Exhibition/works

Milan, the rising city: the city where Futurism was born and where it lived out its exhilarating early years, is dedicating a lavish exhibition to the centenary of this rebellious, visionary avant-garde movement. The exhibition will take over the whole of the ground floor of Palazzo Reale, and represents the key event in a packed programme of initiatives staged by the Comune di Milano, including theatre, film, dance and fashion happenings, making the city the capital of Futurism for the whole of 2009.
Around five hundred works reconstruct the entire span of the movement, and present an exhaustive, multifaceted panorama of Italy’s principal 20th century avant-garde movement. The exhibition explores the full extension of the movement, from its origins, rooted in the artistic culture of the end of the 19th century, up to the end of the 1930s and beyond, with the legacy it left to future generations – and the works of some of the artists from the second half of the 20th century who drew on Futurism, or paid an explicit tribute to it.
 
The exhibition presents around 250 paintings, drawings and sculptures, as well as examples of paroliberismo, architectural drawings and designs, set designs and theatrical costumes, photographs and book-objects, and elements from the realm of daily life (decorative art items, graphic design and fashion), all bearing the innovative hallmark of Futurism.

Among the many exhibitions commemorating the centenary of the movement, this unique show documents the entire, vast operative scope of Futurism, highlighting its generous, to some extent utopian desire to redesign the full spectrum of human activity in an innovative vein: the movement’s unrivalled, defining trait.  

Just as the Futurists wanted to place the spectator “at the centre of the picture”, this full, momentous exhibition places the visitor “at the centre of Futurism”. Vibrant, dynamic and multifarious, the show reflects the essence of this extraordinary, unique avant-garde movement, which radiated out from Milan to the rest of Italy and Europe, absorbing a genuine throng of artists.