Italian Futurist Theatre 1909 1944

Italian Futurist Theatre provides an overview of the theatrical activities of the Italian Futurist movement, headed by F. T. Marinetti. It analyzes the theory and practice of Futurist performance, covers the theatre work of all leading artists and writers of the movement, and discusses the main aims and achievements of their theatrical experiments. While focusing on reconstructing the performance history of Futurist theatre, this book also incorporates aspects of dramatic writing, stage and costume design, theatre architecture, dance and opera.

February 21-September 1, 2014 The first comprehensive overview of Italian Futurism to be presented in the United States, this multidisciplinary exhibition examines the historical sweep of the movement from its inception with F.T. Marinetti's Futurist manifesto in 1909 through its demise at the end of World War II. Presenting over 300 works executed between 1909 and 1944, the chronological exhibition encompasses not only painting and sculpture, but also architecture, design, ceramics, fashion, film, photography, advertising, free-form poetry, publications, music, theater, and performance. To convey the myriad artistic languages employed by the Futurists as they evolved over a 35-year period, the exhibition integrates multiple disciplines in each section. Italian Futurism is organized by Vivien Greene, Curator, 19th- and Early 20th-Century Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In addition, a distinguished international advisory committee has been assembled to provide expertise and guidance.

Their provocative manifestos and outrageous performances earned the Italian Futurists international fame but, surprisingly, very little recognition outside of Italy for their actual achievements. The few English and American critics who have studied the movement in any depth have focused on the first phase, which spanned the years 1909-15 and was centred in Milan, Rome, and Florence. By contrast, the second phase covered a much longer period and represented a pan-Italian phenomenon. Despite the wealth of material available about this later part of the movement, there has been little attempt to survey Futurist activity outside of the major geographical centres in any detail or to relate it to the Futurist mainstream. In The Other Futurism, Willard Bohn seeks to remedy this oversight by examining the work of Futurists in Venice, Padua, and Verona from 1909 to 1944. He considers these local artists and writers both in terms of their relationship with F.T. Marinetti, who remained the major theorist and organizer of Futurist activities, and of their own specific adaptations and appropriations of Futurist theory. Conceived as a combination literary history and critical study, The Other Futurism looks at particular examples of literature, visual arts, and the performing arts and, using a series of rare documents, sheds new light on the complex cultural and political issues at the heart of this neglected chapter in Italy's history.

Roma Futurista and Il Montello -- The End of the War -- Epilogue -- List of Abbreviations -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

In 1909 the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published the founding manifesto of Italian Futurism, an inflammatory celebration of "the love of danger" and "the beauty of speed" that provoked readers to take aggressive action and "glorify war--the world's only hygiene." Marinetti's words unleashed an influential artistic and political movement that has since been neglected owing to its exaltation of violence and nationalism, its overt manipulation of mass media channels, and its associations with Fascism. Inventing Futurism is a major reassessment of Futurism that reintegrates it into the history of twentieth-century avant-garde artistic movements. Countering the standard view of Futurism as naïvely bellicose, Christine Poggi argues that Futurist artists and writers were far more ambivalent in their responses to the shocks of industrial modernity than Marinetti's incendiary pronouncements would suggest. She closely examines Futurist literature, art, and politics within the broader context of Italian social history, revealing a surprisingly powerful undercurrent of anxiety among the Futurists--toward the accelerated rhythms of urban life, the rising influence of the masses, changing gender roles, and the destructiveness of war. Poggi traces the movement from its explosive beginnings through its transformations under Fascism to offer completely new insights into familiar Futurist themes, such as the thrill and trauma of velocity, the psychology of urban crowds, and the fantasy of flesh fused with metal, among others. Lavishly illustrated and unparalleled in scope, Inventing Futurism demonstrates that beneath Futurism's belligerent avant-garde posturing lay complex and contradictory attitudes toward an always-deferred utopian future.

This volume, Futurism and the Technological Imagination, results from a conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas in Helsinki. It contains a number of re-written conference contributions as well as several specially commissioned essays that address various aspects of the Futurists’ relationship to technology both on an ideological level and with regard to their artistic languages. In the early twentieth century, many art movements vied with each other to overhaul the aesthetic and ideological foundations of arts and literature and to make them suitable vehicles of expression in the new Era of the Machine. Some of the most remarkable examples came from the Futurist movement, founded in 1909 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. By addressing the full spectrum of Futurist attitudes to science and the machine world, this collection of 14 essays offers a multifaceted account of the complex and often contradictory features of the Futurist technological imagination. The volume will appeal to anybody interested in the history of modern culture, art and literature.

In this comprehensive guide, some of the world's leading scholars consider the issues, films, and filmmakers that have given Italian cinema its enduring appeal. Readers will explore the work of such directors as Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Roberto Rossellini as well as a host of subjects including the Italian silent screen, the political influence of Fascism on the movies, lesser known genres such as the giallo (horror film) and Spaghetti Western, and the role of women in the Italian film industry. Italian Cinema from the Silent Screen to the Digital Image explores recent developments in cinema studies such as digital performance, the role of media and the Internet, neuroscience in film criticism, and the increased role that immigrants are playing in the nation's cinema.

This publication offers for the first time an inter-disciplinary and comparative perspective on Futurism in a variety of countries and artistic media. 20 scholars discuss how the movement shaped the concept of a cultural avant-garde and how it influenced the development of modernist art and literature around the world.