By Przemyslaw Strozek
The leader and founder of the Futurist Movement, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, was born in Alexandria in 1876, of Italian descent. He spent his early school years in Egypt, and, as a teenager, he founded a small literary review, Le Papyrus: revue bi-mensuelle litteraire, artistique, fantaisiste et mondaine (1894-1895), in which he published poems and articles in defense of naturalism and modern literature. In this eclectic periodical, of which he published 21 issues, Marinetti showed a keen interest not only in the newest French poetry, but also an early fascination with politics, and especially anarchism, that marked his later writings, including the first manifesto of Futurism. The manifesto, published on February 20, 1909, led to the launching of a Futurist group, which had during its 35 years of activity far-reaching representatives in various parts of Italy and abroad. Marinetti was certain that a radical condemnation of tradition and the transformation of provincial Italian towns into large industrial centers would lead to a strengthening of the country in the international arena and would make the country a fully modern one, governed by the “proletariat of geniuses.” Marinetti believed that the proclamation of a futurist Italy would take place simultaneously by means of political as well as a literary and artistic upheaval. It was not without reason, therefore, that the Futurists were the first to call for Italy to participate in the First World War, as it was the War which paved the way for political fights, culminating in the March of the Blackshirts on Rome and the establishment of the Fascist government in 1922.
By Liz Moy
By Liz Park
“Vis-à-vis”, Canada Shadows, 1978.
By Liz Park
Last week, Dorit Chrysler gave an intimate performance for Performa friends and supporters in New York at the Standard, East Village. The Standard Culture caught up with her backstage.
By Grant Klarich Johnson
By Victor Wang
The museum as a place of art production
By Victor Wang
By Esther Belvis Pons
