Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Fascism & Futurism
With the advent of war the effete, decorative style of
stile liberty
was no longer fit for pur-
pose in a world where Mussolini blustered about the Roman ideals of strength, masculinity
and rationality. San Siro Stadium was built in 1926, embodying fascism's disconcerting
mix of Rationalist modernity with Mussolini's fetish for the camper side of Imperial Rome.
As Italy's biggest rail terminus, Mussolini commissioned a fitting palace for rail transport
on Piazza Duca d'Aosta. Begun in 1912, but finally realised between 1925 and 1931, the
extraordinary design is flush with national fervour. Most of the overtly fascist symbolism
was removed or obscured but the deco-tinged neo-Babylonian architecture can hardly hide
its intent. Milan's other former fascist monuments include the Triennale, Palazzo
dell'Arengario and the massive Armani shop on Via Manzotti.
Contemporaneous with fascism was FT Marinetti's violent, history-hating Futurist credo,
intent on dispatching the deadening weight of the past in order to speed Italy into the mod-
ern age. Futurist painter Gino Severini described the artistic atmosphere of early-20th-cen-
tury Milan as 'messier and more destructive than you could imagine'. Launched by a gang
of drawing-room revolutionaries, Marinetti's 1910 manifesto railed against museums, the
past and even pasta, and looked presciently to a new century forged by violence, war, ma-
chines and speed. The movement was a broad church, ranging from Marinetti's card-carry-
ing fascism to those more interested in aesthetic liberation and the search for a poetic of the
industrial age. These included Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni and a young Bruno Mun-
ari.
Post WWII, the Informels captured the frustrated but heady energy of the early boom
years in paintings marked by 'formlessness'. Initially an Informel, Lucio Fontana went on
to poke holes and slash canvases, and with Piero Manzoni, famous for exhibiting cans of
'Artist's Shit', was Italy's seminal conceptual artist. Crowded salon-style into the Piero
Portaluppi-designed 1930s apartment of collector and Pirelli engineer, Antonio Boschi and
his wife, Marieda di Stefano, are some 300 examples of Futurist and Informel works,
where Fontana's slashed canvases hang side-by-side with Manzoni's surface-busting
An-
chromes
.
In addition to the private gallery scene, a number of dynamic private foundations champion some of the re-
gion's most avant-garde art. Prada (
www.fondazioneprada.org
), Trussardi
(
www.fondazionenicolatrussardi.com
)
and Hangar Bicocca (
www.hangarbicocca.org
)
all stage programs of
important, ground-breaking work. These shows are well worth looking out for; they're attention grabbing
in scale and often competitive in the provocation stakes.
