I briefly mentioned in a previous post the connection between Futurism and fashion, but today I’d like to focus on a special event, the 100th anniversary of Futurism and the reopening of Depero’s Casa d’Arte Futurista.
The Futurist manifesto was indeed published in 1909 and at present there are interesting exhibitions all over Italy that celebrate the centenary of this avant-garde movement. One of the most important events is entitled “Futurismo 100°” (Futurism 100th) and it's on at the Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto (Mart). This exhibition is worth visiting as it tries to clarify how Italian Futurism influenced German and Russian avant-garde movements and also explores the exchanges and ideas that derived from Marinetti’s journey to Russia in 1914.
There is also a very special event that ties in with the anniversary of Futurism: the reopening of the Rovereto-based Casa d’Arte Futurista Depero, the first Italian museum dedicated entirely to Futurism.
Depero’s work has a strong connection with costume design and theatre, so this event might be of some interest to those fashion fans who are very passionate about costume design.
Born in 1892 in Fondi, a small town in the Val di Non, when he was very young Depero moved with his family to Rovereto. He enrolled in the local Scuola Reale Elisabettina, a sort of art school attended also by many other young Italian men who became famous artists and writers in later years.
Depero grew up in a culturally stimulating environment, organised exhibitions of his drawings in 1911 and 1913 and also published a book of poems, assorted writings and drawings.
In 1914 young Depero met in Rome Giacomo Balla, Francesco Cangiullo and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, considered by many as the heroes of the Futurist movement and soon after moving to Rome, Depero became Balla’s disciple. Yet the young artist quickly developed very different skills from his master: at his 1916 exhibition Depero showed paintings, drawings and abstract collages, considered bold and experimental works, even more daring than Balla’s.
In the same year Depero started working for the theatre, launching different projects for a mimic-acrobatic ballet, "Mimismagia", with special costumes that could be transformed and that featured elements that could light up and produce noises.
In 1916 Depero also met Diaghilev, who commissioned him the scenes and the costumes for the Ballet Russes’ “Le Chant du Rossignol”, with music by Stravinskij, and for "Il giardino zoologico" (The Zoological Garden) by Francesco Cangiullo with music by Ravel.
These projects didn’t see the light in the end, but the drafts Depero left us became very important as they showed the great innovative and creative forces behind his work.
While visiting Swiss Decadent poet Gilbert Clavel in Capri, Depero devised with him the project for the “Teatro Plastico" (Plastic Theatre), a form of theatre in which wooden puppets took the place of actors and dancers. The “Balli Plastici” (Plastic Ballets), an important experimental piece, was staged at Rome’s Teatro dei Piccoli in 1918.
While Depero was in Capri he tried to recycle the materials bought for the Ballet Russes’s costumes and created experimental tapestries, futurist mosaics made of coloured pieces of fabric and on some of these pieces of tapestry, Depero recreated the puppets and robots he had originally designed for the Teatro Plastico.
Back in Rovereto in 1919, the artist founded his Casa d’Arte Futurista where he originally wanted to produce his tapestries, advertising boards, pieces of furniture and various other interior design objects.
In 1924 Depero continued his theatrical experiments with the “mechanical ballet” entitled “Anihccam del 3000” (“Anihccam” is the specular spelling for the Italian word “macchina”, machine) at Milan’s Trianon Theatre.
The ballet was a sort of futuristic dialogue between a few locomotives in love with the stationmaster. For this occasion Depero designed his futurist waistcoats that many other artists - among them Marinetti, Jannelli, Somenzi and Azari - also worn.
In 1927 the artist published his experimental volume Depero futurista 1913-1927, a first-hand account of his career with a striking two bolt-binding.
During the following years Depero worked in New York where he designed scenes and costumes for the Roxy Theatre and for the American Sketches.
The New York experience influenced Depero’s costumes: to highlight the acrobatic qualities of the American dancers he worked for, Depero left behind his armour-like structures and devised for them simple leotards with Futurist prints or small rigid accessories such as masks. While in New York Depero also strengthened his link with the world of fashion, designing covers for magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair.
Back in Italy, the artist ook part in various exhibitions and in the 30s he designed pieces of furniture and interior design objects with a material called "Buxus".
Accused of fascism, Depero moved to New York after the war and then to New Milford, Connecticut, where he worked until his return to Italy.
Further exhibitions followed in the 50s in his home country, and, between 1957 and 1959, he worked on the Galleria Museo Fortunato Depero, which he opened to the public in 1959, a year after Fortunato Depero died in Rovereto.
It’s usually not only artists, but also people who are into fashion, costume design and advertising who develop an interest in Fortunato Depero's work. He was undoubtedly an extraordinary artist, able to express his ideas through different media.
I must admit that I’m more interested in his work as a scene and costume designer than in his work as an artist. I sometimes go through his costume drafts just to study the lines of his creations. The costumes Depero designed looked rather rigid, and from the sketches he left us it looks like they would allow the body to do only essential or very limited movements.
The costumes for “Mimismagia” were characterised by strange geometrical shapes that seemed to protrude from the body, turning the dancer from human into alien. They could be transformed, but they could also create noises, so they had a strange kinetic quality about them.
People who are not familiar with fashion design might superficially claim that it’s unlikely Depero’s ideas were borrowed by fashion designers. Yet looking at his early sketches and thinking about Gareth Pugh’s rigid armours, you will easily realise that there’s maybe more than we could imagine of this artist in today’s fashion.
I hope the 100th anniversary of Futurism will inspire fashion designers and maybe also the next Fashion Week catwalks. I’m sure Depero’s experimental designs would definitely help taking fashion to a higher level.
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