Even the Great Marinetti Got It Wrong: Giovanni Tuzet’s Logical Neo-Futurism
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Raffaello Palumbo Mosca
Abstract
In his influential book La poesia verso la prosa (Poetry Towards Prose, 1994), Italian critic Alfonso Berardinelli claimed that even the most advanced and “iconoclast” twentieth-century literary avant-gardes, such as Futurism, ended up in the riverbed of “pure poetry”. Denouncing Marinetti’s crucial mistake in his Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature (1912) to reject the articulated structure of clauses, contemporary Italian thinker and poet Giovanni Tuzet (*1972) advocates for a more narrative poetry, but still moves within Futurist poetics. He aims at recuperating and renewing some key principles of Futurism - dynamism, energy and the synthesis of art and life - through what he calls ‘logical’ or ‘architectural’ poetry. By investigating Tuzet’s prose, poetry and criticism, this essay offers a comprehensive examination of his poetics and shows how it draws on some less-explored Futurist conceptions, but also proposes something radically new. My analysis of Tuzet’s engagement with Marinetti’s theoretical works, as well as with the creative solutions of other Futurist poets (Corrado Govoni and Luciano Folgore, in particular), locates his Neo-Futurism within a dynamic, architectural relationship of both continuity and rupture with past aesthetics, all the while measuring his distance from historical Futurism (esp. Marinetti’s literary manifestos and Boccioni’s Manifesto of Futurist Architecture) and from various contemporary strains of Neo-Futurism.
Abstract
In his influential book La poesia verso la prosa (Poetry Towards Prose, 1994), Italian critic Alfonso Berardinelli claimed that even the most advanced and “iconoclast” twentieth-century literary avant-gardes, such as Futurism, ended up in the riverbed of “pure poetry”. Denouncing Marinetti’s crucial mistake in his Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature (1912) to reject the articulated structure of clauses, contemporary Italian thinker and poet Giovanni Tuzet (*1972) advocates for a more narrative poetry, but still moves within Futurist poetics. He aims at recuperating and renewing some key principles of Futurism - dynamism, energy and the synthesis of art and life - through what he calls ‘logical’ or ‘architectural’ poetry. By investigating Tuzet’s prose, poetry and criticism, this essay offers a comprehensive examination of his poetics and shows how it draws on some less-explored Futurist conceptions, but also proposes something radically new. My analysis of Tuzet’s engagement with Marinetti’s theoretical works, as well as with the creative solutions of other Futurist poets (Corrado Govoni and Luciano Folgore, in particular), locates his Neo-Futurism within a dynamic, architectural relationship of both continuity and rupture with past aesthetics, all the while measuring his distance from historical Futurism (esp. Marinetti’s literary manifestos and Boccioni’s Manifesto of Futurist Architecture) and from various contemporary strains of Neo-Futurism.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Table of Contents V
- Editorial IX
- Volume Editors’ Preface XV
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Section 1: Futurism Studies
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1 Italy
- Futurism in Italian Verbo-Visual Poetry after the Second World War 5
- Bang Tumb Tuuum! The Influence of Futurism on Italian Avant-garde Comic Strips 39
- Even the Great Marinetti Got It Wrong: Giovanni Tuzet’s Logical Neo-Futurism 69
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2 Russia
- Gennady Aygi and Russian Futurism 97
- Serge Segay, Rea Nikonova and Italy: Between Futurism and Mail Art 135
- Konstantin K. Kuzminsky as a Neo-Futurist 167
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3 Asia and Latin America
- The Post-utopian Avant-garde Poetics of the Korean ‘Futurist’ Min-jeong Kim 197
- The Infrarealist Movement and its Futurist Roots 227
- Russian Futurism and Brazilian Avant-garde Poetry: Incorporation, Translation, Convergence 253
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4 Music, Sculpture and Architecture
- Back to the Future of The Art of Noises: The After-Life of Futurism in Twentieth-Century Music 285
- Postcolonial Retro-Futurism: Alessandro Ceresoli’s Linea Tagliero Prototypes 315
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5 Artist Statements
- Transfuturism Manifesto 349
- From Words-in-Freedom to Epigenetic Poetry: Evolutions in Futurist Recitation and Performance 353
- The Future of Futurism in Digital Photography 367
- The Infinite Wrench: An Ensemble Member Reflects on the Theatre Company ‘The Neo-Futurists’ During and After Greg Allen’s Tenure 377
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Section 2: Reports
- EAM2022 in Lisbon: The Global Expansion of Futurism in the 1910s and 1920s 399
- Futurism and the Brazilian Week of Modern Art (1922): Some Thoughts Prompted by the Centenário da Semana de 22 407
- Anton Giulio Bragaglia: The Archive of a Visionary 425
- Rosa Rosà / Edith Arnaldi / Edyth von Haynau (1884–1978): A Woman Photographer and Her Futurist Inspiration 437
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Section 3: Critical responses to new publications
- The Crisis of Humanism, the Search for a New Man and the Historical Avant-garde 447
- Looking at the Lives of Avant-garde Women: The Collector as Scholar and Feminist 453
- Exhibiting Italian Art in the United States: From Futurism to Arte Povera 463
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Section 4: Bibliography
- A Bibliography of Publications on Futurism, 2020–2023 471
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Section 5: Back Matter
- List of Illustrations and Provenance Descriptions 495
- Notes on Contributors 501
- Name Index 509
- Subject Index 541
- Geographical Index 569
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Table of Contents V
- Editorial IX
- Volume Editors’ Preface XV
-
Section 1: Futurism Studies
-
1 Italy
- Futurism in Italian Verbo-Visual Poetry after the Second World War 5
- Bang Tumb Tuuum! The Influence of Futurism on Italian Avant-garde Comic Strips 39
- Even the Great Marinetti Got It Wrong: Giovanni Tuzet’s Logical Neo-Futurism 69
-
2 Russia
- Gennady Aygi and Russian Futurism 97
- Serge Segay, Rea Nikonova and Italy: Between Futurism and Mail Art 135
- Konstantin K. Kuzminsky as a Neo-Futurist 167
-
3 Asia and Latin America
- The Post-utopian Avant-garde Poetics of the Korean ‘Futurist’ Min-jeong Kim 197
- The Infrarealist Movement and its Futurist Roots 227
- Russian Futurism and Brazilian Avant-garde Poetry: Incorporation, Translation, Convergence 253
-
4 Music, Sculpture and Architecture
- Back to the Future of The Art of Noises: The After-Life of Futurism in Twentieth-Century Music 285
- Postcolonial Retro-Futurism: Alessandro Ceresoli’s Linea Tagliero Prototypes 315
-
5 Artist Statements
- Transfuturism Manifesto 349
- From Words-in-Freedom to Epigenetic Poetry: Evolutions in Futurist Recitation and Performance 353
- The Future of Futurism in Digital Photography 367
- The Infinite Wrench: An Ensemble Member Reflects on the Theatre Company ‘The Neo-Futurists’ During and After Greg Allen’s Tenure 377
-
Section 2: Reports
- EAM2022 in Lisbon: The Global Expansion of Futurism in the 1910s and 1920s 399
- Futurism and the Brazilian Week of Modern Art (1922): Some Thoughts Prompted by the Centenário da Semana de 22 407
- Anton Giulio Bragaglia: The Archive of a Visionary 425
- Rosa Rosà / Edith Arnaldi / Edyth von Haynau (1884–1978): A Woman Photographer and Her Futurist Inspiration 437
-
Section 3: Critical responses to new publications
- The Crisis of Humanism, the Search for a New Man and the Historical Avant-garde 447
- Looking at the Lives of Avant-garde Women: The Collector as Scholar and Feminist 453
- Exhibiting Italian Art in the United States: From Futurism to Arte Povera 463
-
Section 4: Bibliography
- A Bibliography of Publications on Futurism, 2020–2023 471
-
Section 5: Back Matter
- List of Illustrations and Provenance Descriptions 495
- Notes on Contributors 501
- Name Index 509
- Subject Index 541
- Geographical Index 569
