Interdisciplinary Conference
University of Oxford
March 21-24, 2012

Organized by Prof David Bradshaw and Prof Laura Marcus

Moving Modernisms is a four day agenda-setting conference taking place in Oxford, 21st-24th March 2012. Bringing together internationally distinguished speakers from across the globe, the conference will explore and evaluate the cultural, material and intellectual landscapes of Modernist scholarship and some of the most significant directions in which study of the period has developed over the past forty years.

The conference will explore the numerous aspects conveyed in the title, including:

• speed, motion, travel and transport
• emotion and the representation of mental and emotional lability
• the moving image and moving body
• shifting temporalities and emergent geographies
• changing perceptions of the discipline itself

Most of all this conference offers the opportunity for students and scholars from a wide range of disciplines and geographical locations to come together to discuss the key issues in the field of Modernism and contemplate its manifold futures.

Balla/Ambron: Gli Anni Venti tra Roma e Cotorniano

December 16, 2011 – March 18, 2012
Fondazione Raccolta Lercaro, Bologna
Curated by Andrea Dall’Asta S.I., Filippo Bacci di Capaci, Elena Gigli

In Bologna, the Gallery of Modern Art and the Foundation Lercaro Collection will present from December 16 to March 18, 2012 the exhibition Balla/Ambron – The Twenties between Rome and Cotorniano, which was the setting for the years of friendship that bound the Futurist artist Giacomo Balla and Emilio Ambron, the collector and patron. Ambron hosted several times the futurist artist in his summer residence near Siena and also in his home in Rome for three years, from 1926 to 1929, when he was in financial difficulties. The friendly relationship between the two families even prompted Balla to teach Ambron’s wife painting. Uniquely, this exhibition presents the many postcards illustrated with watercolors – original works of mail art – which Balla sent to the collector for years.

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A Bologna, la Galleria d’Arte Moderna e la Fondazione “Raccolta Lercaro” presentano dal 16 dicembre al 18 marzo 2012 la mostra Balla/Ambron – Gli Anni Venti tra Roma e Cotorniano in cui sono evocati gli anni dell’amicizia che legò l’artista futurista al collezionista e mecenate Emilio Ambron. Quest’ultimo accolse più volte l’artista futurista nella sua residenza estiva nei pressi di Siena, ospitandolo inoltre per tre anni, dal 1926 al 1929, nella sua casa romana quando si trovò in difficoltà finanziarie. Il rapporto d’amicizia coinvolse anche le due famiglie fino a spingere Balla a insegnare la pittura alla moglie del collezionista. La mostra presenta in particolare le numerose cartoline scritte all’acquerello, autentiche opere di “arte postale”, che Balla inviò per anni al collezionista.

EMMA (Espoo Museum of Modern Art), Helsinki
March 2 – June 10, 2012
Curated by Giancarlo Carpi and Marco Ancora

…The new exhibition at EMMA continues the museum’s series on the phenomena of Modernism. The fascination with machines and speed, like Futurism in general, is very masculine, so out of the 51 artists represented, only three are women. Covering the whole lifecycle of Futurism, the exhibition displays paintings, sculptures, sketches, architectural designs, objets and furniture. Futurism never differentiated between abstract and representational art, what was important in these powerful colourful works was movement. The most popular motifs were machines, cars and aeroplanes, but they were also populated by people and animals.

The French magazine Ligeia, dossiers sur l’art, has published a special file on “Futurisme, Dada, Communisme” concerning the orientation of the avant-garde, such as Italian Futurism, in the field of political ideology.

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La rivista francese Ligeia, dossiers sur l’art ha pubblicato un dossier intitolato “Futurisme, Dada, Communisme” sull’orientamento delle avanguardie, in particolare del futurismo italiano, nel campo dell’ideologia politica.

Luigi Russolo, Futurist

by Luciano Chessa (Author)
University of California Press
Publication Date: March 2012

Paperback, 312 pages
ISBN: 9780520270640

Hardcover, 312 pages
ISBN: 9780520270633

Luigi Russolo (1885–1947)—painter, composer, builder of musical instruments, and first-hour member of the Italian Futurist movement—was a crucial figure in the evolution of twentieth-century aesthetics. As creator of the first systematic poetics of noise and inventor of what has been considered the first mechanical sound synthesizer, Russolo looms large in the development of twentieth-century music. In the first English language study of Russolo, Luciano Chessa emphasizes the futurist’s interest in the occult, showing it to be a leitmotif for his life and a foundation for his art of noises. Chessa shows that Russolo’s aesthetics of noise, and the machines he called the intonarumori, were intended to boost practitioners into higher states of spiritual consciousness. His analysis reveals a multifaceted man in whom the drive to keep up with the latest scientific trends coexisted with an embrace of the irrational, and a critique of materialism and positivism.

Luciano Chessa, a composer and musicologist, teaches music history at the San Francisco Conservatory.

November 19, 2011-February 26, 2012
Casa d’Arte Futurista Depero (Rovereto)
Curated by Renato Barilli

Futurists and Women artists influenced by Futurism outside Italy:

International Yearbook of Futurism Studies 5 (2015) will be a special issue concerned with women Futurists and women artists influenced by Futurism. The volume will contain some 15-18 essays on a number of women actively supporting Futurism (e.g. Ruzena Zatkova, Edyth von Haynau), others periodically involved with the movement (e.g. Valentine de Saint Point, Mina Loy, Aleksandra Ekster, Elena Guro, Olga Rozanova), others again inspired by certain aspects of the movement (e.g. Alice Bailly, Siri Derkert, Agnes Cleve). I also want to cover the Ultraistas Norah Borges, Concha Espina and Maruja Mallo, Kinetismus as an Austrian adaptation of Futurism by Giovanna Klien, the women Vorticists Kate Lechmere, Jessica Dismorr and Helen Saunders.

The deadline is 1 July 2014 for a publication date of 1 March 2015.

Currently, ten proposals have been received. I am still looking for further suggestions. Abstracts should be directed to “Gunter Berghaus” G.Berghaus@bristol.ac.uk

Download full info: Yearbook 2011 ToC and summary 2012-13

Approx. 497 pages. 55 fig.
Hardcover € 99.95 / *US$ 150.00ISBN 978-3-11-023776-4
Online € 99.95 / *US$ 150.00
ISBN 978-3-11-023777-1
Hardcover + Online € 114.95 / *US$ 172.00
ISBN 978-3-11-023778-8
ISSN 2192-0281
e-ISSN 2192-029X

• Vita Futurista seen as the first movie filmed in Florence.

• Gabriella Belli leaving the Museo di arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto (Mart) to direct the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia

• “Futurism in your pocket” presented in Livorno, taking as the point of departure the 20 Euro cent coin.

• Two new restaurants with a nod to the Futurists have opened near Sydney, Austraila: Marinetti in Canberra (reviewed here) and Balla (reviewed here). Any connection?

February 7-April 30, 2014
Guggenheim Museum, New York

May 26-September 14, 2014
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao