On September 13rd, "A Futuristic Universe: Italian Massimo and Sonia Chirulli Foundation Collection" exhibition opened in Tsinghua university art museum, presenting more than 250 works created by artists during the boom of futurism(from 1909 to 1939), including painting, sculpture, graphic design, photography, collage, sketch, books, and industrial design, which will run until December 4th.
Composing of 12 thematic units, including "Conquering the Sky", "Futuristic Manifesto", "Energy", "Exchanges between Different Fields: Art and Industry + Geometric Texture", "Italian Cocktails and Food", "Body in Motion", "Typography Revolution", "Antonio Sanelia", "Bruno Munari", "Anton Giulio Blaglia", "Virgilio March" and "Built Environment". The exhibition aims to explore the rich nature of futuristic creation, and the way futurists re-create a futuristic multiverse.
The works of representative artists such as Umbert Boccioni, Giacomo Bara, Fortunato DePero, Antonio Santelia, Luigi Rusolo, Tayat, Bruno Munari and Virgilio March are on display in this exhibition.
It's introduced that futurism is the first avant-garde movement initiated in the 20th century. On February 20th, 1909, the Frank-Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published a manifesto on the front page of "Le Figaro" newspaper in Paris, and carried out profound reforms of contemporary culture fields centering around Milan, Italy, such as poetry, painting, sculpture, music, dance and architectural design.
Su Dan, deputy director of China Art and Craft Museum and curator of China Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum, told the reporter: "I have a special preference for this exhibition. When I studied art history and architectural history, futurism was often just briefly mentioned in books. However, the truth is that futurism has such an extensive infiltration that has influenced many later artistic schools."
"The two avant-garde art schools Futurism and cubism basically of the same era form a competitive relationship and each has its own merits. For example, cubism mainly deals with traditional issues in Western art, such as perspective and space, while futurism pays more attention to the connection between art and society" said Chen Anying, a professor at Tsinghua University's Academy of Fine Arts. Moreover, he believes that futurism has made an effect on many modern designs. The emergence of an industrial machine aesthetic and its combination with modern design can't be separated from the contribution of futurism.
This is the third exhibition of Italian culture and art organized by the Tsinghua University Art Museum, following "Dialogue with Da Vinci/The 4th International Exhibition of Art and Science" in 2016 and "Design Utopia 1880-1980: 100 Years of Design History/The Biagetti-Koenig Collection" in 2021.
