Back To The Futurists

The Italian Futurists had an obsession with all things modern, the city, the automobile, the plane. They turned their backs on the past and set their sites on the technological future, hence their name. Their mania for speed, whether that of a fast moving car or a diving plane, was based upon a veneration of technology; they even came to identify the din of the city as “The Art of Noise,” the mechanical world’s equivalent to bird song and the babbling brook.

Futurist ceramic tiles by Corrado Cagli and Dante Baldelli (1931) depicting Mussolini’s rise to power.

Now a new Italian museum, The Wolfsoniana, presents a major collection of Futurist works consisting of some 20,000 objects and 17,000 documents; which includes an original copy of “The Futurist Manifesto,” the influential proclamation written in 1909 by the movement’s founder, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

However, while the Futurist vision of a machine world was brilliantly expressed aesthetically, it was doomed to ultimate failure because it was coupled with fascist ideology. Marinetti’s angry manifesto heralded a new art movement but also prefigured the fascist takeover of Italy. In his original statement Marinetti proclaimed, “We want to glorify war – the only cure for the world.”

Detail of tile by Corrado Cagli and Dante Baldelli.

In retrospect it’s easy to be dismissive of the Futurists for their close connections to Benito Mussolini, but their rhetoric was remarkably similar in tone to things I hear and read today.

How is our current infatuation with technology any different than theirs? It begs the question, “How do you know you are not a fascist?” Perhaps we’ll find the answer by studying the Wolfsoniana collection of artworks prompted by Italy’s bygone totalitarians.

Detail of tile by Corrado Cagli and Dante Baldelli.

Similar Posts

  • Body Worlds: Diary of the Dead

    On January 29, 2005, I wrote an article titled Body Worlds: The Art of Plastic Corpses?, in which I criticized the popular traveling exhibitions of plasticized human bodies that have garnered so much national attention in the United States. On March 4, 2005, I wrote a follow-up article, Body Worlds Corpse Factory, which took a closer look at Gunther von…

  • The Right to Art Manifesto

    Part of the mission of my Art For A Change web log is to invigorate the arts scene, turning it from its isolation and lethargy to a newfound engagement. Here’s a bit of news artists around the world should take note of, particularly those living in the United States who insist that art should remain detached from social action. Professional…

  • Mary Magdalene is from Afghanistan?

    Apparently St. Mary Magdalene was from Afghanistan. While looking through an online edition of the Washington Post I discovered an article they ran about Mary Magdalene, which was accompanied by the illustration shown below. The graphic had the following caption: “This handout image released by the Grace Cathedral shows an icon of St. Mary Magdalene, the principal woman disciple of…

  • The Architecture of Submission

    Cultural democracy is part of the structure of any truly democratic society, and like political democracy, it derives its strength solely from the people. The creation, propagation, and accessibility of the arts not only helps to promote democratic values – it is vital to them. However, participatory and community based cultural democracy is never a given, it is something we…

  • Making a Killing in Central America

    In 1989 I created a pencil drawing titled We’re Making A Killing In Central America. The image depicts two of the many thousands of innocent civilians who were tortured and murdered in Central America during the bloody conflicts of the 1980s. To “make a killing” is an English idiom that means – to do something resulting in substantial financial success…

  • Simon Schama’s, The Power of Art

    The Power of Art, an engrossing series that takes a close-up look at the life and times of eight master artists, begins its series premiere tonight on PBS (Monday, June 18th, 2007.) Created by fêted art historian and author, Simon Schama, the broadcasts focus on Mark Rothko, Jacques-Louis David, Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, Rembrandt van Rijn, Caravaggio, Vincent van Gogh, J.M.W….