"Futurist Painting Sculpture (Plastic Dynamism)" by Umberto Boccioni

ISBN: 978-1-60606-475-7 Getty Publications

Oddly enough, I feel nostalgic for the Futurists.  Which is as a movement in the very early 20th century. One should not have those feelings.  As far as I know, these Italian poets/artists were the first militant arts movement in Europe.  Perhaps the little brother to the Cubists, but with a bigger mouth. Along with F.T. Marinetti, who was actually the main figurehead in the Italian Futurist movement, there was  also Umberto Boccioni, who wrote about the Futurist aesthetic, as well as making sculptures, wrote a collection of essays in 1914, "Futurist Painting Sculpture (Plastic Dynamism)" that along with Marinetti's writings, are very much the ground zero for Futurist thought and action.  

While Cubism is very much about how one looks at the world, the Futurists were focused on the motion, speed, and their passion to destroy the past, so that the young artist can live and work in a dynamic (Italian) culture.  To do so, they must eliminate images of the nude, feminism, portraits of flowers, and statues made of stone and bronze.  They prefer the plastic material which they see as something totally new and therefore, beautiful.   The interesting thing about The Futurists is that they had strong feelings about the nature of being Italian, as well as a need to shock the masses to embrace the new that's the 20th century.  Of course, this leads to Fascism in their country -if not directly, then spiritually.  A lot of the art movements of the time is basically about the eye confronts an object in front of them. Impressionists, Cubists and so forth were more in tuned to the nature of how one sees the landscape in front of them.   Futurists literally wanted to transform that landscape into a physical presence.   To pour cement over Venice was one of their aesthetic goals, which I'm sure would warm the heart of a real estate mogul.  

Still, and especially when I was young, I was intrigued by the Futurists, just due to the fact that I liked Marinetti's narratives and the stylistic poetic skills he brought to the paper.  They believed as men around 30, that by the time of 40, you're out of business in the art/writing world.  They worshiped the idea of youth doing art and making a society that benefits the beauty of the race car and everything that science can bring to that table - including war, which is nothing more than a cleansing of the world.   In a style, it reminds me of more of the militant aspects of the punk movement of the 1970s.  The ground zero is approached to make a new culture.  This, appeals to a man in his late teens to early 20s, but alas, as I got older, I went back to Cubist thought. On the other hand, we can't forget the shock of the new, and the need to flush out the old, to make space for a new idea.  Ironically sometimes the new idea is not that hot.

"Futurist Painting Sculpture" is a fascinating book on many levels.  Beautifully designed by the Getty Publications (would the Futurists appreciate being part of an institution like the Getty?) and wonderfully edited by Richard Shane Agin and Maria Elena Versari, this is an important document to have in one's collection.  Also one gets a lengthy introduction by Versari (almost 50 pages long) that is informative and places the Futurists in the context of the early century.   The book also includes manifestos written by various members of the Futurists as well.   Boccioni, like Marinetti, wrote to shock, and of course reading it now in 2016, it doesn't have that freshness.  But if one can imagine themselves back in time, and being introduced to something visually and aesthetically jarring - well, it would be very interesting.  

February 20, 2014

February 20, 2014

People think I am a great reader, but I am actually one of those people who pick up a book and then leave it by the bathtub (I do a lot of reading while taking a bath), especially if its a collection of essays or short stories.  Those books take me the longest to finish, due that each piece in the book is sort of complete narrative or thought.  Right now I am reading Maurice Blanchot’s “Desperate Clarity” which is a collection of literary reviews he did during the Nazi occupation of France.  The most fascinating aspect of the book (so far) is what is not being said, and that silence is so powerful and depressing at the same time.  It got me thinking what is not being said, because we are so used to writing that deals directly with an issue, but now and even then, writing is sometimes about everything except that issue.

Another reason why I just have to stop reading this book is because I dropped it in the bathtub.  When I go get a bath, I use Japanese bath power which gives the water a nice green visual as well as a smell that conveys the forest of one’s imagination.   So as I let that book dry, and myself as well, I go back to bed in the morning to read “The Futurist Manifesto” by F. T. Marinetti, written in 1909 and published in French in the newspaper Le Figaro.  My first thought was ‘how crazy that a newspaper would publish something so uncommon as this manifesto. ' Personally, I’m a huge fan of art related manifestos.  One of my favorite all-time books (and yes, I haven’t finished that one as well) is “Manifesto: A Century of Isms,” edited by Mary Ann Caws, where one can find “The Futurist Manifesto” in its complete romantic glory.

Marinetti strikes me as a man who is in love with the ideal of man-made world where machinery becomes sort of a God, or maybe not an actual ‘figure’ but the imagination of man (and I am using that gender specifically, because the Italian Futurists were not that hot on Feminism) is alone on a spiritual plane.  Some of their basic political ideals are dodgy at best, but one can admire their paintings, poetry, photographs, and I think especially music or sound making.  The whole ‘Art of Noise’ aesthetic is something that is still with us, and whenever there is sound, I think that concept is the foundation of our desire to make some music AKA noise.  John Cage, was too influenced by The Futurists’ approach to sounds, but he is more of a natural process or liking silence as a form of sound as well.  The beautiful photography by Ansel Adams is totally the opposite of Marinetti’s stance against nature, yet it takes a machine, the camera, to photograph what is the ‘ideal’ of nature at its most stunning.

For me personally, the sound of Poison Ivy’s guitar (The Cramps) is the most beautiful sound on the planet.  It has roots in “The Art of Noise” but a much warmer sense of chaos and there is a beauty in her performance that is touching as well as sexual and obsessive.  The obsession to capture either silence, pure noise, or even structured noise (music) is very appealing to me, in fact I also admire the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu for being on the tightrope between chaos and beautiful order.  Marinetti, I think is essentially looking for order within the spirit of the machine age and politics.  A zen liked peace in a horror landscape.  With that in thought I go back to the bathtub, with a fresh supply of Japanese bath scent of the forest, and continue reading Blanchot’s “Desperate Clarity. ”