The Futurist Manifesto
Manifesto of the Futurist Painters
Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting
Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture
Manifesto of Futurist Musicians
Futurist Manifesto of Lust
Rather than give you a summary of each of these (which you could get if you read them as they're all quite short) I think it would be more useful to express what I think I might know about Futurism.
It seems that Futurists were very much interested in the modern, the industrial, the anti-academic, and anti-traditional. A theme that I find in each of these manifestos (that Goldberg has also hinted at) is the idea that the old is not necessarily bad, but that by attempting to imitate the traditional "good art" we desecrate it. In the words of Boccioni we "prostitute" artistic geniuses by attempting to reproduce them. Expressed strongly in all of these Manifestos and performances is an admiration for war and destruction. Also Futurists were completely unconcerned with appreciation of their art (although they were still concerned with audience reaction, just in a different way). For instance, Marinetti wrote a manifesto on "The Pleasure of being booed" claiming that an artist must, in a sense, "hate the audience". A happy audience was considered by Futurists an audience of "stupid voyeurs", who were probably looking at traditional art by artists who had merely imitated the masters.
Technically, these ideas manifest themselves in artwork. In painting and sculpture the idea of a "subject" was highly criticized and fixed moments were seen as impractical and not worth reproduction. A person is never actually still when you're painting them or creating a sculpture in their likeness. They are constantly moving and blending with their surroundings. Nothing is ever one color, but tints and shades of a color. Sculpture especially played with lines between main "subjects" and their surroundings. According to Boccioni "no one can deny any longer that one object continues at the point another begins, and that everything surrounding our body... intersects it and divides it into sections by forming an arabesque of curves and straight lines." Similar concepts can be seen in Carlos Carra's painting Man On Horse (Below)
Boccioni's sculpture Unique forms of continuity in Space (above) is another example of Futurist art that played with the lines between object, subject, and it's background/space.
Since I'm extending my mini-investigation into Futurism as the roots of Performance Art I will spend next week finishing the Futurist Manifestos that I can find (hints as to any I haven't listed would be greatly appreciated) and trying to look especially into music, dance, and theater in Futurism. The manifestos I will be reading in this next week will include:
The Art of Noise
The Painting of Sounds, Noises, and Smells
The Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe
War the World's Only Hygiene
The Futurist Cinema
A Slap in the Face of Public Taste
The Futurist Universe
Abstract Cinema- Chromatic Music
Destruction of Syntax- Imagination without strings- Words-in-Freedom
By next wednesday I hope to have a better idea of what Futurism is via these manifestos and also to have an updated "reading list" that includes all things I have read thus far. To accompany my "better idea" about Futurism I hope to have either a short paper (more put together than a blog entry) or some other means of putting together and expressing my thoughts about futurism beyond these entries.
Also (as promised) I will be including in this weekly blog an update about a more "current" performance artist that I'm interested in (bio, work, ideas, etc). This week our "featured artist" if you will, will be Vito Acconci. Look for a post on him before this weekend!!
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