POGGI, Christine, Inventing Futurism. The Art and Politics of Artificial Optimism, Princeton, Princeton University Pres, 2008, 392 p.
ISBN 978-0-691-13370-6
RÉSUMÉ
In 1909 the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published the foundingmanifesto of Italian Futurism, an inflammatory celebration of "the loveof danger" and "the beauty of speed" that provoked readers to takeaggressive action and "glorify war--the world's only hygiene."Marinetti's words unleashed an influential artistic and politicalmovement that has since been neglected owing to its exaltation ofviolence and nationalism, its overt manipulation of mass mediachannels, and its associations with Fascism. Inventing Futurism is a major reassessment of Futurism that reintegrates it into the history of twentieth-century avant-garde artistic movements.
Countering the standard view of Futurism as naïvely bellicose,Christine Poggi argues that Futurist artists and writers were far moreambivalent in their responses to the shocks of industrial modernitythan Marinetti's incendiary pronouncements would suggest. She closelyexamines Futurist literature, art, and politics within the broadercontext of Italian social history, revealing a surprisingly powerfulundercurrent of anxiety among the Futurists--toward the acceleratedrhythms of urban life, the rising influence of the masses, changinggender roles, and the destructiveness of war. Poggi traces the movementfrom its explosive beginnings through its transformations under Fascismto offer completely new insights into familiar Futurist themes, such asthe thrill and trauma of velocity, the psychology of urban crowds, andthe fantasy of flesh fused with metal, among others.
Lavishly illustrated and unparalleled in scope, Inventing Futurismdemonstrates that beneath Futurism's belligerent avant-garde posturinglay complex and contradictory attitudes toward an always-deferredutopian future.
TABLE DES MATIÈRES
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
CHAPTER ONE: Futurist Velocities 1
CHAPTER TWO: Folla/Follia: Futurism and the Crowd 35
CHAPTER THREE: Umberto Boccioni's The City Rises: Picturing the Futurist Metropolis 65
CHAPTER FOUR: Photogenic Abstraction: Giacomo Balla's Iridescent Interpenetrations 109
CHAPTER FIVE: Dreams of Metallized Flesh: Futurism and the Masculine Body 150
CHAPTER SIX: Futurist Love, Luxury, and Lust 181
CHAPTER SEVEN: Return of the Repressed: Vicissitudes of the Futurist Machine Aesthetic under Fascism 232
CHAPTER EIGHT: Epilogue 266
Notes 273
Works Cited 349
Index 361
Photography Credits 375
BIOGRAPHIE
Christine Poggi is professor of the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of In Defiance of Painting: Cubism, Futurism, and the Invention of Collage.