"Reconstructing the Universe": Italian Futurism's Paradoxes and New Ideas

"Boxes of love is preserved" is a collection of short stories by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti , originally published in 1927 by the "Art publishing Faun" of Rome . The book, with cover and friezes by Carlo Petrucci and illustrations by Ivo Pannaggi . It's cover seems to lead to the 

Commercial styling and ironies of pop art

especially by Andy Warhol later in the 20th century.

  

‘Before the Parachute Opens (Prima che si apra il paracadute)’, by Tullio Crali

1939 

Italian Futurism: 1909-1944 Reconstructing the Universe at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum gives an exhaustive multimedia look at the roots, development and context of this uniquely creative - and politically unsettled- art movement of early 20th century Italy. Founded by F.T. Marinetti and resulting from the meeting of the Italian avant garde with theFrench  cubists, the movement theorized, proselytized, fabricated, and generally explored the cultural and existential possibilities of the new century, declaring independence from the past and -doldier becoming intertwined with Mussolini and the Fascist movement. 

As an example of the Futurist fascination with action  and danger, Marinetti's "Zang Tumb Tumb" a book recalling the October 1912 battle of Adrianopolis (Turkey) in which he participated as a Futurist-soldier uses "words in freedom" to create a sort of typographic tone poem that exhibits the Futurist  love  of "vitalistic dynamism"--- and war. 

The exhibit explores the ideas, ideology and paradoxes of the movement that formerly ended with the death of its founder,Marinetti, in 1944.  An interesting, richly detailed and in-depth exhibit. Through September 1.

--Anthony Napoli

Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn