Lecco: The exhibition “Futurists. An avant-garde generation” at Palazzo delle Paure.
From 18 March to 18 June 2023, the Palazzo delle Paure in Lecco will host the exhibition “FUTURISTS. A cutting-edge generation” which investigates the presence of avant-garde languages in Italy in the first decades of the twentieth century.
The exhibition, curated by Simona Bartolena, produced and created by ViDi cultural, In collaboration with the Municipality of Lecco and the Lecco Urban Museum System, travel partner Trenord, focuses on the futurist experience, in its many expressions, through the works of its most famous representatives, from Giacomo Balla to Luigi Russolo, from Gino Severini to Enrico Prampolini, from Filippo Tommaso Marinetti to Antonio Sant'Elia, from Fortunato Depero to Tullio Crali, to many others.
Futurism was able to bring its breath of novelty and revolution into the visual arts, literature, music but also into everyday life.
The exhibition recounts, in its various forms, one of the most important avant-garde movements in Europe, born and developed in Italy, and its relationships with the European scene and with the Italian society of the time. The exhibition itinerary, divided into seven chapters, offers an engaging overview of the known and lesser-known outcomes of the movement and opens with the section that traces the origins of the movement, starting from 20 February 1909 in which on the pages of the French newspaper Le Figaro, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published an article entitled The Futurisms in which with bright and provocative tones, characteristic of his prose, he advocated the need for a revolution, to destroy every "old-fashioned" and to finally make room for the "new".
The story continues by investigating the relationship between Futurism and the first world war when the futurists supported the interventionist belief, hoping for a significant improvement in the conditions of the nation thanks to imperialist politics. A splendid canvas dedicated to Francesco Baracca by Plinio Nomellini it also offers an opportunity to reflect on the relationship of the futurist avant-garde with the Divisionism.
A focus is also dedicated to the role that Futurism had in the birth of the new experimental languages of the beginning of the last century, in particular with the Cubism, also through the figure of Gino Severini, a true trait d'union between the two worlds.
An interesting study, so far little investigated, is also reserved for the presence of abstractionist hypotheses in Italian production, with works by authors such as Giacomo Balla and with a parenthesis dedicated to abstractionists from Como such as Manlio Rho, Mario Radice and Carla Badiali and their relationship with Marinetti.
The Lecco exhibition then moves on to analyze one of the most innovative instances of the futurist language in painting, namely that of reproducing a moving object, placing the spectator in front of a composition in progress, soliciting dynamic sensations, through a series of works of Luigi Russolo, Roberto Iras Baldessari, Giulio D'Anna and others, in which the concepts of dynamism, simultaneity and interpenetration of visual planes are particularly evident.
Far from being considered just an artistic movement, Futurism opened up to a dialogue with other expressive forms, from cinema to literature, from music to theatre, from cuisine to fashion, publishing between 1909, the date of the group's foundation, and 1916, over fifty manifestos dealing with the most diverse languages. The section A futuristic universe, the core of the exhibition, presents important evidence of the interaction with the applied arts, advertising communication, design, theatre, dance and music. Particular attention will be paid to the search for Fortunato Depero and to his relationship with Campari and Luigi Russolo whose details will be exposed Noisemakers by Luigi Russolo.
The review ends by examining the evolution of the futurist avant-garde, as it developed in the 1930s where the new generations adapted to the new social and political climate, transforming historical futurism into a less coherent and certainly less utopian and revolutionary, but still capable of representing current events.
Among the various currents born in this period, that ofAerofuturism, born from the passion for air flight, and that of the "cosmic" vision, characteristic of later research, open to spiritual and esoteric suggestions, with works by authors such as Tullio Crali, Gerardo Dottori, Giulio D'Anna, Fillìa, Thayaht, Alessandro Bruschetti, Barbara and others.
“In recent years – recalls Simona Bartolena – the leading role in the European context of this Avant-garde born in Italy has also been widely recognized at an international level, with important studies and major exhibitions in the main museums of the world, and yet even today the knowledge that of it has the general public is not complete and thorough. Most of the texts dedicated to Futurism are, in fact, focused on the early years of the movement. But the first period which ended, in fact, with Boccioni's early death in 1916, was followed by other years full of food for thought, very interesting in terms of novelty of language and originality of research. Without denying the importance of the first ten years of gestation, in a correct reading of Futurism one cannot ignore the analysis of the following two decades. Indeed, it is precisely in these subsequent generations that Futurism finds its uniqueness; compared to other European avant-gardes".
“This explosive and prolonged vitality – continues Simona Bartolena – allows Futurism to spread throughout the peninsula and far surpass the boundaries in which the necessarily elitist languages of the historical avant-garde usually move. Although not adhering to the official art system (from which it proudly kept itself distant), Futurism was able, especially in the 1930s, to build a complex cultural network of its own, as an extraordinary and unique alternative in the European panorama to the most fashionable trends . The exhibition also aims to explore these aspects, as well as tell, more generally, Marinetti's movement".
Thus the Councilor for Culture of the Municipality of Lecco Simona Piazza: “The path promoted by ViDi cultural continues, in collaboration with the municipal administration for the exhibition of the great exhibitions of Palazzo Paure, on the journey that accompanies us between the 800th century and the 900th century. 900 which thus reaches the early XNUMXs with the avant-garde languages, that is, futurism. An important exhibition which brings together significant works also on the national and international scene, with the possibility of being an attractive event not only for the citizens and schools who will visit it, but also for a public who will come to Lecco interested in attending and visiting the our city in terms of participation and cultural tourism".
The initiative is the second of five events Paths in the twentieth century, a program conceived by the Management of the Lecco Urban Museum System and entrusted for its planning and implementation to ViDi Cultural who, until November 2024, will analyze the Italian cultural scene in the first six decades of the XNUMXth century.
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