Futurism

Transcript

1. Futurism  
2.   Context   Was  started  in  Italy  around  1900  by  a  group  of  ar;sts,     Umberto  Boccioni,  Giacomo  Balla,  Gino  Severini,  and  Carlo   Carrà,  led  by  the  poet  F.T.  MarineH.  There  were  also  futurist   architects  and  musicians.   They  claimed  to  be  the  new  men,  men  of  speed,  technology,   violence,  who  despised  tradi;on  and  only  believed  in   perpetual  renewing.   Most  of  them  became  members  of  the  Italian  Fascist  party  in   the  20s,  in  a  curious  understanding  of  this  ‘new  man’.   Rayonism  in  Russia  and  Vor+cism  in  Britain  are  short-­‐lived  off-­‐ shots  of  Futurism  (some;mes  combined  with  Cubism).  
3.   The  Futurist  Manifesto  (1909)     by  F.T.  MarineH         hRp://masi.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-­‐manifesto.html  
4. Futurist  pain;ng  is  about  represen;ng  speed,     as  in  this  picture  by  Luigi  Russolo  en;tled  Dynamism  of  a  Car  
5. The  sculpture  made  by   futurist  ar;sts  wants  to   transcend  the  sta;c   dimension  of  this  medium.     Umberto  Boccioni’s  Unique   Forms  of  Con+nuity  in  Space   from  1913  is  an  example  of   the  ar;st’s  aRempt  to  show   something  as  immaterial  as   speed.     Ridiculed  at  the  ;me,  it   seems  that  Boccioni  was   proved  right,  a  century   later,  by  modern  science.  
6. Futurism  or  Cubism?   Although  the  Italians  do  not  acknowledge  the  influence  that  the  French  cubists  had  on   them,  this  pain;ng  by  the  same  Boccioni,  Dynamism  of  a  Human  Body,  1913,  proves   that  at  least  something  was  in  the  air  at  that  ;me.    
7.     Maybe  what  was  in  the  air  at  the  beginning  of  the  20th  C.  was   the  passion  for  science,  for  looking  at  the  world  through  the   eyes  of  a  scien;st.  For  ar;sts,  this  meant  decomposing  material   and  immaterial  nature  into  mul;ple  facets,  all  linked  together  by   the  con;nuous  flow  of  speed.     A  new  world  vision  was  being  created,  in  which  the  old,  sta;c   tradi;ons  had  no  more  room.  The  locus  of  the  futurists  was  the   noisy,  heated  city,  and  their  ac;ons  violent  and  scandalous.      
8. “Look  at  us!  We  are  not  out  of  breath,  our  hearts  are  not  in  the  least  ;red.  For  they  are  nourished  by  fire,   hatred  and  speed!  Does  this  surprise  you?  it  is  because  you  do  not  even  remember  being  alive!  Standing  on  the   world's  summit,  we  launch  once  more  our  challenge  to  the  stars!”   -­‐  from  The  Futurist  Manifesto   Luigi  Russolo,  The  Revolt  (1911)