June 2014

Take care of the pooch (and cat)… Poster design for Be Kind to Animals Week throughout the 1930s by Morgan Dennis (1892-1960).

Early modern… Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe | Guggenheim. Innovative and avant garde for the time and a prelude to modern abstraction…

(pictured above from top: Giacomo Balla, Paths of Movement + Dynamic Sequences (Linee andamentali + successioni dinamiche), 1913; Gino Severini, Blue Dancer (Ballerina blu), 1912; Carlo Carrà, Funeral of the Anarchist Galli (Funerali dell’anarchico Galli), 1910–11; Luigi Russolo, Solidity of Fog (Solidità della nebbia), 1912; Umberto Boccioni, The City Rises (La città che sale), 1910–11)

Art SPOTTED. Italian Futurism, Reconstructing the Universe | Guggenheim. Parole in libertà, or words-in-freedom is one of themes being explored at this significant Guggenheim show. The Futurists liberated words and letters from conventional presentation by destroying syntax, using verbs in the infinitive, eliminating adjectives and adverbs, abolishing punctuation, inserting musical and mathematical symbols, and employing onomatopoeia. Words-in-freedom poems were read as literature, experienced as visual art, and performed as dramatic works. Truly, an amazing period in 20th century art, as well as one of the museum’s finer moments. If culture is on the radar for the summer, this should be part of the program (show closes Sept. 1)…

(pictured above from top: Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, Spicologia of 1 Man (Spicologia di 1 uomo), 1919; Francesco Cangiullo, Piedigrotta. Book (Milan: Edizioni futuriste di Poesia, 1916); F. T. Marinetti, Air Raid (n. 67) (Bombardamento aereo [n. 67]), 1915–16; Francesco Cangiullo, Large Crowd in the Piazza del Popolo (Grande folla in Piazza del Popolo), 1914; Giacomo Balla, Trelsì… Trelnò, 1914; F. T. Marinetti, Zang Tumb Tuuum: Adrianople October 1912)