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Art Forum
Futurists
Franki Starr
The Futurists movement is something that I hold dear to my heart. It was about looking toward the future and forgetting the past. Don’t get me wrong the past is important to learn about so we can achieve greater things. It was the beginning of the 20th century; it was speed and technology that persuaded a generation. It was a revolution; it started with Fillippo Marinetti and his Futurist Manifesto. They broke free of the molds with design creating a whole new freedom. This was one of the first ground-breaking movements we learned in Graphic design history that has really influenced my work this semester. In a typography assignment we had to pick a typeface and include its history in a print design, naturally I picked Futura typeface. My design was going to be homage to the Futurist movement. Originally I thought it was associated with the Futurist movement but further research it seems its associated with the Bauhaus. I digress so it seems in Art Forum it had a lot of articles in the spread talking about Marinetti and the Futurists because it is the 100th year anniversary.
The first article was explaining how different museums were celebrating this and there gallery layouts. They didn’t agree with some of them because it didn’t represent Futurists especially Italian innovators. In the article it said the Pompidou in Paris was the first to lead the way in exhibits. But as Art Forum explains that it seemed like where ever in Europe they were celebrating with exhibits of pioneering artists that country was taking credit for the movement, only showing native country pieces to the time. This is frustrating because I know it originated in Italy but what about others? Museums are giving wrong historical guidance. Another point they also brought up is that no where in the U.S. were museums celebrating this anniversary.
Since the Modernist movement killed Futurism it only seems now since the late 80’s and the rise of the computer have we gone back to these type freedoms; throwing away the strict guidelines of typography set by high Modernists.
The next article was going into detail about Marinetti’s life. Bruce Sterling really seems to downplay his genius. One point that I found was interesting is that when we look back at Futurism now it doesn’t seem so violent it’s nostalgic something Marinetti would have hated. Doesn’t that seem to be the theme when we look back on a movement that still has influence on us today? We appreciate it for what it was but don’t realize how extreme it was for that time. 100 years in art isn’t that long of a time period but we have to look at the past so we can move forward.
