Along the way, it gained new practitioners and underwent several stylistic evolutions—shifting from the fractured spaces of the 1910s to the machine aesthetics (or arte meccanica) of the ’20s, and then to the softer, lyrical forms of the ’30s. Aviation’s popularity and nationalist significance in 1930s Italy led to the swirling, often abstracted, aerial imagery of Futurism’s final incarnation, aeropittura.
This novel painting approach united the Futurist interest in nationalism, speed, technology, and war with new and dizzying visual perspectives. The fascination with the aerial spread to other mediums, including ceramics, dance, and experimental aerial photography.
The exhibition is enlivened by three films commissioned from documentary filmmaker Jen Sachs, which use archival film footage, documentary photographs, printed matter, writings, recorded declamations, and musical compositions to represent the Futurists’ more ephemeral work and to bring to life their words-in-freedom poems.
One film addresses the Futurists’ evening performances and events, called serate, which merged “high” and “low” culture in radical ways and broke down barriers between spectator and performer. Mise-en-scène installations evoke the Futurists’ opera d’arte totale interior ensembles, from those executed for the private sphere to those realized under Fascism.
Italian Futurism concludes with the five monumental canvases that compose the Syntheses of Communications (1933–34) by Benedetta (Benedetta Cappa Marinetti), which are being shown for the first time outside of their original location. One of few public commissions awarded to a Futurist in the 1930s, the series of paintings was created for the Palazzo delle Poste (Post Office) in Palermo, Sicily.
The paintings celebrate multiple modes of communication, many enabled by technological innovations, and correspond with the themes of modernity and the “total work of art” concept that underpinned the Futurist ethos.
Exhibition Catalogue
A fully illustrated, 352-page catalogue accompanies Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe. Featuring the work of nearly thirty scholars, it offers an important contribution to the understanding of this major avant-garde movement of the 20th century.
Edited by exhibition curator Vivien Greene, the book begins with three introductory essays: an overview of Futurism, an analysis of its historiography, and an investigation of its social and political context. It is then structured like a microhistory, with short texts focusing on specific artists, series, and moments to present a selection of Futurism’s many facets.
A hardcover edition priced at $60 and a softcover edition priced at $40 will be available at the museum shop and online at guggenheimstore.org, and distributed in the United States through ARTBOOK | D.A.P.
Education and Public Programs
Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe is accompanied by a range of public programs, including a series of lectures by Futurist scholars, a gallery program, film screenings, and performances by Luciano Chessa and Daniele Lombardi.
For complete information about the programs presented in conjunction with the exhibition, please visit guggenheim.org/calendar.
Source: Guggenheim Museum
