From October 14 to 18, 2009, the legacy of Futurism—one of the seminal and most controversial avant-garde art movements of the twentieth century—will be celebrated in San Francisco in a citywide project entitled Metal + Machine + Manifesto = Futurism’s First 100 Years. This year marks the hundredth anniversary of Futurism’s founding document, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s “Manifesto of Futurism” (1909), which boldly denounced nineteenth-century nostalgia for the past and instead embraced the noise, technology, and rapid change of modern life. This series of performances, lectures, and events will examine Futurism’s relationship to innovative artistic forms, radical and regressive politics, and performance work today.
The project also marks the West Coast preview of Performa 09, curator RoseLee Goldberg’s acclaimed New York City biennial of visual art performance. In an unprecedented collaboration between Performa and a consortium of Bay Area cultural institutions (spearheaded by SFMOMA as part of its Live Art series), Metal + Machine + Manifesto will premiere two projects commissioned by Performa, offering the first chance to see them outside of New York.
“We’ve been talking with Performa about a cross-country collaboration between our institutions for some time,” says Frank Smigiel, associate curator of public programs at SFMOMA. “We’re incredibly pleased that San Francisco will be the first city to preview new work commissioned by Performa for its 2009 biennial. It’s exactly this kind of innovative partnership among cultural organizations that seems pivotal for the success of each institution, and also for the benefit of the communities we serve.”
Program highlights include a rare screening of the only surviving futurist film; a rowdy futurist banquet inspired by Marinetti’s Futurist Cookbook (1932); decidedly unscholarly talks and a panel discussion among Futurism scholars; a concert of music written for futurist composer Luigi Russolo’s bizarre instruments called intonarumori (noise intoners); a special lecture by literary critic Marjorie Perloff, author of the seminal text The Futurist Moment; an open-house printing and performance of an early futurist poem by Aldo Palazzeschi; and an exhibition of artworks by Italian futurist designer Fortunato Depero.
Metal + Machine + Manifesto = Futurism’s First 100 Years is coorganized by Performa and SFMOMA with the Italian Cultural Institute. The project is copresented with Brava! for Women in the Arts, The San Francisco Center for the Book, UC Berkeley Department of Italian Studies, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 Third Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
Web site at www.sfmoma.org or call 415.357.4000 for more information
Image: Fortunato Depero, Numeri 5-0, 1927; courtesy Studio 53 Arte, Rovereto, Italy
