Fall Gala : Futurism

As the year has started to end we have asked our artists to provide us with new pieces following the theme of Futurism. Futurism as an artistic movement has its origins in the Italian pre-war avant-garde. The movement began as a means of depicting and contextualizing the societal and technological changes that came with the country’s rapid industrialization. A century later, Futurism has since expanded greatly in both scope and definition. Depictions and understandings of the accelerated advance of the future are no longer limited to an industrial revolution milieu, nor are futurist imaginations still confined within the narrow constrictions of an increasingly nationalistic European nation preparing for war.

Our understanding of Futurism in the modern era has broadened to the point of often near-unrecognizability from the work and philosophy of the first Italian Futurists, who were primarily concerned with an adrenaline-filled (and often uncritical) exultation for speed and technological advance. Modern futurism can certainly still touch upon that embracing of speed and exhilaration, but also focus on more quietly thoughtful visions of hope, more melancholy predictions of despair, and anything that lies between. Many of us looking into the future find ourselves fighting internally between our hopes for what we wish to see and our anxieties over what we fear we may say. Art can be a steam release for such cultural anxiety. We hope that the artwork created by our gallery artists can help spark some conversation about our individual and collective thoughts about what the future may hold.

It must be noted that, while Futurism as a movement and an aesthetic has been incredibly influential in the development of an incredibly broad range of artistic visions and philosophies the world around, we would be remiss in not acknowledging the uglier side of Futurism’s history; Futurism’s origins lie in early 20th Century Italy and formed primarily as a response to the rapid industrialization and modernization taking place throughout the country. While the movement celebrated such things as youthful exuberance, and the flourishing of technological innovations in a rapidly changing society, this was often expressed in tandem with unabashed and hyper-nationalistic celebrations of war and violence (violence largely inflicted upon Africa during Italy’s WWII colonial efforts), not to mention explicit and deliberate overtones of misogyny. Consequently, many Italian Futurists ultimately aligned themselves with Italian fascism, some going so far as the work specifically as propagandists for the tyrannical dictatorship of Benito Mussolini. While fascism is by no means intrinsic to futurism aesthetically or ideologically, it cannot be denied that many of the early Italian futurists were nonetheless out and proud fascists.