Beyond Anarchism
Marinetti, Futurism, Futurist
Anarchism
University College of London (UK), dept. of Italian,
3.12.2008
Marja Härmänmaa, University of Helsinki, Finland / University of Cambridge, Clare Hall College
”A visit”
In 1865 Mikhail Bakunin went to Naples
 Creation of Bakunin’s Anarchist ideology
 Foundation of Anarchist movement in Italy

– In 1900 the murder of King Umberto I
Conceptualization of Futurist
Anarchism
Social utopia of Futurism?
 The social meaning of Art?
 The role of the artist in society?

Italy cradle of Anarchism
Mikhail Bakunin (1814 – 1876)
 Errico Malatesta (1853-1932)
 Economically a poor country
 Disappointment of unification
 Corruption of the political class
 Cultural and political anarchism

– D’Annunzio
– Gian Pietro Lucini
Political radicalism & artistic
anarchism
Associated around the mid 19th century
 Changed artistic institution
 New autonomy of arts and artists
 Critique of middle class society and its
materialistic values
 France: Symbolism and Impressionism

Marinetti’s early social interests

Le Roi Bombance (1905)
– Social revolution (led by the socialists Filippo
Turati and Antonio Labriola)

Before the IWW
– Against the politics of Giolitti
– Connections with extra pariamentary groups
– George Sorel and the theory of the use of
violence
Marinetti and Anarchism

Theme of ’destruction’ in the first works
– La conquête des étoiles (1902)
– Destruction (1904)
In Paris in contact with the Anarchists
 Abbaye de Créteil, utopistic community of
anarchist artists

Futurist anarchy

Foundation of Futurism (1909):
– ”the most aggressive revolt of the modern
man towards the past and the present time”
Artistic anarchism
 Against the artistic tradition
 Rupture of the artistic tradition in
Modernism (partly) caused by the diffusion
of anarchist ideas in arts

”Conferenza su l’amore del pericolo
e l’eroismo quotidiano” (1910)

“E voi, forse, non avete ancora un concetto esatto di ciò
che siamo e di quel che vogliamo. Immaginate nella
malinconica e stagnante repubblica delle lettere e delle
arti un gruppo di giovani assolutamente ribelle e
demolitore che stanco di adorare il passato, nauseato dal
pedantismo accademico, avido di originalità temeraria e
anelante verso una vita avventurosa, energica e
quotidianamente eroica, sgombrare l’anima italiana da
quel amasso [sic] di pregiudizi di luoghi comuni, di
rispetti e di venerazioni che noi chiamiamo il passatismo.
Insomma: degli anarchici in arte, ecco che cosa sono i
futuristi.”
Reasons to deny the past
Judeo-christian conception of linear time
 Advent of the “macchina” had broken the
chain of linear time
 Beginning of a new era
 Past did not exist

”Prefazione futurista a ’Revolverate’
di Gian Pietro Lucini” (1910)

”Il presente non mai come in questi tempi
apparve staccato dalla catena genetica del
passato, figlio di sé stesso e generatore
formidabile delle potenze future”
Versions of Anarchism

Enlightenment
– William Godwin (1756 – 1836)
– Peter Kropotkin (1842 – 1921)
– A perfect society  communism

Romanticism
– Mikhail Bakunin (1814 – 1876)
– Max Stirner (1806 – 1856)
– Individual anarchism
Individual Anarchism

Max Stirner:
– Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum (1844)
No interest towards society nor towards
the arts
 Importance of the individual as ’ego’
against everything
 All social institutions (government,
church..) are artificial concepts and thus
false authorities

Individual aestheticism
Artist produces his uniqueness in art
 Individualist makes art out of his own
personality
 Egoist makes art to promote himself
 Partly explains the heterogeneity of
modernist culture

’Futurism’ as a work of art
In order to promote Marinetti
 Absolute leader of the movement
 Mafarka il futurista (1910)

– Mafarka = Marinetti
– Gazourmah = Futurism
Nihilism of Cultural modernism
Matei Calinescu:
 Otherness and change important
 Tradition of ”antitradition”
 Future way out of rotten present, son of
the past
 When future moment is reached, it
becomes present moment
 Continuous destruction / rejection

Futurist nichilism in arts


Faith in progress
Guerra sola igiene del mondo (1915)
– ”Abbiate fiducia nel progresso, che ha sempre
ragione, anche quando ha torto, perché è il
movimento, la vita, la lotta, la speranza.”
Principle of eternal development
 Nothing is supposed to last
 Works of art are to be destroyed when
they are ready

L’Aeroplano del Papa (1912)

”Sono incessantemente commisto alle mie
scorie.
La mia vita è la fusione perpetua dei miei
frantumi.
Distruggo per creare ed ancora distruggo
per modellare statue tonanti
che subito spezzo con lo schifo e il terrore
di vederle durare!”
Futurist nichilism in politics
Before WW1 no social utopia
 Principle of the eternal development
 Ideal: the everlasting state of war
 ”War, world’s sole hygiene”

Futurist political activity
Marinetti’s growing interest towards
politics after WW1
 First political manifesto (1913)
 Futurist political party (1918)
 Democrazia futurista (1919)
 Al di là del comunismo (1920)

Modernizing Italy
Abolition of Pope, monarchy, parliament
and marriage
 A government of technicians in power with
a council of Young people
 8-hours working day

”Futurist Anarchist State”
Final result of the political program
 An apolitical anarchistic utopia
 No class struggle
 ”Al di là del comunismo”
 Instead of the proletariat, a spiritual
aristocracy that has the right to realize the
Italian revolution

”Artecrazia”

Jean Grave (1854 – 1939)

La societé mourante et l’anarchie (1892)
Anarchy is art
 Art = supreme form of individualism
 The main duty of an anarchist society is to
produce culture
 Oscar Wilde

D’Annunzio and Fiume

The Republic of Fiume (1919 - 1920)

La Carta del Carnaro
Free university
 Academy of fine arts
 Schools of music
 In every municipality an orchestra and a
choir subsidized by the State and giving
free concerts

Marinetti’s version

Al di là del comunismo (1920)

”Art is an alcohol that gives optimism to citizens”
Number of artists must increase -> race of
artists
In every city a centre of genius
Every month new exhibitions of art and poetry
readings.
Music: in every piazza a choir and an orchestra
Life must become a work of art





Goodbye, anarchy!

”Il Futurismo è un movimento
schiettamente artistico ed ideologico.
Interviene nelle lotte politiche soltanto
nelle ore di grave pericolo per la Nazione.”
(Futurismo e Fascismo, 1924)
Avant-garde and totalitarianism






Mussolini in power in 1922
Changed position of Futurism from antagonism
to collaboration with the State
Important position in the artistic life of the
Fascist Italy (Venice Biennale…)
Marinetti member of l’Accademia d’Italia
Marinetti wrote 2-3 articles in the Italian
Encyclopedia about Futurism
Marinetti a special propagandist of the State in
case of war
Anarchist art
Difficult to define
 Artistic anarchy towards society?
 Artistic anarchy within the tradition of art?
 Kropotkin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon:

– Art must serve the revolution
– Documentary meaning: Social realism
Fascist art policy






Discussion started immediately when Mussolini
became prime minister
Futurists wanted a strict artistic policy
Political dictatorship – artistic dictatorship
Futurism as the official art of Fascism
Futurism had collaborated in the foundation of
Fascism (1919)
Fascist Italy a modern State – a need of a
modern art
Art and anarchist society

Kropotkin:
– Artist represented the conscience of
humanity
– Artist was able to change social reality
Futurist art and society

Marinetti:
– ”art and literature have an enormous
influence upon society”
– Art as a tool of social activity
– Rejection of the conception ”art for art’s sake”
– Social role of artist
– Social role of arts
”Arte – vita”

Introduction of life in arts
– Easy to understand
– Art in direct contact with life (antiacademic)

Profanation of the Enlightened middle-class
concept of ”sublime art”
– Create corageously ”ugly”
– Spite on the althare of the arts

Abolition of the boundaries between art – non
art
– New art forms: cuisine
– New elements to arts: sport
Futurists and the Fascist art

Impossibility to detach from the sociopolitical reality:
– ”The political spirit that Mussolini has created
is so impressive that the artists could not
escape its influence.”

The propagandistic aim of art:
– ”Art must serve a universal, political or
nationalistic aim.”
Aerofuturism
Glorification of the airplanes and aviation
 Propaganda of the technological progress
of Italy
 Nationalistic reasons
 The spiritual element of flight: nonmaterialistic dimension of technology

Gerardo Dottori:
Aeropittura, 1930’s
Aeropittura di Tato,
Dinamismo aereo, 1930’s
”Some strategies to disturb the
order”
Anarchism = antagonistic ideology
 Avant-garde = aesthetic dimension
 Terrorism = strategy of realization

Anarchism, now?
Italy: reorganization of the anarchist
movement in 1945 (Federazione anarchica
italiana, FAI)
 Wikipedia: anarcho-capitalism, green
anarchism, anarca-feminism, anarcoprimitivism…

Bourgeois anarchy
Internet: cradle of anarchism, no authority
 Collapse of Soviet Union
 Growing power of multi-national
enterprises
 Nation States’ diminishing power
 ”Umanità cammina verso l’individualismo
anarchico, mèta e sogno d’ogni spirito
forte” (Marinetti, 1920)

Futurist Anarchism now
(1909-2009)?

Marinetti’s anarchist strategy
– Colourful language
– Artistic and extra-artistic manifestations
Aiming at getting attention and at hiding a
mediocre writer
 Model of the modern intellectual
 Television series (The Idols)
 Politics (Berlusconi, Lega Nord)

Thanks!
”In everyone of us there is a little Anarchist… at least occasionally!”
(M.H.)