WITHOUT THEME 3
This exhibition, where there is deliberately no guiding theme, focuses on Futurism as a cultural movement which has profoundly changed Italian society over the course of its history.
In general, Futurism is associated almost exclusively with the aesthetic representation of speed, of simultaneity, or with the poetics of mechanical art proclaimed in the Manifesto Futurista of 1922 by Prampolini, Pannaggi, Paladini: «What we call mechanical art, that is, the Machine adored and considered as a symbol, source and teacher of the new artistic sensitivity, it was born [...] in the most mechanical of Italian cities: Milan.»
But the Futurist movement between 1909 and 1944 produced a series of documents including manifestos, proclamations, interventions and theoretical documents which do not only deal with literature, painting, sculpture, but intervenes in all sectors of Italian culture with the aim of renewing it totally.
Valentine de Saint-Point's 1913 Manifesto Futurista della Lussuria intervenes on the common sense of morality, inverting the rule, until then infallible, which dictated what should and should not be done: «Lust, conceived outside every moral concept and as an essential element of the dynamism of life, is a force. For a strong race, lust is no more a capital sin than pride."
On the design of the city, the 1914 manifesto L'Architettura Futurista by Antonio Sant'Elia makes a clear cut with the architecture practiced up to then: «We must invent and re-manufacture the futurist city [...] The house of concrete, glass, iron , without painting and without sculpture, rich only in the beauty congenital to its lines and its reliefs, extraordinarily ugly in its mechanical simplicity [...] it must rise on the edge of a tumultuous abyss".
Giacomo Balla's 1914 manifesto Il vestito antineutrale intervenes on sartorial aesthetics: «The futurist hat will be asymmetrical and of aggressive and festive colours. The futurist shoes will be dynamic, different from each other, in shape and color, capable of happily kicking all the neutralists.»
The solution on how to restore the state budget is found in the manifesto L’unica soluzione del problema finanziario of 1915 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti: «We Futurists affirm that the Italian people are the richest on earth, since they possess an incalculable unused capital, constituted by the enormous heritage of ancient works of art piled up in its museums. We certainly propose to the Government the gradual and wise sale of this artistic heritage. Given that the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries alone were valued at more than one billion, in a few years Italy will be rich enough to [...] have the most powerful military fleet in the world."
The manifesto Il primo mobilio Italiano Futurista of 1916 by Arnaldo Ginna intervenes on the concept of modernity in design «My furniture arose as always from fundamental futurist ideas: the need for original ultra-modernism, hygiene, elegance, synthetic emotion.»
And finally, on the diffusion of music in the new futurist city, the indications are provided by the Manifesto Futurista per la città musicale of 1933, for which the musical city: «will be equipped with powerful radio amplifiers placed at the entrances and outlets of the main streets which will transmit […] inciting music […] ingeniously adapted […] for the conquest of the day […] for the conquest of the night».
There is no doubt that many of the modernist aims of the movement have become deeply rooted in Italian culture, modifying its course - this is particularly evident in the forms of communication, graphics, architecture, design - and have contributed decisively to defining the current Italian aesthetic.
Luciano Fabale
