f a . = ” Thames « Hudson Soehal foster rosalind krauss yve-alain bois benjamin h.d. buchloh art since 1900 modernism antimodernism postmodernism @ Thames « Hudson6061-0061 1909 SS F. T. Marinetti publishes the first Futurist manifesto on the front page of Le Figaro in Par for the first time the avant-garde associates itself with media culture and positions it: defiance of history and tradition. 1n February 20, 1908, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876- O 1944) published his “Manifeste de fondation du Futur- isme,” the first Futurist manifesto, on the front page of the French newspaper Le Figarol 4}, This event signaled the public arrival ‘of Futurism, and p multiple ways tits specific project. rst of al, it showed that, from its very outset, Futurism wished to establish the avant-garde’s liaison with mass culture. Second, it demonstrated aconviction that all techniques and strategies opera~ tive in mass-cultural production would the propagation of avant-garde practices aswel to publish the manifesto in the widest-circulation newspaper in od the triple embrace of advertising, journal- nid forms of mass distribution, Third, it indicated th stages, Futurism was committed to a fusion of a practices with advanced forms of technology in a way that Cubism, ‘while confronting this question in the development of collage, would never wholly embrace. The slogans of Futurism that cele- brated “congenital dynamism,” “the break-up of the object,” and “light as a destroyer of forms,” while also lauding the mechanical, famously declared that a speeding automobile is “more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace”: this was to prefer the industrial- ized object to the unique rarity of the cult statue, An not yet visible in 1908, it prepared the way for Futurism to overturn traditional assumptions about the avant-garde’s innate tendency toward, and association with, progressivist, leflist—if not cs. For Futurism was to become, in Italy in 1919, the frst avant-garde movement ofthe twentieth century to have its own politcal and ted into the forma- tion of fascist ideology enceforth be essential for from ted last, although logical project assimi From backwater to frontrunner In terms of its artists’ models, the background of Futurism is ‘complex. Its sources are to be found in nineteenth-century French Symbolism, in French neo-Impressionist or divisionist painting, + and in early-twentieth-century Cubism, which was evolving con- temporaneously with Futurism and was clearly known to the of the artists in the Itai movement, What was specifi 's formation, ywever, was the very 1909 | The tet Futurist manifesto publishee this to's first publica belatedness ies that had emerged in P: ‘opm centered Futurist paintingat its ea to 1910, Furthermore, Fut ith which these belatei adapted, Indeed, the speed with which thy together in order to reformulate a new Fututi tural aesthetic is indicative of t acoveries, or in the de wed, written by Among them were F rapher Anton Gi by Ballila Pratella 1913;andamani 888-1916) in 1914. As pronounced revolved around three central is fon synesthesia (the breakin, at rest and the body in motion). Sec: struct an analogue between picto repre developed by photography—pat such as chronop! technologies of vision an ack on the legacies of bourgeois tra passionate affirmatio technology, even the technology of warf ment to fascism,06102 Aerated 081407109064 vy, i i i t x i Ud FT i i z ouVv6061-0061 eae words must be liberated from the static and esoteric models ofan sarah nhs fata ad een ged, arnt promoted ae unter lemon’ ended site spn tothe new sounds fave 8 com the promi “Toate ty Maren which al Fhe cine Fe 10 wink lng ad been sujeced lei he production tang tn gmetad rin fet ao are mma stop the ems intote traditional determinants of linguistic representation, ‘This was the source of one of the conflicts that arose between n avant-garde when in 1914 the I an attempt to proselytize for Futurism. he Russian Cubo-Euturist poets criticized Marinetti for was the relationship manifested in his work between poetry and the mimetic operations of language, ly his use mn of words imitating sounds associated that time, the Russian ndingof the logic of language, which meant that they enforced a strict, tion of both the phonetics and the graphics of signs—the uuage sounds and the way it ooks—from the natural world to which those signs might refer. So insistent were the Russian Futurists on making ing that they carried it to the point of constructing a new anti- semantic and antilexical poetry. ‘matopoeia—the forma we act or objects to be denoted. is separation the subject of their own Fascism and Futurism ideological and political orientation of Fut celebration of technology, the anti-passa position, the rigorous condemnation of the cultu jonalist) f the past, the violent deformation of the legacies of bourgeois culture, were all al elements of Futurism from its inception, But these were \ked with an equally passionate affirmation of the necessity to integrate art and warfare as the most advanced instance of the technological. If in the first manifesto M. had constructed 42 myth of origin for the Futurist movement—he recounts the ‘moment of his awakening when, racing in his sports car, he over- tumed in the muddy waters of a suburban ditch thereupon to merge, reborn, as a post-Symbolist art had already announced a deep com violence and power. and Futurist poet—this, iment to the irrationality of Marinetti’s espousal of advanced industrial technology an 1 sescticofthenachisldhimtowekonetieouinct reece 2 at putaton inne wih several haedoftntae et bourse ijt. Aste tan pin debra deny radon Maetidedacivomncty ein far the destino cll iatons open 1809 | The ta manifesto is put ont of jon by organi lation of hi Marinettis subs stage for the anil memory. Further, chronize art and advanced tech gardes where a link between these elements was explctlyin the perspective of reactionary right In the embrace of fas problems facing twentieth-century avant-g rion of whether avant-garde pr spheres, be they fas ‘athing) or proletarian pul «artists working at that avant-garde could rally for the destruction of the sphere, including its institutions and discu: With the accidental death of Boccioni in 1916,1 of Sant aesthetic orientation on the parts of Sever same time, Futurism lost (although Ma art, etti would contin: Severin, strategies in 1916 and adopted pure, ‘art of the Italian Renaissance. By returning tot and by using quattrocento painting as the matrix o ‘from modernist practices. This ideology of the nation undertake to connect itself instead to the roots of ‘whose origins it would seek to recover. ‘The encounter between Carri and Giorgio de Chi {ary hospital in Ferrara in 1917 triggered a furth counterreaction within the avant-garde. Carra had al restless under the yoke of Futurism and had wi longer cared for “emotional electri de Chirico’s attention to form (71. abandoned all the Futurist projects with involved to practice the older man’s pittur games.” Now, he abs “fourteenth-century forms” back t he wrote, was dedic,