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Tate Modern Exhibition

Futurism

12 June – 20 September 2009
Futurism exhibition banner

Futurism was an art movement launched by the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1909. On 20 February he published his Manifesto of Futurism on the front page of the Paris newspaper Le Figaro. That moment saw the birth of the Futurists, a small group of radical Italian artists working just before the outbreak of the First World War.

Among modernist movements, the Futurists rejected anything old and looked towards a new Italy. This was partly because the weight of past culture in Italy was felt as particularly oppressive. In his Manifesto, Marinetti asserted 'we will free Italy from her innumerable museums which cover her like countless cemeteries.'

Luigi Russolo The Revolt 1911 abstracted figures pulling chevron shapes with grid-like patterns behind

Luigi Russolo The Revolt 1911 abstracted figures pulling chevron shapes with grid-like patterns behind

What the Futurists proposed instead was an art that celebrated the modern world of industry and technology: 'We declare … a new beauty, the beauty of speed. A racing motor car … is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace' (the celebrated ancient Greek sculpture in the Louvre museum in Paris). From an original blend of elements of Neo-Impressionism and Cubism, the Futurists created a new style that expressed the idea of the dynamism, energy and movement of modern life. The chief artists were Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Gino Severini and Luigi Russolo.

Tate Modern celebrates the centenary of this dramatic art movement with a ground-breaking exhibition. Here you'll see the work of the Futurists accompanied by rooms looking at art movements reacting to Futurism, including Cubism, the British art movement Vorticism, and Russian Cubo-Futurism.

Highlights include Boccioni's dynamic bronze sculpture of a man which seems to leap through thin air, Picasso's Head of a Woman, Nevinson's Vorticist masterpiece Bursting Shell, and works by major artists such as Braque, Leger, Malevich, and Duchamp.

Tate Modern

Bankside
London SE1 9TG
Plan your visit

Dates

12 June – 20 September 2009

Find out more

  • The Vorticists Manifesto for a modern world exhibition banner

    The Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World

    The Vorticists exhibition at Tate Britain celebrates the full electrifying force of this pivotal modernist movement

  • Blank Image (for use as default)

    Braque

    Braque: past Tate Britain exhibition

  •  
     

    The Hanging of a Rebel: The Life of CRW Nevinson

    History remembers CRW Nevinson as England's only Futurist: a young rebel who worked closely with Severini and Marinetti, and unintentionally caused a schism in London's avant-garde.

  • Blank Image (for use as default)

    Fernand Léger

    Fernand Léger: past Tate Britain exhition

  • Exhibition banner for Duchamp Man Ray Picabia The Moment Art Changed Forever at Tate Modern

    Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia

    Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia 21 February – 26 May 2008 Exhibition of leading figures in the New York Dada movement at Tate Modern

  • Shigeko Kubota Marcel Duchamp Teeny Duchamp and John Cage playing chess

    'All artists are not chess players – all chess players are artists' Marcel Duchamp

    Allan Savage

    To coincide with the first exhibition to explore the inter-relationship between Duchamp, Man Ray and Picabia at Tate Modern, Allan Savage looks at the fascination of all three artists with the game of chess.

  • Marcel Duchamp in conversation with Beatrice Cunningham in the Philadelphia Museum of Art 1955

    An Unpublished Drawing by Duchamp: Hell in Philadelphia

    Jennifer Mundy

    This paper discusses a hitherto unpublished drawing by Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) that relates to his masterwork The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), 1915–23. This drawing escaped the attention of Duchamp scholars because the artist gave it as a present to an American television producer in 1956. The significance of the note, together with the circumstances of the gift, is discussed here.

  • Répartition et emplacement des troupes de l’armée française (Troop Distribution and Positions of the French Army), 1905 Detail of Paris

    Military Avoidance: Marcel Duchamp and the 'Jura-Paris Road'

    Kieran Lyons

    The essay traces military relationships in the work of Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968), paying particular attention to his notes of 1912 known as the 'Jura-Paris Road'. These are interpreted as 'military texts' and the author shows how military concerns remained with Duchamp throughout his career, resulting in facetious outcomes that obscured uneasy preoccupations.

  • Artist

    Umberto Boccioni

    1882–1916
  • Artist

    Giacomo Balla

    1871–1958
  • Artist

    Gino Severini

    1883–1966
  • Artist

    Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson

    1889–1946
  • Artist

    Georges Braque

    1882–1963
  • Artist

    Kazimir Malevich

    1879–1935
  • Artist

    Fernand Léger

    1881–1955
Artwork
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