The Time of Futurism
National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art Dec. 3, 2024 – Feb. 28, 2025 Curated by Gabriele Simongini The exhibition “The Time of Futurism” at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, promoted and supported by the Ministry of Culture and curated by Gabriele Simongini, celebrates the 80th anniversary of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s death on Dec. 2, 1944. Unlike past exhibitions dedicated to the revolutionary avant-garde movement founded in 1909 by Marinetti, this exhibition focuses on the relationship between art and science/technology and illustrates that “complete renewal of human sensibility that took place as a result of the great scientific discoveries” underlying the birth of Futurism. This is a very topical reflection today, considering that the technological tsunami of artificial intelligence is sweeping humanity, fulfilling the prophecy of the machinization of the human and the humanization of the machine foreshadowed by the Futurists themselves. The exhibition aims to be inclusive, educational and multidisciplinary, targeting the general public and especially the younger generation. To this end, it illustrates the concepts of speed, space, distance and perceptual sensitivity evident in the masterpieces of Futurism by contextualizing them in the society of the time, revolutionized by scientific and technological innovations.
Some 350 works including paintings, sculptures, plans, drawings, furnishings, and films, as well as some 100 books and posters will be on display, with an unprecedented focus on the literary matrix of the Marinetti movement, along with a seaplane, automobiles, motorcycles and vintage scientific instruments. To best describe the futurist atmosphere, the exhibition will be enriched by two site-specific installations by Magister Art and Lorenzo Marini and will be enlivened by in-depth events.
We would like to thank the Italian and foreign museums, including MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Estorick Collection in London, and the Kunstmuseum Den Haag in The Hague, which have generously contributed to the exhibition with their loans. The catalog will be published by Treccani and will contain, in addition to institutional greetings, texts by Gabriele Simongini, Francesca Barbi Marinetti, Günter Berghaus, Elena Gigli, Claudio Giorgione, Giovanni Lista, Ada Masoero, Ida Mitrano, Riccardo Notte, Francesco Perfetti and Marcello Veneziani.
Significant collaborations contribute to the cultural offer put in place, such as the one with MAXXI, which with the opening to the public of Casa Balla adds a fundamental stage to the narrative discourse; with the Magna Carta Foundation, promoter of a program of cultural activities with pedagogical aims; with the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology, for the loan of numerous objects that also enriched the exhibition with a scientific slant. The exhibition enjoys the valuable support of
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