With Laura Biagiotti visiting her private collection of futurist Giacomo Balla

Not far from Rome, just half an hour by car, in the Comune of Guidonia Montecelio, there is a elegant and sober castle, built in the 11th century, where the fashion designer Laura Biagiotti conceals her poetical-inspired treasure: the great collection of the futurist genius Giacomo Balla (1871-1958); these masterpieces and artworks are constantly travelling around the museums of the world, and since the eighties they have been informing the creative philosophy of the stylist.

 

“I feel like I had met Giacomo Balla in person” asserts Laura Biagiotti, while opening the rooms that gather together drawings, sketches, cloths, paintings. “I had come across the Master through my classical studies, moved by a deep curiosity towards Futurism” she explains. “However, it was in 1982 that I stumbled upon a little art gallery in Rome. There were works by Balla and various pieces by his daughters Luce and Elica, whom later I personally met. It was love at first sight. Together with my husband Gianni Cigna, we decided to purchase the vast majority of the works. That was the inception to the collection which, after my husband’s demise in 1996, became the Fondazione Biagiotti-Cigna, and nowadays counts 160 pieces”.

 

Extraordinary artworks belong to this collection, such as the “Genio futurista”, the biggest piece ever realized by Giacomo Balla, currently on show in the Palazzo Italia at the Expo in Milan. “Balla had painted it in occasion of the Paris Expo in 1925. I liked to think that 90 years later the work would have gone back to a universal exposition.” Biagiotti however points out that she hasn’t received any invitation from the City of Milan, it was all her own venture, moved by pure patronage and sense of commonality; she believes indeed that “if you don’t share artworks, collecting can become a true act of egoism”.

 

The works in the Fondazione, closed to the public and accessible only by scholars upon request, have however traveled a great deal. In the past 18 years, the works have left the castle about 500 times to be showed in museums and institutions around the world. The major exhibition on Futurism, which took place last year at the Guggenheim in New York (600 thousands visitors, a record for the American museum) hosted many works from the Biagiotti-Cigna collection. Others are just returning from the Palazzo Fortuny in Venice, where they have been exhibited in occasion of the show dedicated to the Marchesa Casati, a close friend of the painter. “Then there is the Gilet futurista, realized in 1924, which is like a Pilgrim Madonna, always on the move. Right now it is at the Museé d’Orsay in Paris for the exhibition “Dolce vita”, on until 13 September, addressing Italian art and fashion”.

 

Giacomo Balla and fashion, exactly. The aim of the artist was to make the artistic object “fickle and alive”, a concrete connection between art and life, that was his interpretation of the “futurist reconstruction of the universe”. Art should have trespassed every field of daily life, including clothing. It comes natural to link it with Laura Biagiotti’s creations. “I’ve found many input, not just aesthetic wise” clarifies the designer. “Some collections  have been inspired to the “Ballmoda”. However, I intended the legacy of such genius especially in terms of method. I like the revolutionary idea that Balla brought into man’s suit. For instance, the so-called “modificante”: that is a small item to be applied onto the boring suit which should have prompted a flair of optimism, good mood and new curiosity”.

 

Energizing, so ought fashion to be according to Giacomo Balla. Is this another indication of method too? “ Not simply: it is the quintessence of made in Italy”. We, Italians, are not only loved for our clothing, but above all for our ability to convey a good lifestyle model. Fashion is just the peak of the iceberg, the sign of a wider world, one of the first attitudes that can actually improve our life”. And samples of this attitude parade on the walls. The richest documentation of projects and creations by Balla for a futurist clothing collection is gathered here, in the Biagiotti-Cigna’s collection, next to many abstract and figurative artworks. “Balla tries the revolution of the clothing on himself”, says Biagiotti. “He created cloths for his daughters (these latter too in the collection, Ed.) He also founded a real atelier, albeit made of just four people: his wife, his two daughters and himself. An intimate and poetic workshop, where however they had to face many difficulties and had few means, which was anyway a revolution in the applied arts. In the Italian design from the sixties we can retrace the same spirit that Balla had already conveyed in 1913, well ahead of the avant-garde”.

 

What does Laura Biagiotti feel when walking around these rooms? “A great consolation. Art has always been a spiritual and psychological relief to me. As well as being a counterpart to such a demanding job like mine, which often implies a flight to the future. Studying the work of Balla, on the other hand, makes you realize that the future has already happened. Many intuitions that we ascribe to contemporary creativity, as a matter of fact, had already been attained 100 years ago. All of this does seem to me very reassuring indeed.” Reassuring? “Yes, because it reminds us that innovation doesn’t lie in the novelty, in the provocation or in the unusual. Innovation is a matter of method. And in my opinion Balla’s method not only looks up-to-date, but also unsurpassed”.

November 25, 2020