Futurist Depero

Book excerpt: Y focusing on the life and work of Fortunato Depero (Fondo, Trento, 1892 – Rovereto, 1960) it will aim to offer a new assessment of what has been termed "the Avant-garde of avant-gardes": Italian Futurism.0This visual and literary movement, which was launched with the Manifesto published by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti on 20 February 1909 in the French newspaper Le Figaro, has found its place in history due to the radical nature of its ideas: abolishing all references to the art of the past (considered to be pure "passatismo"), exalting dynamism, the machine, speed and war, freeing words from grammatical structure and multiplying viewpoints in order to express the dynamic interaction of the material with the surrounding space. 0During its most active years, between 1909 and 1915, Futurism made an innovative and dynamic contribution to European visual art and literature. The outbreak of World War I resulted in a break in its activities with many of the Futurists participating in the combat and the death of Boccioni. Prior to this, in 1913, Fortunato Depero went to Rome where he met Marinetti and visited the exhibition on Boccioni at the Galleria Sprovieri. His encounter there with the work of Boccioni and Balla led to a transformation in his artistic output as he assimilated Boccioni’s visual dynamism and Balla’s sense of tension deriving from the abstraction of forms. In the spring of 1915 Depero joined the Futurist movement.0Exhibition: Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain (10.10.2014-18.01.2015).