through Slavoj Žižek’s opposition between modernist absence and “The Obscene Object of Postmodernity.” The chapter examines Pynchon’s engagement with the technological contexts of modernism, focusing on his fictional inventions the Tesla device and the Integroscope, and deploying theorisations of technology by Walter Benjamin and Friedrich Kittler. It shows that Pynchon juxtaposes Divisionism—a school of painting influenced by scientific investigations into colour such as Ogden N. Rood’s Modern Chromatics—with Kit Traverse’s embroilment in Futurism and Fascism.

Saggio pubblicato in “RSI- Rivista di Studi Italiani”, (Peer- reviewed), Anno XXVII, N. 1 Giugno 2009 Perugia, "Futurismo come attualità e divenire" a cura di Ignazio Apolloni e Nino Arrigo.
ISSN 1916-5412 Rivista di Studi Italiani (Toronto, Canada, online dal 2005) www.rivistadistudiitaliani.it

В статье анализируются различные концепции современности в итальянской литературе рубежа веков. Современность рассматривается как ключевая категория литературного процесса, в ее трактовках раскрываются основные философские, исторические, эстетические воззрения отдельных авторов и целых направлений. На рубеже веков современность может пониматься как конкретная историческая эпоха после объединения Италии или же как достижимый или недоступный эстетический идеал. Современность как исторический период связывается с разочарованием и осознанием отсталости и «провинциальности» страны и общества. У скапильяти социокритическая
установка выражается в романтическом по сути конфликте личности и социума, у веристов — в трагическом столкновении традиционного крестьянского мира с разрушающей его современностью. В русле той же социокритической традиции находится Л.Пиранделло. Одной из сторон современного мировосприятия является ощущение усталости и упадка: у Г.Д’Аннунцио оно приобретает форму декадентского эстетизма, у «сумеречников» реализуется в идее повседневности, подменяющей собой современность, у Пиранделло выражается в состоянии потерянности, характерном для современного человека. В эстетическом смысле современность в Италии начинается как борьба с романтизмом, однако уже здесь проявляется проблемный характер этого понятия: Дж.Кардуччи и скапильяти, отказываясь от итальянского романтизма, обращаются к романтизму европейскому, пытаясь таким образом преодолеть культурное отставание Италии. Верист Л.Капуана разрабатывает позитивистский идеал современной литературы, но впоследствии отказывается от него. Д’Аннунцио видит идеал современного искусства в восстановлении культурной преемственности. Футуристы, напротив, понимают современность как разрыв с традицией. Но в конечном счете все эстетические трактовки современности в Италии рубежа веков сводятся к одной интенции: преодолению отсталости и изоляции Италии, возвращению ее в русло общеевропейского культурного процесса.

The article analyzes various concepts of modernity in Italian literature at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Modernity is considered a key category of the literary process of the period: different views of modernity reveal philosophical, historical,
and aesthetic ideas of the major authors and literary currents. The term modernity
in its relation to Italy at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries may be understood in two different ways: as a specific time period after the unification of Italy and as an aesthetic ideal, both reachable and unreachable. Modernity as a historical period is inseparable from the sense of disappointment and awareness of Italian backwardness and provincialism. The Scapigliati manifest their socio-critical position as a Romantic conflict between individual and society, Verism represents the same idea as a tragic clash of traditional peasant world and modernity that is destroying it. Luigi Pirandello belongs to the same socio-critical tradition. The sense of weariness and decadence is one of the aspects of modern worldview: Gabriele D’Annunzio expresses it in the form of decadent aestheticism; the Crepusculars reject modernity and replace it with the idea of everyday life; Luigi Pirandello puts a special emphasis on the state of perplexity and confusion experienced by a modern man. From the aesthetic point of view, modernity in Italy begins as a struggle against Romanticism; however, here we encounter the controversial nature of the concept again. Giosue Carducci and the Scapigliati reject Italian Romanticism but turn to European Romanticism trying to overcome Italian cultural backwardness. A Verist writer Luigi Capuana elaborates a positivist ideal of modern literature and yet abandons it later. D’Annunzio sees the ideal of modern art in restoring cultural continuity. Futurists, on the contrary, understand modernity as breaking with tradition. Thus, all aesthetic interpretations of modernity in Italy focus on one intention — to overcome Italian backwardness and isolation and make Italy part of European culture again.

Con la presunzione e l’ignoranza dell’osservatore che cerca figure note ed intellegibili, ho cercato il ciclista, ho cercato una bicicletta... poi mi sono chiesto se era quello il modo giusto di osservare il quadro o se, piuttosto, non mi stavo limitando a guardarlo cercando di trovare quel che vedevo ogni giorno nel mio mondo, fatto di vere biciclette e di veri ciclisti.
Ma il senso del "Futurismo" non era la creazione dell'immagine, quanto quella dell'atmosfera, e allora non ho potuto fare altro che ammirare questo quadro che E’ davvero il “Dinamismo di un ciclista” e NON il ciclista!

Art and war have gone hand in hand since the concept of war. From photographers to painters, writers, and scribes, documentation of war has been prevalent throughout time. Whether it be prefacing or recapping, literature has played an pivotal role in the perception of war. While pre-World War I Europeans were aware that Europe was on the brink of war, literary works such as Lay Down Your Arms, The War in the Air, and Manifesto of Futurism depicted mixed feelings of excitement, apprehension, and contempt for the horror that was to follow.

La mostra allestita presso il Coworking Gottifredo ad Alatri [13 novembre 2021 – 09 gennaio 2022] dal titolo «Ciacelli: la visione molteplice» rimette in luce una delle figure più singolari dell’avanguardia novecentista, purtroppo spesso ingiustamente trascurata: Arturo Ciacelli [1883 – 1966].
L’opportunità è stata offerta dalla felice congiuntura tra l’Associazione Gottifredo, che si occupa di promozione culturale ad ampio spettro, e la Collezione Costantini, raccolta con passione e competenza dall’avv. Remo Costantini che, da anni, osserva il mercato delle aste alla ricerca delle tracce di Ciacelli, artista ciociaro per molti versi dimenticato nella sua stessa terra d’origine.

O presente artigo pretende realizar uma reflexão acerca do gênero manifesto, entendido como uma das formas textuais mais características da modernidade. Pretende-se analisar como o manifesto ultrapassou os limites de uma temática essencialmente política para abraçar a literatura e as artes plásticas, transformando-se em um instrumento de ação e de vivência estética tipicamente modernistas. A partir das relações entre texto, artista e público, o manifesto tornou-se o propulsor de uma nova literatura, aquela que se constitui principalmente como ação, gesto e contínuo devir. Abstract Resumo Palavras-chave This article intends to reflect on the genre of the manifesto, understood as one of modernity's most characteristic textual forms. It seeks to analyze how the manifesto exceeded the limits of essentially political themes to embrace literature and the fine arts, becoming an instrument of action and experience typical of the modernist aesthetic. From the relationship between text, artist and audience, the manifesto became the propeller of a new literature, one that mainly constitutes itself as action, gesture and continuous becoming Modernity,

Italian Futurism praised violence as a means of leaving behind imitations of the past in order to project itself most efficiently into the future.
ISIS overcomes the postmodern, pessimistic futurism of “cyberpunk” and links itself to the optimistic attitude that was common in Italian Futurism in the early twentieth century. ISIS returns to modernism. Cyberpunk stands for the exhaustion of the industrial economy while Italian Futurism is the origin of an optimistic kind of Science Fiction.

This paper establishes the mock-epic poem, Re Orso, by Arrigo Boito, first published in 1864, as an under-acknowledged source text for Le Roi Bombance, an important pre-Futurist play by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, first published in 1905. In so doing, Boito’s legacy to twentieth-century Italian modernism is asserted, a standing often denied to him. In addition, the debt Marinetti owed to nineteenth-century Italian literature is also established, a point often neglected due to the fact that Marinetti wrote exclusively in French between 1899 and 1912. A new interpretation of the philosophy of Re Orso is offered, which argues that a rejection of anthropocentrism constitutes the poem’s central message. The paper demonstrates how Le Roi Bombance built on the ideas put forward in Re Orso, and how Marinetti would subsequently establish a rejection of the anthropocentric system as an important element of his Futurist theory of literature, following the launch of the Futurist movement in 1909.

The futurist painter Osvaldo Barbieri a.k.a. Oswaldo Bot published a terrific amount of books during his most creative period, 1929-1947.  They are many, often very brilliant, printed in small runs, and today among the most wanted rarities by collectors of futurist publications.
Published in the catalogue of the big exhibition held in Piacenza, Sept-Dec 2015 (curator Elena Pontiggia), the paper offers, for the first time ever, a number of interpretive insights about this unique publishing fervor — an urge that that is unmatched even in the context of Italian Futurism, very much oriented to journalistic activities and communication.

The act of aestheticizing tangible forms of chaos within art has been made synonymous to several artistic movements throughout history. However, from popularizing violent dynamics to synthesizing war-fueled social movements, futurism, in particular has been noted for its distinct visual language, artistic technique, and captivating color palette.

Written as an academic paper for a Columbia seminar.

Futurizam je originalno poznat kao talijanski umjetnički pokret, koji se nešto kasnije proširio i u druge krajeve Europe. Pokret je „zagrlio“ skoro sve umjetničke oblike – pored onih najbitnijih (slikarstvo, skulptura, arhitektura i fotografija), futurizam se dotakao i filma, kinoteke, teatra, književnosti, glume, modnog dizajna, grafičkog dizajna, te dizajna interijera. Pokret je oficijelno osnovan zajedno sa objavom prvog, glavnog manifesta – Le Futurisme (1909.), napisan od strane Filippo Tommaso Marinettija, te objavljen u pariškim najpoznatijim dnevnim novinama – Le Figaro. Glavni cilj futurizma, kao i drugih avangardnih umjetničkih pokreta bila je ustvari reakcija na prošlost, buđenje nove revolucionarne kulture, te modernizacija društva. Futuristički pokret zapamćen je kao nasilni pokret okrunisan entuzijazmom protiv teškog, masivnog umjetničkog naslijeđa talijanske kulturne tradicije, te pokret koji je estetiku lijepog pronašao u modernom mitu mašine i brzine.  Futurizam relativno brzo privlači pažnju i interes mnogih pisaca i umjetnika širom svijeta. Već 1909. g. okuplja se veliki broj umjetnika i pjesnika koji su skoro sve do 1945. g. (trideset i sedam godina) konstantno radili na novim manifestima i stvarali nova umjetnička djela. Najpoznatiji predstavnici ovog pokretu su: osnivač – F.T. Marinetti, Carlo Carra, Umberto Boccioni, Luigi Russolo, Gino Severini i Giacomo Balla. Pored njih, djelovalo je još mnogo drugih, manje poznatih umjetnika, a neke od njih ćemo imati priliku „upoznati“ kroz rad. Prva bitna futuristička izložba održana je u Milanu, 30.04.1911. Kasnije su futuristi djela izlagali u galeriji Bernheim-Jeune, u Parizu, počevši od 1912. g.  Djela su tada počela kružiti cijelom Europom (Engleska, Njemačka, Holandija), prouzrokovala su mnoge kritike i mnogo komentara (pozitivnih i negativnih), te ostavila veliki dojam na publiku, ali i dr. umjetnike. Djela su se čak pojavila i u američkim medijima, a 1913. g. Severini je uspješno održao prvu samostalnu izložbu u Londonu.  U svom djelovanju (1909-1945.), futuristi su ukupno objavili oko sedamdeset manifesta. Futurizam i jeste specifičan upravo zbog velikog broja manifesta. Sve što su futuristi ikada napisali i objavili, nalazi se u manifestima. U manifestima su futuristi jasno iznosili svoja mišljenja, davali razne komentare, kritikovali druge umjetnike i historiju umjetnosti, te izlagali nove ideje i postavljali nova pravila. Čini se da su im manifesti služili poput privatnih dnevnika u koje su pisali apsolutno sve što bi im palo na pamet. Svi futuristički manifesti su pisani u narativu, s tim da su u određenim manifestima dodane fotografije, skice, studije, pa čak i neka napisana djela (npr. predstave ili recitacije). Futuristički manifesti se ne dotiču uvijek direktno i samo umjetnosti. Postoji izuzetan broj manifesta koji su isključivo politički. Skoro svaki manifest jasno predstavlja određene stavke za ili protiv nečega  - stavke su jasno i opširno objašnjene. Rad upravo kroz manifeste, zajedno sa drugim izvorima, detaljnije objašnjava isključivo dva umjetnička futuristička segmenta – modni dizajn i teatar. Iako ne toliko poznati, i iako ne od tolike važnosti u samom pokretu futurizma, futuristi se ipak (barem na kratko) jesu dotakli i modnog dizajna i teatra. Od ukupno sedamdesetak manifesta, samo je oko osam njih posvećeno ovim segmentima. Prvi dio rada bavi se problematikom futurističkog muškog i ženskog modnog dizajna kroz primjere i manifeste. Giacomo Balla se najviše pozabavio modnim dizajnom. On je dugo analizirao historiju modnog dizajna i istu je htio da promjeni upravo stvarajući sasvim nove oblike odjeće, drugačijih boja i uskoro je uspio šokirati apsolutno sviju. Također je upotrebljavao materijale koji se inače nisu koristili za odjeću. Drugi dio rada detaljnije objašnjava ulogu teatra u samom pokretu (isto kroz manifeste). Teatar je za futuriste imao dosta veliku ulogu. Upravo su kroz teatar futuristi mogli da se direktno povežu sa svojom publikom. Teatar je futuristima služio i kao scena za objavljivanje i čitanje novih manifesta, a donosio im je i veliku zaradu. U trećem, završnom dijelu predstavljeni su elementi historijske avangarde kroz St Simonovu, Greenbergovu, Burgerovu, Huyssenovu, Dayevu te Woodovu teoriju avangarde. Koje su to osobine koje futurizam čine avangardnim? Koliko se one mogu zaista povezati sa futurizmom? Odgovor na ova pitanja predstavljen je u posljednjem dijelu rada. Rad također zadrži i četiri grafikona koja sam ručno izradio, a jedan od njih predstavlja historijski razvoj svih futurističkih manifesta. Svi grafikoni, zajedno sa reprodukcijama i manifestima su postavljeni u dodatak rada.

In this essay I will be discussing and analyzing Tullio Crali's Nose Dive on the City. I will be analyzing the formal, iconographic, contextual and critical meaning and the influences of the futurism movement in relation to the main painting. The final part is reserved to the visual comparison between Nose Dive on the City and the Battle of Uari experienced by Menin's black futurist shirt.

A survey of prominent intellectuals on the subject of ‘Fascism and Culture’ in 1926 prompted some fittingly conflicted replies. ‘Surely you jest?’ responded the journalist and novelist Curzio Malaparte: ‘A Fascist art? Just what might that mean?’  One subject, however, already offered a means of figuring Fascism’s abidingly equivocal essence. ‘For the moment’, Malaparte writes, ‘the only original and powerful artistic expression of fascism is Mussolini himself.  Spurred by the retrospective attention to the Duce’s portraits in 1932, the sculptor Renato Bertelli (1900–1974) emerged from relative obscurity to design one of the most striking images from Fascism’s twenty-year rule.  It was, in fact, the very countlessness of Bertelli’s portrait – or more specifically, of its reproductions – that distinguished its import and impact. Not long after the work’s debut, Bertelli applied for a patent. After it was granted in July 1933, he set about distributing the design in a range of formats and sizes. This article places Bertelli's sculpture in the context of iconographic precedents both contemporary and archaic, while venturing an argument about the political etiology and effects of its proverbial "continuity."

In 1912, the poet and sculptor Takamura Kōtarō (1883-1956) published an article titled “Miraiha no zekkyō” (The Cry of Futurism), in which he presented various aspects of Italian Futurism. This paper discusses the historical significance of this article in the reception of Futurism in Japan and as a document of Kōtarō’s ideas on art and modernity.

This paper sheds light onto the unquestionable contribution Dottori conferred to Aeropainting which set off a new-fangled  perspective of looking at reality, painted  through a synthesis of transfiguration which at once challenges and harmonizes the terrestrial “objectivity”. The latter,  only ostensibly, is  on a lower level as the vault of heaven Dottori paints next to it, entirely includes it, the result is an all-encompassing harmony which joins the celestial and the terrestrial dimension.
Moreover this harmony is backed up by another crucial feature: Dottori’s art was also defined as slightly mystical and this further element bestowed  his Futurism an even more ethereal outlook: the height of his “flight” was abysmal and my paper aims to underline how vital this combination was.