Futurism and Anti-Futurism Seminar Series
Fondazione Gottarell
Imola (Bologna)
Mario Guido Dal Monte, a Futurist in town
This event begins the series of four seminars which the Gottarelli Foundation has organised to remember and celebrate Futurism and Anti-Futurism. So, on Wednesday 7 October at 9pm the Gottarelli Foundation Hall (via C. Sforza 13, Imola) will host a seminar led by Antonio Castronuovo entitled: “Mario Guido Dal Monte, a Futurist in town”. Mario Guido Dal Monte (Imola, 1906-1990) was one of the greatest Imola painters of the twentieth century, a period he lived through without ever tying himself to one particular style. In the mid 1920s he joined the Futurist movement, which he later left to join Magical Realism, in an attempt to reconcile the avant-garde with the classical tradition of Italian painting. He approached Abstractism and succeeded in opening an exhibition of paintings at the main venue of the movement: the Milione Gallery in Milan. In the 1940s, after experimenting with Surrealism, he worked with the Concrete Art Movement and then touched the areas of informal art, organic painting and optical art, finally turning towards the Neo-Futurist style which characterised the later years of his life. The first comprehensive study of the painter was written by Antonio Castronuovo, “Mario Guido Dal Monte. Gli stili di un pittore del Novecento” (Imola, Editrice La Mandragora, 2006): a biography which narrates the artist’s career through the many styles he experimented with. On the evening of 7 October none other than Castronuovo – the author of many articles on Futurism and 20th century artists – will recount the life and stylistic voyage of Dal Monte, revealing his amazing creativity and extraordinary taste for colour through a wide selection of images.
Nike and the Pilot: Futurism between Humanism and Technique
Wednesday 21 October at 9pm
The second seminar on Futurism will be held on Wednesday 21 October at 9pm at the Gottarelli Foundation Hall and is entitled “Nike and the Pilot: Futurism between Humanism and Technique” with the speaker Prof. Francesco Giardinazzo. One of the most famous passages in Marinetti’s Futurist manifesto compares the combustion engine to Nike of Samothrace. The apparently iconoclastic and anti-classicist attitude should perhaps be joined by some reflections which do not concern aesthetic matters alone, but the overall conception of man and the dramatic nature of the relationship between Humanism and the questions posed by the age of the technique. The relationship between technique and humanity has fed much of philosophy. Futurism is by definition a movement of ideas and action which regularly renews itself, always looking towards the future. Man’s reason for being is nothing but the future, whose mythical dimension is at the base of every utopian projection, just like every idea of revolution. Wanting to form a new humanism, Futurism exalted the optimism and positive feelings of existence, against all forms of morose sensibility or nihilism. Much more than a simple ideology of history as progress, Futurism is the belief in man’s Prometheus-like affirmation, the discipline of a dynamic spirit, faith in the constant renewal of the social space and existential conditions of human life. Futurism, as the perpetual renewal of the belief in art as a project, recognising itself in the continual, giddy production of manifestos, is a poetic of poetics.
Futurist theatre
Futurist theatre
Wednesday 28 October at 9pm
The third date with the Futurist movement will be held on Wednesday 28 October at 9pm in the Gottarelli Foundation Hall and is entitled: “Futurist theatre”. The seminar will be led by Prof. Pietro Lenzini, who will speak to the audience about this topic which is still of great interest today. The theatre, scenography and shows actually constituted a significant part of the Futurist avant-garde. Perhaps more than other art forms, the theatre has most effectively displayed the polemic and innovative spirit in the break with tradition and convention of all kinds. The idea of the modern goes forward, not only with the conception of a new type of show, but with the complex integration of artistic expressions, audience involvement and the use of new materials. Through the works of Balla, di Depero, di A.G. Bragaglia and M. Prampolini, to name but a few of the most important proponents, this specifically Italian adventure would see wide developments and variations throughout Europe too. Twentieth century theatre later developed a huge number of Futurist innovations. Futurism represented the real avant-garde of the last century in this field too. To cite a particularly interesting passages from Il teatro futurista sintetico, published in 1915 by Marinetti, Corra and Settimelli. “Without insisting against historical theatre, a nauseating form already rubbished by past audiences, we condemn all contemporary theatre as verbose, analytical, pedantically psychological, explanatory, diluted, meticulous, static, full of prohibitions like a police station, divided into cells like a monastery and as mouldy as an old, derelict house. […] We create a Synthetic Futurist Theatre that is therefore very brief. The idea is reduce to a few minutes and a few words and gestures innumerable situations, sensibilities, ideas, sensations, facts and symbols”.
In praise of Immobility
In praise of Immobility
Wednesday 11 November at 9pm
On Wednesday 11 November at 9pm, in the Gottarelli Foundation Hall, Marilena Pasquali will lead a discussion entitled “In praise of Immobility”. This is the fourth and last of the Gottarelli Foundation’s dates dedicated to Futurism and Anti-Futurism. Unlike many of the correct but often repetitive celebrations of the centenary of the first Futurist manifesto, this talk In praise of immobility intends to rethink the theoretical bases of the movement, approaching them from a different angle, partly provocative and perhaps useful: by reflecting and contemplating the necessity of creative thought. The movement is the image of a necessarily dialectic synthesis. The image and the movement are born precisely from a reflection on the opposing concepts of movement and immobility. Naturally Marilena Pasquali will produce examples of what is affirmed, form Pascal to Voltaire (“Il faut cultiver notre jardin”…), Cézanne, Morandi and Balthus. ” Il faut cultiver notre jardin “, says Voltaire’s Candide after many long adventures. We must cultivate our garden. Which may mean: let’s look after that which we can control, change, improve, and leave metaphysics to the metaphysicians.
