Futurism Exhibitions

Modernism · c. 1909–1918

Speed, machines, and noise

Launched by a manifesto on the front page of a Paris newspaper in 1909, Futurism demanded that Italy burn its museums and worship the racing car instead. Balla broke motion into repeating planes, Boccioni forced striding figures into bronze, Russolo built machines to perform noise as music. The movement was genuinely inventive and openly aggressive, and its enthusiasm for violence carried several of its members into fascism.