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                                                                                                                                       Futurism and Photography 

ThThe futurist movement was founded by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and aimed at having universal features which included different fields, not only painting and literature. The Futurism was inspired by Cubism and aspired to look as a revolutionary movement, with a mechanical view of the universe inspired by materialism.

On February 20, 1909 Filippo Tommaso Martinetti published on “Le Figaro” the Manifeste du Futurisme  which was relaunched in Italy on February 1910 with the Manifesto dei pittori futuristi (Manifesto of Futurist Painters) and later in April with the Manifesto Tecnico della pittura futurista (Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting) signed by Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini, Luigi Russolo.

According to the futurists, it was necessary to abolish the traditional perspective in image, in favour of many points of view which could express the dynamic interaction with the surrounding space: …”the world's magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty; the beauty of speed…This is what the First Manifesto announced. It is a death decree of each past mythology, in favour of a new mythology; the car, shining, rumbling, utilitarian idol… The Style must become fast, zippy, twisty such as modern life and its endless explosion and pulsate; …therefore plastic dynamism…”.

In these years Anton Giulio Bragaglia realized his first photo dynamics which represented the starting point for the relation between futurism and photography, which was initially very controversial.

The second stage of futurism in photography took place during the Twenties when the “photo collage” was introduced, the same occurred particularly in (Pannaggi, Prampolini, Paladini); while the third stage was started by Marinetti and Tato in 1930 with the Manifesto della Fotografia Futurista (Manifesto of Futurist Photography).

The exhibition, which includes 130 works, will be realized in collaboration with the Alinari Foundation of Florence and Giovanni Lista will be the editor.

The exhibition regards the different relations between futurists and photography: portraiture, photomontage, photo sizing, iconographic manipulation, iconic research, photo-performance, but also photography as propaganda, sociological and ideological means and the memory or the possibility to express and fix the official character and the inner essence of futurist movement, its social occasions or the customs which contributed to the group complicity. The richness and diversity of futurist’s purposes in photographic field, yet connected to the works of the other European avant-gardes, represents a unique experience, which draws on the principles of futurist art: Antipassatismo (Down with the past), formal and aesthetic experimentation, the will to catch the dynamism and vitalism of  contemporary world.   Beyond the futurism, developed around the figure of Marinetti, the exhibition will also display images of a “futurist culture” which formed in a free and independent way in terms of experimentalism or of an avant-garde spirit which affected photography as a medium of legitimated modernity par excellence both in everyday actions and in the act of creation.

The photographs derive from private collections and public institutions such as Alinari, Museum of Cinema and Photography in Turin, MART ( Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art) of Trento and Rovereto.