Futurism And Politics

On futurism and fascism in Italy

"Futurism was the state of the Fascist regime" - this is the view one encounters in most books written on Futurist art and literature. Whilst there can be no doubt about Futurist involvement with the founding of the fascist movement, little is known about the internal relationship between Futurists and Fascists in the years 1918-22, nor about the reasons for the Futurists' departure from the Fascist movement in 1920, or about Futurist opposition to (and even armed struggle against) the Fascist regime after 1924. Whilst the public documents testifying to Futurist support of Mussolini are well known, little has been written about Futurist anti-fascism camouflaged as official adherence to the regime. This study, based primarily on unknown or unpublished documents discovered in state archives and private collections, presents a new andfar more complex picture of the relationship of the two movements than has previously been shown by critics and historians.

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.

Through empirical analysis and theoretical reflection, this book shows that the aesthetics and politics of the Islamic State is “futurist.” ISIS overcomes postmodern pessimism and joins the modern, techno-oriented, and optimistic attitude propagated by Italian Futurism in the early twentieth century. The Islamic State does not only excel through the extensive use of high-tech weapons, social media, commercial bot, and automated text systems. By putting forward the presence of speeding cars and tanks, mobile phones, and computers, ISIS presents jihad life as connected to modern urban culture. Futurism praised violence as a means of leaving behind imitations of the past in order to project itself most efficiently into the future. A profound sense of crisis produces in both Futurism and jihadism a nihilistic attitude toward the present state of society that will be overcome through an exaltation of technology. Futurists were opposed to parliamentary democracy and sympathized with nationalism and colonialism. ISIS jihadism suggests a similarly curious combination of modernism and conservative values. The most obvious modern characteristic of this new image of fundamentalism is the highly aestheticized recruiting material.

Selena Daly’s work is the first comprehensive study of Futurism during the First World War period. In this book, she examines the cultural, political, and military engagement of the Futurists with the war effort, both on the battlefields and on the home front. Beginning with the outbreak of war in 1914, Italian Futurism and the First World War provides vivid accounts of Futurist experiences through an analysis of previously unpublished material, including letters, diaries, and military documents as well as newspapers, magazines, and popular novels. Her focus on Futurist protagonists such as Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Emilio Settimelli, and lesser known figures such as Giuseppe Steiner and Ennio Valentinelli greatly extends our knowledge of the movement. Daly’s timely and detailed analysis challenges long-held assumptions about Futurist activity during the war and offers new insights for both the non-specialist and specialist alike.

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti: The Artist and His Politics explores the politics of the leader of the Futurist art movement. Emerging in Italy in 1909, Futurism sought to propel Italy into the modern world, and is famously known for outlandish claims to want to destroy museums and libraries in order to speed this transition. Futurism, however, also had a much darker political side. It glorified war as the solution to many of Italy’s ills, and was closely tied to the Fascist Regime. In this book, Ialongo focuses on Marinetti as the chief determinant of Futurist politics and explores how a seemingly revolutionary art movement, at one point having some support among revolutionary left-wing movements in Italy, could eventually become so intimately tied to the repressive Fascist regime. Ialongo traces Marinetti’s politics from before the foundation of Futurism, through the Great War, and then throughout the twenty-year Fascist dictatorship, using a wide range of published and unpublished sources. Futurist politics are presented within the wider context of developments in Italy and Europe, and Ialongo further highlights how Marinetti’s political choices influenced the art of his movement.

Futurism was Russia's first avant-garde movement. Gatecrashing the Russian public sphere in the early twentieth century, the movement called for the destruction of everything old, so that the past could not hinder the creation of a new, modern society. Over the next two decades, the protagonists of Russian Futurism pursued their goal of modernizing human experience through radical art. The success of this mission has long been the subject of scholarly debate. Critics have often characterized Russian Futurism as an expression of utopian daydreaming by young artists who were unrealistic in their visions of Soviet society and naïve in their comprehension of the Bolshevik political agenda. By tracing the political and ideological evolution of Russian Futurism between 1905 and 1930, Iva Glisic challenges this view, demonstrating that Futurism took a calculated and systematic approach to its contemporary socio-political reality. This approach ultimately allowed Russia's Futurists to devise a unique artistic practice that would later become an integral element of the distinctly Soviet cultural paradigm. Drawing upon a unique combination of archival materials and employing a theoretical framework inspired by the works of philosophers such as Lewis Mumford, Karl Mannheim, Ernst Bloch, Fred Polak, and Slavoj Žižek, The Futurist Files presents Futurists not as blinded idealists, but rather as active and judicious participants in the larger project of building a modern Soviet consciousness. This fascinating study ultimately stands as a reminder that while radical ideas are often dismissed as utopian, and impossible, they did—and can—have a critical role in driving social change. It will be of interest to art historians, cultural historians, and scholars and students of Russian history.

Futurism began as an artistic and social movement in early twentieth-century Italy. Until now, much of the scholarship available in English has focused only on a single individual or art form. This volume seeks to present a more complete picture of the movement by exploring the history of the movement, the events leading up to the movement, and the lasting impact it has had as well as the individuals involved in it. The History of Futurism: The Precursors, Protagonists, and Legacies addresses the history and legacy of what is generally seen as the founding avante-garde movement of the twentieth century. Geert Buelens, Harald Hendrix, and Monica Jansen have brought together scholarship from an international team of specialists to explore the Futurism movement as a multidisciplinary movement mixing aesthetics, politics, and science with a particular focus on the literature of the movement.

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.