Contemporary Futurisms: Beyond the Boundaries of Time

In this work, a bottle dominates resting on a plate - whose two constitutive elements give life to a still life, a paradoxical theme in Boccioni's Futurist poetry. The Calabrian artist, perhaps referring to a sculpture by Medardo Rosso — the Bookmaker — manages to render the dynamic play that underlies his works through a swirling vision of the elements, making the interior and exterior of objects indistinct and giving movement to the whole. The specimen on display is a surmoulage, authorized by the Marinetti heirs, of the specimen Winston Malbin — obtained from the plaster of the MASP — now at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Another extremely relevant work is the "Anti-graceful," a patinated plaster sculpture created between 1912 and 1913 and preserved at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome, representing the artist's mother. The bust is one of the few surviving examples of Futurist sculptures executed by Boccioni between 1912 and 1913 and exhibited at the "Galerie 23" in Paris in 1913. The surmoulage on display, also authorized by the Marinetti heirs, derives from a bronze casting made by the Marinetti family in 1951 (before transferring the plaster to the GAM) and then sold in September 1956 to Lydia and Harry Lewis Winston Malbin, who left it in 1989 to the Metropolitan Museum of New York.

"Contemporary Futurisms" and today's artists

Luigi Citarella, with his "Bathing Beauty" that merges a woman's body with a head shaped like an engine, refers to a feminine image that, like the "machine," should launch into a wild race, but instead comfortably rests lying down. Her movement — like ours, in the face of the work — is intimate, interior. It is the still and silent motion of the machine that imagines becoming human.

Alessia Forconi presents a complex work where a tree is not only a tree but also the sun, wind, and the song of birds resting on its branches, thus speaking to us of a Futurist flora and the whole world that revolves around it.

Massimo Giacon expresses all his Futurist verve with a "flesh and bones" little rabbit that finds its roots in Toy Culture, a subculture born in the early '90s as a three-dimensional evolution of writing puppets, developed parallel to the rise of Western Street Art and Japanese and Korean manga.

Alessandro Guerriero inserts his "Re-design" seats at Palazzo Donà dalle Rose, among ancient artifacts and prestigious canvases. The founder in 1976 of "Alchimia," the group of designers that gave birth to Italian postmodernism, Guerriero uses a very personal and peculiar vocabulary where the word "Design" is "Romantic" (he called it, the theory with which he looks at his profession).

Marco Manicardi is present with his heavily and chromatically neutral human body curled up in the fetal position which, just like a child, does not seem at all aware of its sad fate. Nonetheless, a doubt arises: what if the punctures were, ultimately, necessary? If only through the many wounds received — starting from those inflicted by the Futurists on the art of the past — we were able to establish connections?

Fulvio Merolli brings to the stage in Venice his flying, dynamic, and thunderous marble figures, through which he himself merges with his artisanal and creative gesture: movement, in the abstract, does not exist, not even in thought. There is becoming, and the vibrant plastic matter of the sculpture is proof of it.

Rosa Mundi, with one of her famous armillary spheres, gives voice and space to one of the horses of San Marco, which seems to move inside a "clock." His step, measured, crosses time and seems to have the same function as the horse that, in Boccioni's "The City Rises," heralded the advent of Futurism: it symbolizes the transformative force of art. But with a substantial difference. While Boccioni's horse was furious and wild, Rosa Mundi's moves at a slow and steady pace. There is no need to rush. The wheel turns, and the future, like the past, is already present while its "suitcases," of various sizes, represent the intangible cultural baggage, layered over millennia, of different human experiences and eras.

Giuseppe Negro speaks to the audience through an art dominated by his "architecture" of tiles, painted in dark colors, reminiscent of the black color of burnt wood, typical of the poetic action of the artist. In the work, the tiles are metaphorically joined by the development of fragments of burnt wood, juxtaposed and protruding from the structure, and by small heads, similar to sculptures.

Elia Alunni Tullini, with his dynamic sculpture, in which a bust of the Venus de Milo emerges from the vortex of a concrete mixer, seems to almost take the Futurists at their word: in the mortal embrace of the machine, the poor Venus rotates on herself, incredulous and astonished. All hope seems lost. Yet, before laughter overwhelms us, a thought arises: the rotation of the machine is entirely natural. By spinning on itself, the sculpture — the classical tradition — rediscovers earth, a key element, an unavoidable pivot of every interpretation, as well as a design piece by the founder of Alchimia.

Studio Superego, with the furnishings of the Bon Bon collection, composed of a sequence of colored plexiglass modules that repeat and overlap, building the form, presents a series of unique pieces designed and produced in collaboration with Marco Pettinari. The Bon Bon coffee table, with colors seemingly borrowed from Futurballa or Depero, is the undisputed protagonist.