Perpetual Ripplets
Futurism

Yuko Otomo
October 2014

Italian Futurism, 1909 – 1944: Reconstructing The Universe

@ Guggenheim Museum, NYC
Feb. 21- Sept. 1, 2014

 <prior to viewing the exhibition>

I am writing this part in advance without having seen the exhibition at the museum. I want to consume my thoughts on non-visual aspects of this massive movement as much as possible beforehand to clear my view, so I can concentrate on its purely visual elements in the exhibition space, if such a thing is possible.

 Part I: 1909

 … erasing the past to bring in the “NEW” ideas/modes to start “afresh”…

A century after E. A. Poe was born, in the last year of the first decade of the 20^th century, the magnetic South Pole was found and the North Pole was claimed after having been reached by humans. The tungsten light bulb was on the market. Bakelite plastic was invented and shortwave radio broadcasting started. Kitahara Hakushu published Jashu-Mon. Apollinaire, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams each had his first book of poetry out. Gertrude Stein also had her first: Three Lives. Diaghilev launched the Ballets Russes in Paris. It was the year Dazai Osamu, Elia Kazan, James Agee, Eugene Ionesco and Francis Bacon were born. It was a year before the publication of Rilke’s The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, 2 years before D. H. Lawrence’s The White Peacock and a year after Maetrelink’s The Blue Bird and Nagai Kafu’s Amerika Monogatari. Cubism was at the height of its early explorations. And, 5 years afterwards, WWI began.

In that year, in 1909, a group of young Italian artists with a poet as leader gathered beneath mosque lamps whose brass cupolas are bright as our (their) souls. They wanted something new, physically and psychically. They wanted to demolish a reality laden with a stale and musty past in order to break through to more lively and dynamic future.

From horse buggies to cars, trains and airplanes, from a lamp light to electric light, from static non-movement to constant movement, from myths to science and technology, they cried out to “move on.” They were experiencing the early phase of an actual materialization of Modernity in a steady, stormy motion directly towards the future, almost forgetting the present. They believed in danger, energy and rashness, in aggression, in courage, audacity and revolt, in a new beauty: the beauty of speed… and in war.

They wrote a collective manifesto and published it twice in succession in major newspapers to announce their declaration to the public: first in Gazzetta dell’Emilia in Bologna on February 5, and again on February 20 in Le Figaro in Paris.  This was the first prototype of the “art manifesto,” which clearly assimilated the style of the Communist Manifesto. It subsequently influenced other art movements such as Dadaism and Surrealism to follow, equipped with their own manifestos. And all these 3 major historical art movements were led by poets as leaders, interestingly!

How easily we forget that Futurism was a movement conceived, proclaimed and activated by a group of considerably young artists. With a 33 year old poet as leader, most of them were under 30.  It was the voice of youth at the dawning of the first modern century. The tone of voice was fresh and the spirit was explosive. Their determination, thoughts and demands were definite and serious. Yet, it was a revolt of youth, nonetheless. Their self-conscious awareness of the alienation of being a small group, and the pride of being young, echoes all through their writing. We, the young, strong and living Futurists!  they shouted.

It is fascinating to read a manifesto written more than 100 years ago now. Although F.T. Marinetti wrote it, unlike Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto, it was a voice of the collective. The voice of “ours” not “mine.” With ideas and wishes jumping from youthful emotional outcries to poetic calls for social reforms, they spitted out a desperate declaration of the spirit of their time. Its tone was a war cry for an extreme makeover of their society.

From the onset, Futurism was political and heavily social-minded. Its purpose was not just to achieve a visual aesthetic revolution like other art movements, but to provoke a wholesome revolution in every aspect of the human world. Concerns over a visual art was a part of the whole, not the whole. Their interests were naturally widespread among a variety of fields: visual art, design, architecture, music, literature, politics, gastronomy and more. Outrageous and, in some parts, totally absurd, it was a movement of “Total Art” that glorified war, ideas of anti-museums, anti-libraries, anti-feminism, etc.

 

 Part II: War; Anti-Museums/Anti-Libraries; Fascism and Anti-Feminism

Destruction/reconstruction and emergence/exchange. War does bring in fresh dynamics and positive byproducts into a world that otherwise would never take place, ironically. War is a socially justified, morally and financially sanctioned, collective effort of an extreme destructive power, whether it’s ancient or modern, right or wrong.  These young Futurists, living in a country heavily weighed down with its dense history and heritage, felt that there was no space for a future UNLESS the past was totally blasted, blown off and eliminated. Only the extreme destructive force of war could do such an impossible job.

These pro-war artists believed in this “cleansing hygiene” as a major creative principle. This almost too simplistic idea of war sounds more like a Dada statement, but it was not a joke or satire. The Futurists were quite serious. Infuriated with an urgent need, their impatience, full of hatred toward the past, was intense. Their yearning was not merely symbolic. The core members of the group, F.T. Marinetti, Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni, all soon enrolled themselves in WWI, the first modern war, in 1914, exactly 100 years ago.

***

Museums, libraries and academies were considered cemeteries where sinister and moldy decay lived on. They cried out for the demolition of all the institutions that stood tall in front of them, denying their future.

… Heap up the fire to the shelves of the libraries! Divert the canals to flood the cellars of the museums! Let the glorious canvases swim ashore!  Take the picks and hammers!  Undermine the foundations of venerable towns!…

What a difference between their viewpoints toward these public institutions and ours! We cherish them as shared treasure houses. Any idea of destroying them now would be considered extremely insane or absolutely criminal. But for them, it was a matter of Life and Death. Yet, even with an empathic understanding of the reasons why, it is quite frightening to follow their nightmarishly violent call and vision for the destruction of these institutions. At the same time, this paradox tells us of their urgency.

How interesting it is to connect this to the shifted reality of Marinetti’s later personal history, where he ended up being an academician who was asking the Academy to represent Futurism! Uncountable and unimaginable self-betraying policy changes took place in the course of Futurism, but this turn from “anti-academy” to “pro-academy” is one of the most curious.

 ***

When we talk of Futurism, its association with fascism always comes up,. Fascism became a synonym for militaristic totalitarianism, but it started originally as a political movement of social reform. It burst out in 1922, more than a decade after the declaration of the Futurists, promoting new social reform ideas such as voting for women and a progressive labor policy (8 hour work days, a minimum wage, labor unions and a change of the retirement age from 65 to 55 and so forth), almost all of which we now consider our social norms.

Soon, these social reform aspirations fell into a totalitarianism based on the power structure of machismo and regional territorial fights around nationalism. But at the onset of both movements, Fascism and Futurism were closely connected through some shared views of social changes for the future. It is interesting to pay attention to the fact that the art movement came first and the political movement followed before they merged with each other.  Marinetti launched his own short lived Futurist Political Party in 1918 and was one of the official founding members of the Italian Fascist Party that followed.

Believing in the power of creativity in the fabric of society, Marinetti wanted Futurism to be an official “state/national art.” Of course, his attempt did not succeed, although Italian Fascists did not deny their “modern” art as did their German counterparts. It’s been fascinating for me to see the exhibition, Dengerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937,  taking place simultaneously at the Neue Galerie only a few blocks away from the Guggenheim’s Futurist show. The contrasting attitudes toward modern art are totally shocking when you think of their being allies in the following war.*

The world was in post WWI turmoil, the aftermath of which, equipped with its new technologies, was plaguing humanity. It is quite amazing to see how hot-blooded male psyches joined forces with each other to make the original idea of Fascism into a monstrous social energy, heading further forward toward the deadly resolution of destruction, as the world soon dashed into yet another World War that ended with the darkest events of the 20^th century: the Holocaust & Atomic Bombs.

(*Postscript: This fact is clearly exemplified by film footage of the king of Italy observing the first national exhibition of Futurist art (in a walking tour of the show guided by Marinetti) and the display of the Nazis’ meticulously detailed inventory book of all their banned and burned modern art works.)

 ***

Another questionable trait: the Futurist’s anti-feminist attitude was evidently born more as a result of the merging of 19^th century chauvinism (even Baudelaire had it!) with a new desperate sense of patriotism and nationalism. It was all about power, pride and the territorial struggle of a hierarchy of male psyches: machismo more than anything else, to be simply stated. They hailed the yang energy of destruction and violence. They were totally psyched up with their own myth of male power: Strength = Force. The origin of this can be traced back to cave dwelling days. A force/strength to hunt; a force/strength to protect yourself, a force/strength to have your way…. The idea of Strength = Physical Force developed into the basic foundation of Western Civilization and further propelled itself into the modern day myth of “new empire” creation and the power of will: Fascism.

Interestingly, there were some remarkable women members involved in Futurism, although they were small in number. It was not as if the Futurist men hated women as is usually believed. It was more that women represented the feminine ying energy. They were not rejecting women, but they were clearly against the meekness and the softness that femininity represented for them. They were drunk with their self-praising psyched-up myth of machismo and validity. Their fanatic belief was strongly stimulated by the sense of danger in the post and pre-WWI political and social situation in Europe.

They simple mindedly put men over women in their value system, putting down those with lesser physical power as an inferior race.  For machismo, femininity is unthinkable. Women should not interfere with men because they are weak. It’s ironic to see the most progressive thinkers of their time still carrying some of the most devastatingly backward ideas on “gender” and on “strength.”

 ***

Although it started in Italy, Futurism spread immediately and widely all over the world as the first global movement: from Portugal to Russia (Mayakovsky!), and from Brazil, even to Japan (as part of Modernism was reaching there). It was like a wildfire of new ideas for a new century; and its direction was clearly set for the future of Humanity.

Let us leave good sense behind like a hideous husk and let us hurl ourselves like fruit spiced with pride into the immense mouth and breast of the world! Let us feed the unknown, not from despair, but simply to enrich the unfathomable reservoirs of the Absurd… 

Challenging the general public and the world, the manifesto ends with a heroic cry:

…our hearts nourished by fire, hatred and speed… Standing on the world’s summit, we launch once again our insolent challenge to the stars!

They opened the gate to pave ways for every other imaginable art movement of the 20^th century to follow: Art Deco, Suprematism, Constructivism, Dadaism, and Surrealism…. It was as if they were blasting a thick wall that blocked the way with massive explosives. A new stream of various kinds of creative thinking poured through as the 20^th century marched itself into the atrocious darkness of two World Wars.

 (* bold/italic letters are from the original text of the Marinetti manifesto)

 

 Part III: Manifestos

When we think of Futurist manifestos, we basically think only of the one written in 1909 by Marinetti. His was originally a poetry manifesto, although it’s been treated as “the manifesto” because it was the first one launched. But, besides this most famous one, there were many others that followed.

Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting (1910), co-written by Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Giacomo Balla and Gino Severini on visual art; Manifesto of Futurist Musicians (1912) by Francesco Pratella; The Art of Noise (1913) by Luigi Russolo on music (which later influenced John Cage); Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature (1912) by Marinetti; Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture (1912) by Boccioni; Manifesto of Futurist Women (1912) and Futurist Manifesto of Lust (1913) by Valentine de Saint-Point; Destruction of Syntax, Imagination without Strings: Words-in-Freedom (1913), also by Marinetti; Plastic Dynamism by Boccioni (1913); The Painting of Sounds, Noises and Smells (1913) by Carrà; Manifesto of Futurist Architecture and The Reconstruction of the Universe, both by Balla and Depero (1915); The Futurist Cinema by Marinetti, Bruno Corra, Arnaldo Ginna, Balla and Remo Chiti (1916)…

It is amazing to see manifesto after manifesto created under the banner of Futurism. Futurists were trying to reach new domains that subsequently ended up later influencing us in all fields.

 

Part  IV: Visual Art

 challenging the orthodoxy of the history of the art of painting

A group of Futurist visual artists launched their own manifesto. This time, not in the newspaper, but in front of 3000 people in Turin in 1910, a year after Marinetti’s had burst into the world. What a sight it must have been! They cried out for the renovation of painting…. They wanted to go beyond “form and color” to express universal dynamism and dynamic sensation, breaking away from the static quality of painting. All things move, all things run, all things are rapidly changing…. They wanted a new beauty: the beauty of speed expressed. All is conventional in art. Nothing is absolute in painting. What was the truth for the painters of yesterday is but a falsehood today.

They challenged the orthodoxy of the art of painting and its history. They were against the painting of “opaque human figures” as depicted in static landscapes.  They called for the dynamism of universal sensation & universal vibration. They believed that science would help rescue paintings from the academism of flat deadness. Our renovated consciousness does not permit us to look upon man as the center of universal life. How fascinating it is that this particular proclamation was so much like Galileo’s challenge against the Christian doctrine that supported Copernicus’s ideas about cosmic reality! 

They further declared that in order to conceive and understand the novel beauties of a Futurist picture, the soul must be purified; the eye must be freed from its veil of atavism and culture…. They went on. The time has passed for our sensations in painting to be whispered. We wish them in the future to sing and re-echo upon our canvases in deafening and triumphant flourishes.  How fascinating to see the term sensations (here repeatedly appearing with Cezanne’s “sensations”) moving onto the 20^th century!  They declared that they were “the primitives of new sensitivities.”

Like Marinetti’s 1909 manifesto, they bullet-listed their demands and intentions in a similar manner.

(* marks my personal comments)

 1.  of the all forms, imitation despised and originality glorified. ( *I agree! )

 2.   rebelling  against “harmony” and “good taste”; condemning the works of

Rembrandt, Goya and Rodin. (*a bit overdone, especially in denying these 3 great artists.)

 3.   art critics are useless or harmful. (*WOW!)

 4.   all subjects in the past should be swept aside for the expression of           

       steel, pride, fever and speed.

5.  the name of “madman” that is attempted to gag all innovators should be a title

of honor. (*yes! yes! yes! think of Vincent & Artaud!)

6.   the absolute necessity of innate complementariness in painting as  

in  free meter in poetry and polyphony in music.  (*a revolution in thought-process)

7.  Universal Dynamism as Dynamic Sensations in painting.  (*definitely to be studied further…)

8.   sincerity and purity in rendering Nature.  (* not just Nature but in rendering anything)

9.   the materiality of bodies destroyed  by movement and light

 

They called for a shared struggle and listed their rules for fighting against the past.

Against the bituminous tints; against the superficial and elemental archaism of “flat tint” painting techniques; against the false claim put out forward by the secessionists and the independents who claimed to have installed new academies and against the nude in painting.

They attacked all sorts of archaism and conventional practices of painting. Their voice further got invigorated when they tried to demolish the tradition of the nude as a subject in painting. They declared:

We demand, for ten years, the total suppression of the nude in painting.

During the next year, core figures of the group, Marinetti, Boccioni, Carrà and Balla visited Paris (called by Severini, who’d been living in Montmartre among the new painters of the time). Consequently, they all got baptized by Cubism. They were totally ready to absorb the spirit and principles of the newest revolutionary idea in painting.  Soon, the concept of Plastic Dynamism was born out of the merging of Cubism with Futurist aspirations. In 1913, Boccioni wrote Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, and then Futurist Painting & Sculpture: Plastic Dynamism at the end of the same year.

Through Dynamism in painting, they tried to break away from the static materiality of the subject to make canvas the terrain where constant motion going out of the limitation of the given space. Futurism soon influenced Russian Suprematism to surface, and that eventually led to the birth of the concept of “pure abstraction”: the brand new visual art philosophy. The merging of the visual language of Cubism and the new concept of “Plastic Dynamism” brought forth the idea of the brand new territory of space/time into a focal point of  direction. Futurism ushered in some of the most vibrant & essentially needed sparks to ignite the concept of “pure abstraction” to develop further in the history of the art of painting.

 (* bold/italicized also from the original manifesto writing)

 

 <after seeing the exhibition>

 

 Part I: Their Future is Our Present

Now, FINALLY, I am in the museum facing the works of Futurism. It is huge. A  historical research show rather than an analytical aesthetic one, the exhibit tries to cover this massive movement that has spread into every direction of human life. Its history is set to the spiral of the space chronologically. How paradoxical and ironic to see these items (works, periodicals, furniture/clothes alike) in a museum, the institution they’d so fiercely condemned as one of their principle policies in the first manifesto. Naturally, everything is neatly installed as historical artifacts to be studied and observed. How would they react to seeing this reality, where their movement has become a subject of academic studies and attractions for the public in museums?

 ***

 “To be absolutely modern”

 Their future is our present.

 “Reconstructing the Universe”

***

The show starts with the first rotunda room dedicated to the work of Boccioni: the champion and a comet of Futurism visual art. Drawings, sculptures & oil paintings mostly done in 1912-1913. “I want to fix human forms in movement.” He challenges to depict the human body in flux: a constant movement. These works were done soon after the core Futurists’ visit to Paris where Cubism was the newest concept of the art of painting. I enjoy his exquisite drawings of which emanate certain indescribable different psyche compared to “orthodox” Cubism works by artists in Paris.

Cubists were conscious of forms breaking into pieces, but they were barely aware of the space itself that contained these. Futurists were the first to get rid of the hierarchy of ground and form to make the whole picture plane a space for capturing physical dynamism as it was taking place in the constant flux of time/space. They dissected objects into pieces as part of the dynamic space.  Shiki-Soku-Ze-“Ku”: Ku-Soku-Ze-Shiki “Color is Void: Void is Color.”

I now understand why Futurists were interested in Bergson’s philosophy of time/space and dynamism. Boccioni’s sculptures of human bodies even precede Matisse’s. How tragic it is that he died in 1916 at the age of 33 at the height of his creative possibilities because of an accidental fall from a horse in WWI Italy! He hadn’t even seen his sculptures cast in bronze himself . If he had been alive, he could have investigated and developed his newly found expansive philosophy & language to another level. What a devastating loss!

Street Light (by Giacomo Balla, 1911, oil on canvas) was created in the year when Marinetti, Boccioni, Carrà & Balla visited Paris. The thinly layered Divisionist brush strokes make the surface of the work look more like pastel or watercolor. Leaving the Theater (by Carlo Carrà, 1910, oil on canvas) makes me think of an early Picasso Montmartre work of theater scenes. Impressionism. Divisionism. And Cubism. The flow of the history of  painting in France is reflected in their work. They absorbed the essence of new paintings quite remarkably to make it their own almost instantaneously.

A lot of objects/artifacts are also on display. I was rather shocked to see the modest actual size of the 2 and 1/3 newspaper columns of their first manifesto as published in Le Figaro, dated February 20, 1909. It’s only the size of a small newspaper article with no blustering “noise.” It is barely noticeable, buried among other articles on the page, when you think of the cry that the declaration contained.

Movements in flux. By the time Anton Bragaglia developed Photo Dynamism, which preceded the other experimental photography that was to follow, photography had already become enough ingrained  in society. Hands of a Violinist/the Rhythms of the Bow (by Balla, 1912, oil on canvas) is definitely influenced by this new technology. Relating to the subject, Muybridge’s name surfaces naturally. Memories of a Trip (by Gino Severini, 1911, oil on canvas) carries the most French touches. Almost touristy Paris souvenir images of The Arch de Triumph, Sacred Coer… look impressively sweet. City Rises (by Boccioni, 1910-1911, oil on canvas) is a large scale work. He must have started it before he left Italy and finished it after he came back. This painting manifests the historical merging of Cubism and Futurism.

 

 Part II: Manifestos

There is a display case that shows not only various manifestos but also many leaflets. They look more like an array of political propaganda materials. Wireless Imagination and Word-in-Freedom, The Vanishing Theater, Futurist Anti-tradition Manifesto = Synthesis, The Paintings of Sounds, Noises and Smells: Futurist Manifesto … all mostly from 1913 along with some from a slightly earlier period; Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature (1912) and Futurists Venice (1910), both by Marinetti; and of course, Manifesto of Futurist Paintings, jointly written by Bocionni, Carrà, Russolo, Bonzagni and Romani in 1910, right after Marinetti’s initial Poetry Manifesto; also, Manifesto of  Futurist Mysticism by Pratella in 1910 and more.

The most curious is definitely Manifesto of the Futurist Woman = Response to F.T. Marinetti by Valentine de Saint-Point from 1912. She also wrote Futurist Manifesto of Lust in 1913. This exhibition introduced me to her; and how fascinating it is to read her writing from a 21^st century perspective. I enjoyed her straightforward intelligence and clarity. In response to Marinetti’s misogynistic attitude toward women, she wrote:

Humanity is mediocre. The majority of women are neither superior nor inferior to the majority of men. They are all equal. They all merit the same scorn.

It’s absurd to divide humanity into men & women. It is composed only of femininity & masculinity… Femininity & masculinity make a complete being…

On Lust, she wrote:

Lust, when viewed without moral preconceptions and as an essential part of life’s dynamism, is a force.

It is the sensory and sensual synthesis that leads to the greatest liberation of spirit.

Lust is the quest of the flesh for the unknown.

Feminism is a political error.

Art & war are the greatest manifestations of sensuality; lust is their flower.

A French member of the movement; she is a fascinating figure who presents a very curious position in the midst of this “boys’ club,” clearly proclaiming her voice as a woman-human. Then, in 1914 she denounced the Futurists, saying, “I am not a Futurist. And I’ve never been, I do not belong to any school.” I need a separate chapter just to write about her, but not now…

Unlike other art movements that aimed solely towards the insiders of art circles, one of the most significant aspects of Futurism was their efforts to connect with the general  public: the masses. Futurism was one of the most audience conscious of art movements, the first to apply mass-communication tactics and public relations strategies to art. Hundreds of manifestos in every category were published as leaflets which were sent by mail, distributed on the streets and published in newspapers and magazines. Some were translated into various other languages. Their purpose was to change the course of the world via art, not to limit it within the realm of art in a narrow sense. The voice crying out for the new had to reach every individual.

How did they get the attention of the general public? By scandals. By happenings. By theaters of absurdity. By noise. By the quantity of publications scattered all around. They demonstrated proto-happenings and proto-DADA acts to stir the pot, even proto-Pop Art that mixed the “high” and “low.” “Optimism At All Costs,” they shouted in a world still dragging along 19^th century attitudes, full of mustached men wearing suits and hats and women with corsets and long skirts. They knew that, in order to change the world in a total sense, they had to grab the public’s attention as much as possible.

***

We see prototypes of a new poetry, now familiar as visual poetry, sound poetry and experimental poetry. The Words-in-Freedom manifesto advocated destroying syntax, eliminating adjectives and adverbs, abolishing punctuation, challenging grammars and other rules in order to overthrow the old concept of language itself.

The show also provides us with chances to contemplate the architectural drawings of Futurist buildings that foresaw the architectural reality of our time. Utopian Designs; New Materials, Rapid Transport, New City Making; Dam and Hydroelectric Plant (1913); Three Dimensional Architecture Study (1913) … the concept of high rises was firmly there in their Futurist imaginations. How fascinating it is to see their vision turn out to be our reality!  It’s almost hard to believe that these visionary predictions of 100 years ago have literally come true. Apartment buildings, industrial buildings, bridges… their imaginary buildings have become our norm, Metropolis coming true. Science fiction in Futurism has definitely become the reality we live in.

 

 Part IV: Utopian Dreams

 “Art in fact, can be nothing but violence, cruelty & injustice.”

-Marinetti

By the time of the War Years of 1914-1918, the principle concepts of Futurist visual art, Universal Dynamism and Plastic Dynamism, were swallowed into the applied arts of illustration, design and decoration. It moved away from its original spirit in search of a new art and became a stylized, pragmatic one used mainly for propaganda & utilitarian purposes. When a non-utilitarian art becomes utilitarian, it kills its own spirit. Their original thoughts on how to revitalize the art of painting disappeared. I witnessed the original aspirations of this group of artists becoming almost non-existent as if they had never been there to begin with. All I saw were derivative aspects of their earlier experiments and concepts. It is rather disheartening to see the flame of high aspiration go out this easily. If Boccioni had been alive, could things have been different? Probably.

The Futurist visual artists cultivated the time/space of the picture plane to open it up, demolishing the barrier between objects & the space that surrounded them. If the revolution of Cubism was interior/exterior activities, the Futurists’ was one of cosmic activities. They did not observe the object to paint, but painted as they became fully aware of every aspect of physical existence, including their own, as a cosmic one.

The way they brought in colors to the mostly monochromatic Cubist world was another breakthrough. They were the first visual artists who truly realized that humanity was not the center of the Universe, and they tried to prove that reality with visual content. Impressionism had brought air into painting and Cubism had broken the shape of things to create a multi-visionary reflection of our reality, and finally Futurists brought us out of the confinement of the Earth to the cosmos. This new awareness paved the way to the  pure abstraction manifested in the Suprematism that was soon to surface.

Now, I’ve finished the full circle tracing the historical passage of the modern art of painting from Cubism to Futurism to Suprematism, one of the two major flows of the new visual philosophy concerning abstraction besides its Fauvist/Expressionist lineage*.

(*One day, I’ll write about another essential flow of the history of abstraction in the art of painting: the Fauvist/Expressionist lineage.)

 

<after the 2^nd viewing of the exhibition>

 

 Part I: The Art of Painting

I am back in the museum for the 2^nd time. I am AGAIN facing this massive show. This time, I am trying my best just to focus on the visual aspect of the movement alone. How did the Futurists incorporate Cubism? What came out of the merging alchemy of the two? And why did Futurists reject certain aspects of Cubism at the same time? What, and how can it be possible to extend the outcome of this short-lived Universal Dynamism & Plastic Dynamism?  I am wondering.

The search of abstract art that started more than a century ago halted abruptly during WWII; and then post-war effects gave birth to Abstract Expressionism, an explosion of personal emotional content expressed in an abstract mode. The history of the art of abstraction got muddled in a way when Abstract Expressionism took over the stage with personal romanticism as content, although it definitely opened a new horizon of a certain freedom for the art of painting. And then, the biggest blow was the invasion of Pop Art into our visual psyche. It followed Ab-Ex as a reactionary response, and its effects are still lingering over us quite heavily.

Of course, there were some abstract movements that followed during the last few decades of the 20^th century, such as Minimalism and Conceptualism. But these more or less negated the art of painting in moving to the conceptual sides of abstraction. Abstract Expressionism, Color Field Painting, Geometric Abstraction and Op-Art all offered us something special from their own terrains to help us expand the horizon of our visual experience and understandings, but their offerings were limited and all led to dead ends, so to speak. We need a secret new pathway to delve further into the unknown territory of abstraction.

 ***

Now, in the 2^nd decade of the 21^st century, moving on to an unknown future, we see a lot of stylized and manipulated abstract art, mostly “shells” of the past hollowed out into a faux abstraction.  When manifested on the surface of any creative art form, not only in visual art but also in music or writing, style emerges out of the perpetual searching of its creators.  But this is only the tip of the iceberg. To appropriate, borrow (or to steal) the end result from somebody else’s world is to negate the whole content of this search.

Institutionalized art education is making the matter worse, since it focuses on teaching the history of stylistic changes as “art history.” Most art students are fed knowledge of historical style shifts/changes as the study of abstraction. Another unfortunate situation has been caused by the current greed driven art market, since this type of fake abstraction is easy to produce and easy to deal with. The messiness of the situation is adding more confusion, and the whole psyche of the world is currently under the ill effects of the evil cycle of this phenomenon.

Abstraction in painting has not solely to do with self-expression, dogma, cerebral principle or design. Abstraction in painting is a philosophy visualized in order to see the invisible via an act of painting. It belongs to a long history that started in our cave dwelling days. I instinctively know the Futurists, especially Boccioni and Balla, through their concepts of Universal Dynamism & Plastic Dynamism, which, via their experimentation, left us some uninvestigated clues for going further in the search.

 

 Part II: The Reconstruction of the Universe

Breaking down the barriers between the subject and ground, Futurists, especially Boccioni, as he wrote in his Plastic Dynamism, opened up the picture plane as a pictorial space where

the intuitive search for dynamic form: a species of fourth dimension which can not exist perfectly without the complete concurrence of those three dimensions which determine volume, height, width & depth. With dynamism, they aspire to make art climb to an ideal, superior plane, creating a style and expressing their own age of speed and of simultaneity. Dynamism is a general law of simultaneity & interpenetration dominating everything, in movement, that is appearance/exception/shading…….

A plastic whole: object + environment…….

Dynamism in painting & sculpture is an evolutional concept of a plastic reality. It is the reflection of a sensibility which conceives the world as an infinite prolonging of an evolutionary species. This is life itself. We Futurists have been able to create the model form – the form of forms – continuity.

Balla and Depero wrote in their joint manifesto: The Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe, proposing

plastic dynamism and the molding of the atmosphere, interpenetration of planes and  states of mind.

We’ll give skeleton and flesh to the invisible, the impalpable, the imponderable and the imperceptible. We will find abstract equivalents for every form and element in the universe, and then we will combine them according to the caprice of our inspiration, creating plastic complexes which we will set in motion.

Art becomes Presence, a new Object, the new reality created with the abstract elements of the universe. The hands of the traditional artist arched for the lost Object; our hands longed for a new object to create. That is why the new object (plastic complex) appears miraculously in yours. 

They even use the expression “action-art” to explain what they are aiming at. Their sense of freedom of materials to be used for art is also quite amazing, as if it predicted our time. Non-cliché art materials such as wire, fabric, glass, paper, mirrors, metal, tin-foil…are encouraged in the creation of art. They talk of “abstraction” as the deepest essence of the universe*.

 (* all lines in bold were written by Boccioni, Balla & Depero)

 

 Part III: Observations

Stemming from Cubism, Fauvism and Expressionism, the study of abstraction took a few different paths through the history of the art of painting. Expressionistic; lyrical; geometric and conceptual. Is there any other stream existing besides these streams? Is it still possible to tap into a new or different abstraction, something substantial and visible, but not expressionistic, subjective, geometric or lyrical? Did Futurists’ principles of Universal Dynamism and Plastic Complexes leave some clues to guide us go further in the search? The original pure impulses of the movement only lasted very briefly before they disappeared into the pragmatic air. But I instinctively know that there is something we can learn from them. I am now searching for the secrets Futurists might have left for us to pick up. What is Universal Dynamism? What is Plastic Dynamism? What are Plastic Complexes?

As with the first viewing experience a few months ago, my attention again goes deeply into Boccioni’s works and to some of Balla’s. I am completely drawn to Boccioni’s various drawings as I was the last time. Space/Time/Objects/Subjects all take equal dynamism in his work: Muscular Dynamism (1913, pastel, charcoal on paper), Dynamic Scomposizione (1913, ink, pen, tempera, water color on paper) and the most intriguingly inviting I Want to Fix Human Forms in Movement (1913, charcoal and watercolor on paper). I also pay attention to his Simultaneous Visions (1911, oil on canvas). Although he only shows us a narrative depiction of his philosophical awareness in this particular work, it is obvious that he was keenly aware of the fact that macrocosmos, microcosmos, static non-movement, dynamic movement, to see and to be seen, all happen at the same time in reality as one.

His State of Mind triptych of 1911, The Farewells. Those who Go and Those who Stay reminds me of Gauguin’s philosophical inquiry in his painting Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? More inspiring Boccioni works follow. Elasticity (1912, oil on canvas), Dynamism of a Cyclist (1913, oil on canvas)… They are definitely different from Cubism, focusing on eternal movements in motion in color. The Heroic Years of the early Futurists before WWI were one of the most inspiring experimental periods of the history of modern art. How tragic it is to see it evaporate into nothing before it bore maturity because of the untimely death of the main philosopher/practitioner, Boccioni, and the overall effects of the war that took their “pure” attentions away from the investigation!

As with the first viewing, I am disheartened by the shift that took place in Futurist visual art. Having taken the concept of “Total Art” to an extreme end, most of them soon started to lean heavily on graphics in an almost simpleminded sense. Even so, I was fascinated by Balla’s sketches for the set design of Diaghilev’s Ballet Russo production of Stravinsky’s Fireworks. These small works show Balla’s genius, as do his teapot designs done around the same time. I especially love the image of a teapot seen from “above.”

After 1917, the basic psyche of Futurist visual art became totally stiff, static and mechanical from this point on because of their willful eagerness to illustrate their visions. Even the concept of Aeropittura/Aviation Painting had turned into skilled illustration, leaving basically not too much merit as far as the art of painting is concerned. They painted the images looking down from the sky above: the earth floating in the cosmos in an extremely decorative and narrative mode.

Although Benedetta Cappa’s sense of clarity in color and her ability to accurately imagine and envision our time were quite amazing, I was not taken in too much by her 5 superbly skilled, mural-scaled post office paintings, Synthesis of Communications (1933-34), because of their overly illustrative quality. However, I was very impressed by her much smaller work: The Great X (1930, oil on canvas). Here she showed the crossroad of reality and abstraction in 4 sections that merged into each other. It is a strangely interesting motif to prove where her attention and awareness were at the time.

Although nothing much came out of it visually, it was still interesting to see how Surrealism’s biomorphic abstraction reversely influenced some of the Futurists, leading to  cosmic art in the later days. Interview with Matter by Enrico Prampollini (1930, oil, enamel, cork, galalith, sponge) was a curious one. In 1917, Alfred Stieglitz gave Severini an exhibition of his Plastic Analogies series at his 291 in NYC. I wonder how it was received. Futurism never got rooted in American soil because of the following political turmoil of the time that was moving toward WWII.

I tried to salvage some works buried among post-1917 Futurist art that might give me some kind of clues for further investigation and development of abstraction in the art of painting relating to Universal dynamism, Plastic Dynamism and Dynamic Complexes. Unfortunately, not very much can be found. Nonetheless, despite Boccioni’s tremendous, almost miraculous discovery of the treatment of space/time/objects/subjects in one and the invention of new ideas, another of the problems Futurists had was their overt obsession with speed and machines (technology). For them, that was the new reality, the new sensitivity. Being young, restless and impatient, they praised “fastness” in frenzy. They did not see that there are many variations and modes of speed in movement. They did not realize that “slowness” is not static; it is still a motion nonetheless. Something oppositional to their frenzy is necessary for us to cultivate here in order really to understand “Dynamism.”

 

Part IV: Our Present/Our Future

Futurism ended with Italy’s defeat in WWII in 1944, and 6 years later, I was born. Their “future” is our present. It’s our time they predicted and directed their hopes toward. At the middle of the 2^nd decade of the new 21^st century, uncertainty huddles us to go forward toward our future. We can’t even envision our own without falling into a pessimistic and even an apocalyptic mood. Retrogressive appropriationism, a repeated recycling of old ideas and styles, a weak-minded nostalgia for “near” pasts, an aggressive, money-conscious psyche and will shared by all, trend-making manipulations, various impure motivations relating to art, a damaged global ecology, an overpowering technology frenzy, non-stop conflicts among nations and various regions… there are uncountable destructive and discouraging elements stopping us from stepping forward soundly.

However, one thing I always remember is that every vital breakthrough, whether it’s an art movement, a political movement or a personal development, usually takes place in the midst of the worst moments, So, why not try to become open-minded again in the most genuinely creative sense to break through this muddled stagnation in order to step forward into our future that will be the future generation’s present? Maybe leaning towards “slowness” and its activation in Universal Dynamism, Plastic Dynamism and Dynamic Complexes might give us some kind of new thoughts to follow.