The birth of the avant-garde, 1910-1915, FUTURISM
Palazzo Zabarella, Padua
Curated by Fabio Benzi, Francesco Leone, and Fernando Mazzocca, the exhibition "Futurism. The birth of the avant-garde, 1910-1915" is an exceptional exhibit which investigates with a fresh approach the origins of the movement, presenting a new and original perspective on Futurism. Despite the countless exhibitions of the last forty years, none of them has extensively and critically investigated the cultural and figurative underpinnings, the roots, and the different voices and themes that brought to the birth and outburst of this movement which has characterized Western art of the first half of the twentieth century.
"Futurism" means, first of all, the "art of the future" and, among the avant-gardes of the early 1900s, it is indeed that which was most of all animated by a revolutionary sense of renewal, of rebellion against tradition and trust in the possibilities of the future and its technical innovations. The first Futurist generation of artists - first of all, Umberto Boccioni, and then Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, Antonio Sant'Elia, Giacomo Balla and Gino Severini - aimed to reawaken figurative art that was still dealing with themes - linked to religious and mythological subjects - that were perceived distant from reality.
This exhibition investigates all of this with over 100 works dated to a small period of time, from 1910 - year of the foundation of the movement - to 1915 - year of the publication of the Manifesto della Ricostruzione Futurista dell'Universo (Manifesto of the Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe) and Italy's entry into the First World War. A series of works of exceptional importance, some of which have never or rarely been exhibited - coming from galleries, museums, and international collections, for a total number of 45 different lenders.