As a Futurist in New York he was completely useless! And fully disappointed back he went to his own country…

 

Yesterday Conceptual Fine Arts visited the great show dedicated to the Italian Futurism at the Guggenheim museum, that we strongly recommend. The show has an extraordinary set-up and it perfectly reflects the complexity of the Futurismo, also thanks to a clever selection of works loaned by institutions and private collections from all over the world.

 

However, as soon as the Italian visitor realizes that Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic museum is effectively the best futuristic building ever made – it is said that also the main expert of Futurism, Enrico Crispolti, has noticed it visiting the exhibition – a terrible thought comes to his mind. What Marinetti, Boccioni, Balla and all the other architects, musicians and poets were asking for was exactly the kind of progress that Italy has never been able to reach but which other countries, such as the United States, did achieve. When Fortunato Depero came to New York, for example, he soon became aware that most of the ideas the movement was promoting in Italy at that time were not at all revolutionary in the United States. There, history, traditions, academics, or religion, were not part of the same chain that the young and brave Italians were attempting to break. As a Futurist in New York he was completely useless! And fully disappointed back he went to his own country…

 

July 18, 2015