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The centenary of Marinetti’s ‘First Manifesto of Futurism’ is a wonderful excuse, if excuse be needed, for a celebration and perhaps re-assessment of a movement that attacked the past in the name of all that was modern. Today, Futurists would be execrating any movement as old and as passé as themselves, but we may look more calmly at their frenetic attempts to capture in paint and sculpture the dynamism of modern life. The large show at the Tate aims to do two things: to gather together as many as possible of the works that were shown in the first Futurist exhibition in London, at the Sackville Gallery in 1912, and to demonstrate how Futurism related to (and influenced) the other radical art movements of the time. Thus this is not exclusively a Futurist show, but dwells also upon Cubism, Simultanism, Orphism, Rayonism and Vorticism. The result is a show for once without a dominating linear development. The installation reflects the concurrence and overlapping in a richly layered simultaneous attack. It effectively conveys something of the excitement and complexity of the period.
The first room is gloriously minimal, containing only four paintings and Boccioni’s famous sculpture about movement, ‘Unique Forms of Continuity in Space’. Carlo Carra’s ‘Swimmers’ is hung opposite a very beautiful Giacomo Balla painting in dabs of green, blue, red and yellow, like large-scale pointillism — ‘Girl Running on a Balcony’. Then there’s the surprising inclusion of Braque’s ‘Large Nude’, together with the most abstract image, Boccioni’s ‘Dynamism of a Human Body’. Here are the chief characteristics of Futurism: speed, bold colour, fractured composition, a certain ill-disciplined frenzy. Braque’s Cubism is serenely classical by comparison. Room 2 takes us into a favourite Futurist subject, The Street. I liked several things here, such as Carra’s ‘Jolts of a Cab’ (reminiscent of a too-swift post-party taxi journey) and ‘Leaving the Theatre’, but Boccioni’s grotesque symbolist ‘Modern Idol’ nearby has always struck me as hideous.
From here, there is a choice of path: onward into Cubism, or diverging into Futurist heartlands. The Cubist route is most rewarding, taking you past that marvellous facetted plaster head by Picasso, into a room with a couple of Duchamp’s paintings and one of his brother’s excellent sculptures (‘The Large Horse’ by Raymond Duchamp-Villon). Looking at the sensitive handling of Duchamp’s ‘Chess Players’ (1911), you can see why he gave up painting. Formally the painting doesn’t hang together, however charming its execution. Moving on to the room devoted to Orphism, there’s the considerable pleasure of seeing Robert Delaunay’s great painting of the Eiffel Tower (borrowed from the Guggenheim), with some marvellous Légers, and explosions of colour from Kupka and Delaunay. Cubo-Futurism or Rayonism is represented by Goncharova’s ‘The Electric Light’, but the Russians here look rather staid after the sophisticated Parisians; except Malevich’s inspired portrait of Ivan Kliun.
Back to Futurism proper with a gallery devoted to Cabaret. A vast Severini painting called ‘The Dance of the “Pan-Pan” at the Monico’ is jigsawed together and rather dull, perhaps because it’s a replica from 1959–60 of the lost original and painted from a postcard. Infinitely preferable are his smaller studies ‘Yellow Dancers’ and ‘The Voices of My Room’. There’s a real mixture of work in this large gallery, from the restraint and elegance of Ardengo Soffici to rather too much muddy incoherence and the manic insensitivity of Luigi Russolo. I was interested to see Felix Del Marle, the only French Futurist, and even more relieved to move into the Vorticist room. This is vibrant and harmonious, with Wyndham Lewis’s grid vision of ‘The Crowd’ backed up by his ‘Workshop’, Bomberg’s dynamic blue and white jazz rhythms of ‘The Mud Bath’ and C.R.W. Nevinson’s beguiling simultaneity of focus in ‘The Old Port’ and ‘The Arrival’.
In the last room, Epstein’s minatory machine-man ‘Rock Drill’ bears down against a wall of deeply impressive Balla paintings I’d never seen before. All three are from 1915: ‘Patriotic Demonstration’, ‘Forms Cry Long Live Italy’ and the most effective, because formally the most simplified and resolved, ‘The Risks of War’. Their twisting and scissoring forms have a force that lodges their abstraction in the mind. Behind the Epstein is Nevinson’s ‘Bursting Shell’, a brilliant juxtaposition that adds to both works. The British artists look very good and hold their own in mixed company: in many ways, the show is a revelation. It started out in Paris at the Centre Pompidou last autumn, and has since travelled to Rome. Tate Modern is the third and final venue. Recommended.
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