A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO FUTURISM Maurizio Scudiero- Davide Sandrini This year marks the centenary of the publication of the

first manifesto of Futurism, which was printed on the front page of the Parisian newspaper Le Figaro in 1909. The manifesto was ground-breaking for the art world of the time, because it declared first what it would do later. Its promoters proclaimed themselves poets, painters and men of the future, who rejected the cultural traditions and artistic forms of the past, in favour of a devotion to the new technologies and machinery of modern life. In short, they aimed to leap into the future, and so called themselves Futurists. The group also claimed to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness, while courage, audacity and revolt were the main tenets of their poetry. They affirmed that the worlds magnificence had been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. The leader of the movement was a wealthy poet named Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. He soon gathered around him a small group of painters: Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Carlo Carr, Gino Severini and Luigi Russolo. Their circle was later enlarged by the addition of, amongst others, Fortunato Depero, Mario Sironi, Enrico Prampolini, Achille Funi and Roberto Marcello Baldessari, whose works on paper are shown in this exhibition. The Futurists were full of a daring spirit. Believing themselves to be standing on the last promontory of the centuries, they asked Why should we look back when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the impossible? Time and space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute because we have created eternal, omnipresent speed. They also affirmed that museums were cemeteries, thus they wanted to free Italy fro m the smelly gangrene of professors, archaeologists, cicerones and antiquarians. Marinetti found that a roaming car was more beautiful than the Nike of Samothrace, opening himself to charges of iconoclasm. The real merit of Futurism as a movement, however, lies in the fact that it embraced the complexities of contemporary life, and left behind the idea of art as nothing but a personal pleasure. The Futurists aimed to participate in all aspects of the everyday, not only with the visual arts, but also architecture, interior design, theatre, advertising, fashion, and typography, as well as politics. This new way of meaning for art and life deeply was influential for generations to come. Today, one hundred years on, we can truly say that the history of the twentieth-century avant-garde began with Futurism.