Günter Berghaus

Action / Reaction: Futurism in Belgium

and Europe
La fortuna del futurismo in Belgio. A cura di Enrico Crispolti e Caterina Ter-
zetti. Exhibition catalogue. Bruxelles: Istituto Italiano di Cultura, 19 Novem-
ber 2009 – 1 December 2009; Leuven: Katholieke Universiteit, Faculteit Let-
teren, 4–18 December 2009. Ferrara: Salone dei Passi Perduti, 1–23 marzo
2010. Roma: Archivio Crispolti Arte Contemporanea, 2009. pp. 23; 5 ill.;
21×21 cm.

Bart van den Bossche, Giuseppe Manica, and Carmen van den Bergh, eds.:
Azione/Reazione: Il futurismo in Belgio e in Europa. Atti del Convegno Inter-
nazionale Bruxelles/Lovanio, 19–20 novembre 2009. Firenze: Cesati, 2012.
Pbk. 8°, pp. 336. 30.00 €. ISBN 978-88-7667-437-2.

In 2009, Enrico Crispolti with a student from the University of Siena, Caterina
Terzetti (who is studying for her Ph.D. the Belgian Futurist Jules Schmalzigaug)
set up an exhibition that travelled from Brussels to Leuven to Ferrara and was
complemented by a conference. The proceedings of that gathering have now been
published in a volume containing 19 essays that cover the fate of Futurism in a
variety of countries, including Belgium, Italy, France, Poland and Russia.
The catalogue of the exhibition is rather thin and contains little more than
three short essays by Enrico Crispolti, Gino Agnese and Caterina Terzetti on
Futurism in Belgium. The second of these has now been reprinted in the confer-
ence volume; the third has been revised and enlarged; only the first by Crispolti,
which sketches out the links between Italian and Belgian Futurism, has not been
developed any further. The exhibition contained a small number of paintings and
graphic works by Schmalzigaug, Karel Maes, Pierre Louis Flouquet, Jozef Peeters
and René Magritte and some 30 related documents (letter, postcards, catalogues,
reviews and articles), but only a handful of these are reproduced in the catalogue.
Visitors who had their appetite wetted by the exhibition, had a chance soon after
to see Jules Schmalzigaug: Un futuriste belge at the Museés Royaux des Beaux-Arts
de Belgique (29 October 2010 – 23 January 2011) with an informative and well-il-
lustrated catalogue published by Snoeck.
Futurism in Belgium has been the subject of some forty publications (mainly
essays). Given the large number of writers and artists, both francophone and
Flemish-speaking, who in one form or another felt attracted to Futurism, we are
likely to see more substantial studies to emerge in this nascent field of studies.

10.1515/futur–2013-0009
 Action / Reaction: Futurism in Belgium and Europe 45

This volume, Azione/Reazione, is certainly making a good start. Serge Vanvolsem

analyses in “I primi passi del futurismo in Belgio” the Futurist exhibition held
at the Galerie George Giroux in Brussels (20 May to 5 June 1912) and outlines the
spectrum of reactions provoked by the paintings. A slightly different perspective
on this exhibition is offered by Gino Agnese, who in “I futuristi a Bruxelles nel
1912: Quegl’indimenticabili incontri e scontri” highlights the fact that the show
can hardly be regarded a business proposition, as most paintings had already
been sold in Berlin. Marinetti’s decision to send the images to a further location
was both an attempt to strengthen the revolutionary impetus of Futurism and
to advertise his movement throughout Europe (in different constellations, the
paintings were afterwards shown in The Hague, Amsterdam, Cologne, Munich,
Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Vienna, Budapest, Karlsruhe, Lvov, and some other cities)
Rosario Gennaro in his essay “Il futurismo italiano tra la trancia e il Belgio:
Il ruolo delle riviste” extends the radius beyond 1912 und investigates how Futur-
ism was viewed and reviewed in Anthologie (Liège 1921–40), 7 arts (Brussels 1921–
28) and Het Overzicht (Antwerp, 1921–25). His essay presents a long list of writers
and artists who either openly or in a stealthy manner supported Marinetti’s aes-
thetic programme. He also examines the later period when Futurism could no
longer claim to be an avant-garde movement and shows how two Parisian mag-
azines with a Belgian connection (Documents internationaux de l’ésprit nouveau,
edited by Paul Dermée and Michel Seuphor, and Cercle et Carré, edited by Michel
Seuphor) sought to integrate Marinetti’s movement into a wider network of artists
battling for a renewal of art and culture in Europe. The last essay of the section,
Caterina Terzetti’s “La ricezione del futurismo in Belgio: Le riviste, le person-
alità”, covers the period 1909–1912 and analyses a variety of essays published
during the early period of Futurism. Her main focus, however, is directed on Jules
Schmalzigaug, who began to embrace Futurism in 1912/13 during his sojourn in
Venice. Interestingly, this painter exerted next to no influence in Belgium at the
time, but there were other compatriots, discussed in the last part of Terzetti’s
essay, who turned towards Futurism for inspiration and who played a significant
rôle in their home country.
Section 2 of the volume focusses on France, Poland and Russia. Barbara
Meazzi, in “Soffici, Férat, Roch Grey e gli altri”, investigates Soffici’s visits to
Paris and, in particular, his relationships with Hélène d’Œttingen (in arte “Roch
Grey” or “Yadwiga”), Alexandra Ekster and Anna Gerebtzova (Zherebtsova,
1885–?). Meazzi gives us some informative insights into the circles around Apol-
linaire and Picasso and how Futurism was viewed by them in the years 1912–13.
She also demonstrates how, as a result of these contacts, Soffici became posi-
tively disposed towards free and emancipated women and exceptionally support-
ive of an arte femminile that was not aping the products of their male colleagues.
46 Günter Berghaus

Dirk vanden Berghe goes over very familar ground in his essay, “Ardengo Soffici
e la via ‘francese’ al futurismo”. He shows how Soffici attempted to create an
alternative to Marinetti’s brand of Futurism and how his ‘French path’ towards
a ‘true’ Futurism gave rise to a ‘franco-florentine’ position, which in 1915 forced
him into burning all bridges to Marinetti. Cezary Bronowski’s “La ‘santa pazzia’
futurista in Witkiewicz e Vasari” examines two plays that take a critical view on
the ‘brave new world’ of the machine. Bronowski adds little new to what has
already been written on Szalona lokomotywa (The Crazy Locomotive) and Ango-
scia delle macchine (Anguish of the Machines) and I think that he overstates his
concerns when, in the latter parts of the paper, he dwells on technophobia and
ignores the large body of plays and theatre productions that actually celebrated
rather than criticized the myth of the machine.¹ Francesco Muzzioli in “La cena
da Kul'bin: Confronti e discussioni tra futuristi italiani e russi” uses a document
that describes a banquet in Kulbin’s house on 2 February 1914 as a leverage for a
discussion of some key differences between Russian and Italian Futurism, espe-
cially with regard to the internal organization of the groups, the rôle of tradition
in modern art, and the formal characteristics of parole in libertà and zaum'. Muz-
zioli demonstrates that the Russians, just like the French and Brits at the time,
regarded Marinetti as a typical representative of the Latin race, who could not
possibly be considered a rôle model due to his extravagant style of recitation:
“Si sdoppiava, buttava braccia e gambe da tutte le parti, picchiava col pugno sul
leggìo, scuoteva la testa, faceva scintillare il blue degli occhi, mostrava i denti …
il sudore colava a rivoli sul suo viso olivastro, i baffi bellicosi alla Wilhelm non si
alzavano più verso l’altro, il colletto si era ammosciato e aveva perso ogni forma”?
The gap between the two cultures was enormous, as Livshits makes clear in his
statement that “il futurismo di Marinetti non era la religione dell’avvenire, ma
l’idealizzazione romantica dell’epoca contemporanea” and Marinetti to counter
that “i russi sono pseudo-futuristi che vivono nel plusquamperfectum più che
nel futurum”!
The third section of the volume focusses largely on Italy (Govoni, Soffici,
Papini, Balla, Bot, Fillìa), except Franco Musarra’s essay on “ ‘Der Sturm’: Incontri
e scontri tra l’espressionismo tedesco e il futurismo italiano”. As dozens of books
have already been published on this topic, I cannot see much point in reverting

1 This critique is not meant to suggest that technophobia was an alien phenomenon in Futurism.
See my essays “Futurism and the Technological Imagination Poised between Machine Cult and
Machine Angst” and “Avanguardia e fascismo: Teatro futurista tra le due guerre.” However, I
think that the trend needs to be seen in context and to be balanced against other, more positive
attitudes toward technology.
 Action / Reaction: Futurism in Belgium and Europe 47

to a position where both movements are summarized in a superficial and simplis-

tic manner. Neither Marinetti nor Walden pursued a monolithic aesthetics, and
their followers had an even broader spectrum of artistic concerns. What is needed
is more specific rather than generalizing studies on the links between Futurism
and Expressionism. For such investigations, close attention to the differences and
similarities between both movements and a detailed and profound knowledge
of relevant works of art and literature are required. I therefore find it alarming
when Musarra calls Marinetti’s Il contratto, in a re-translation from the German,
“Il contratto di locazione” (Der Mietvertrag), and Vengono is given the title “Ora
arrivano” (Jetzt kommen sie).
The fourth and final section contains six essays, which are again focussed
on Italy. Silvia Contarini in “Uomo nuovo / donna nuova: Futuristi inconcilia-
bili” summarizes some of her findings in La femme futuriste (2006). Bart van den
Bossche’s “Mots en liberté? Testualità e formati editoriali del libro futurista” dis-
cusses in a succinct manner some key components of the Futurist revolution in
the field of literature (multi-linear typography; interaction between linguistic and
visual codes; valorization of text as event/performance; unusual text containers,
such as postcards, broadsheets, one-off magazines etc., and release of literature
from its paper-based carrier medium, for example in the Litolatta books). Luciano
Curreri’s “Sulle tracce di un Pinocchio ‘futurista’: La variante Pinocchietto alla
guerra europea” presents a variety of Pinocchio books ‘in odore di futurismo’,
from Pinocchio in automobile (1905) via L’aeroplano di Pinocchio (1909) to Pinoc-
chio alla guerra di Tripoli (1912) and Pinocchio contro l’Austria (1915). This inter-
esting field of literature not only shows that Futurism’s embrace of new tech-
nologies and belligerent nationalism had an equivalent counterpart in juvenile
literature, but also suggests that there may have been more osmotic relations
between avant-garde and mass-market literature than is commonly assumed
(in fact, some similar phenomena have already been demonstrated by Barbara
Meazzi with regard to the erotic novel and by Robin Pickering-Iazzi with regard to
‘aviatrix’ romances).²
Clodina Gubbiotti in “I fili rossi del discorso avanguardista: Momenti di inter-
testualità tra la neoavanguardia italiana e ‘Fondazione e Manifesto del Futurismo’
di Marinetti” takes Futurism into the period post–1945 und demonstrates that
Futurism, far from being an anathema, was a source of inspiration to many artists
and writers. In an Hegelian process of dialectic sublation, Futurism was critiqued
and integrated into various processes of neo-avant-garde experimentation. What
Gubbiotti demonstrates with regard to some eight key features of Italian exper-

2 See Meazzi: L’arte futurista di piacere, and Pickering-Iazzi: “Aeroromance.”

48 Günter Berghaus

imental literature of the 1960s should soon become complemented by similar

studies on some very analogous developments in the visual arts. Monica Jansen’s
“Dal futurismo al maodadaismo a Wu Ming: Rivoluzione ma con lentezza” could
offer some inspiration for this task. The author rightly avoids the linear model of
‘influence’ as propagated by Marinetti and instead favours a concentric model of
‘contamination’, arguing with Wu Ming that the Italian neo-avant-garde did not
have to express a choice for or against Futurism, because Futurism had already
become an integral element of the avant-garde fabric: “Non è più una scelta ma
una già-dato, un ambiente in cui tutti muoviamo” (301). What Jansen demon-
strates with regard to forms of arte-azione and arte-vita in Italian groups such as
Gruppo 70, Luther Blissett Project or Wu Ming Foundation, should in the future
be applied to other countries. Far too few studies have been undertaken on Futur-
ism’s posthumous fate, especially in those domains where the movement’s spirit
and aesthetics submerged in a range of other features, surviving in a palimpsest
manner without normally being recognized and identified as such. As many
essays in the International Yearbook of Futurism Studies have demonstrated:
Futurism could be vehemently rejected only to become all-the-more influential in
the work of an artist or an artistic movement.

Bibliography
Berghaus, Günter: “Futurism and the Technological Imagination Poised between Machine
Cult and Machine Angst.” G. Berghaus, ed.: Futurism and the Technological Imagination.
Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, 2009. 1–39.
—: “Avanguardia e fascismo: Teatro futurista tra le due guerre.” Davide Lacagnina, ed.:
Immagini e forme del potere: Arte, critica e istituzioni in Italia fra le due guerre. Palermo:
Edizioni di Passaggio, 2011. 61–86.
Meazzi, Barbara, ed.: L’arte futurista di piacere: Sintesi di tecniche di seduzione. Cuneo:
Nerosubianco, 2011.
Pickering-Iazzi, Robin: “Aeroromance.” R. Pickering-Iazzi: Politics of the Visible: Writing
Women, Culture, and Fascism. Minneapolis/MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
89–123.