F.T. Marinetti Futurism

F.T. Marinetti = Futurism

In the new premises of the Sala del Collezionista, seventy works and a rich documentary section will reconstruct the varied activities of the founder of Futurism to mark the centenary of the birth of the first great Italian avantgarde movement which took place in Milan in 1909.

The Fondazione Stelline of Milan is organizing, from February 12 to June 7, 2009, the first major exhibition entirely devoted to Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the founder of Futurism. On February 20, 1909, "Le Figaro" in Paris published the Manifesto of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, proclaiming the act of foundation of Futurism. One hundred years later, the City of Milan, the home of Futurism (the movement's first official headquarters were in Marinetti's house at Via Senato 2), has undertaken to organize a rich program with plays, films, dance, and fashion displays, which will make the city throughout 2009 the capital of Futurism.

Within this context is set the exhibition F. T. MARINETTI=FUTURISM, which seeks to explore and rediscover the figure of Marinetti in all its richness and complexity, from the inventor and promoter of Futurism to the writer and publisher of Futurist texts, bringing out his international importance as an intellectual and innovator of language. Marinetti was the true detonator of the new course of Italian art, the genius of the aesthetic revolution that imprinted a radical change on Italian society and culture at the beginning of the 20th century.

The exhibition, curated by Luigi Sansone, assisted by a scholarly board consisting of Luigi Ballerini, Lucia Matino, Ermanno Paccagnini, Filippo Piazzoni and Elena Pontiggia, is organized by the Fondazione Stelline in collaboration with the City of Milan and the Lombardy Region, under the Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic, with the contribution of the Province of Milan, the support of the Ministry for the Heritage and Cultural Activities and the Comitato Nazionale per le celebrazioni del centenario del Manifesto Futurista.

Futurism was the first art movement embodied in a comprehensive ideology to involve all sectors of existence: art, politics, manners, morals and scientific progress, becoming within a few years one of the most important artistic-literary phenomena of the modern age both in Italy and the world. The Futurists had the merit of being the first to perceive the need for a far-reaching and radical renewal, to be adequate to the new times.

The exhibition will present, besides numerous portraits and caricatures of Marinetti, a number of fundamental masterpieces present in the artist's original collection or which Marinetti persuaded the City of Milan to acquire, including the works of Umberto Boccioni Elasticità, Linea e forza di una bottiglia and Sotto il pergolato a Napoli, and those of Giacomo Balla Spazzolridente ed Espansione di primavera, all from the collections of the Civiche Raccolte di Milano.

The important and previously unpublished core of the exhibition brings together for the first time 30 parolibere panels, including the Battaglia a 9 piani (1915)from the MART, the panel Parole in libertà-Bombardamento sola igiene (1915) of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Bologna, Guido Guidi (1916), besides the largest parolibera panel, never before exhibited, from the UCLA (University of Los Angeles), Bombardement d'Andrinople (1915). Other important loans enrich the exhibition, such as the tactile panel Sudan-Parigi."

The exhibition will also document his work as the author of "Futurist theatrical syntheses" and "words in freedom", theorized in the manifesto Il Teatro Futurista Sintetico, the Manifesto tecnico della letteratura futurista and the subsequent Supplemento al Manifesto tecnico della letteratura futurista, containing the first example of a parolibera panel: Battaglia peso + odore.

Among the rare parolibere and Marinetti's numerous publications, a conspicuous place will be given to the parolibero volume Zang Tumb-Tumb (Edizioni futuriste di "Poesia", Milan 1914), a true incunabulum of modern European literary experimentation. Marinetti's parolibere will then be compared with those of other Futurists, including Azari, Balla, Buzzi, Cangiullo, Carrà, Depero, Folgore, Govoni, Benedetta Marinetti and Mazza.

A further documentary section will enrich the exhibition: Futurist manifestos; photographs; period catalogues; postcards; issues of the journal "Poesia"; "Gli Avvenimenti"; "Il Mondo"; -Vela Latina"; "Noi"; "L'Italia Futurista", but also -Anthologie Revue- and -La Vogue-, testifying to his activities before Futurism. Also on display will be numerous exhibits and important documents, including a manuscript by Marinetti dealing with photography, Ezra Pound's Canto LXXII and the works of Carlo Belloli in the collection of the Isisuf, Istituto Internazionale di Studi sul Futurismo.

The catalogue, published by Federico Motta Editore to accompany the exhibition, is rich in further studies of the founder of Futurism and brings out the international importance of Marinetti through essays by important scholars and writers: F. T. Marinetti the Emblem of Futurism by Luigi Sansone; The role of Marinetti as Writer and the Book of the Artist by Luigi Ballerini; Marinetti French Pre-Futurist by Ermanno Paccagnini; The Role of Marinetti in the Creation of British Modernism by Frederick K. Lang; Why Speed is a Religion by Jeffrey Schnapp; Marinetti Academician of Italy and D'Annunzio by Giordano Bruno Guerri; Marinetti and Futurist Japan by Nishino Yoshiaki; Marinetti and the Manifestos of Futurism by Giusi Baldissone.

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti = Futurism