One hundred and forty years ago, on October 19, 1882, he was born in Italy Umberto Boccioni. A brilliant, restless artist, the first actor of Futurism, he dedicated his life to inventing a new contemporary language to express modernity in painting and sculpture.

On this occasion, from 19 October 2022, the unpublished documentary entitled FORMIDABLE BOCCIONI from Eleonora Zamparutti And Piero Muscarà directed by Franco Radoa work produced by ARTE.it Originals in collaboration with ITsART And Rai Cultura.

Writer, journalist, illustrator, Umberto Boccioni finally becomes a painter following an unconventional path. He was the son of his time, an Italy shaken by the Industrial Revolution and by the great scientific discoveries, destined to become the epicenter of the Great War.

Boccioni’s life changed on February 21, 1910 when he met the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, founder of Futurism in Milan. The artist embraces Marinetti’s revolution, translating poetry into art and making a fundamental contribution to the most important artistic avant-garde of the early twentieth century in Europe, Futurism.

In painting he creates works such as The rising city And The laughwhich he exhibits in an exhibition in Paris at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, clashing with Picasso and the Cubists and causing scandal throughout Europe.

In sculpture Boccioni challenges centuries of immobility, freeing once and for all this art of closed forms, of classical beauty. His great masterpiece, Unique forms of continuity in spaceemblem of the dynamism imprinted by the new futurist culture, it has become a universal icon, reproduced in millions of copies on 20 euro cent coins.

Paradoxically, his death came unexpectedly, by chance, in August 1916, during a break from the front where he had volunteered. He, the very modern, thrown from the horse frightened by the passage of a train.

After his death, at the age of 34, the sculptures of Umberto Boccioni are destroyed, torn to pieces by an anonymous “passatista” artist. What we admire in the most important museums in the world are bronze reproductions.

FORMIDABLE BOCCIONI it is the story of the life and works of the futurist artist through exclusive interviews with leading experts, collectors and directors of the most important museums that house Boccioni’s masterpieces. The documentary is accompanied by a variety of original period documents, films and materials.

Among the interviewees James M. Bradburnedirector of the Brera Art Gallery, Karole PB Vaildirector of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Danka Giacon, curator of the Museo del Novecento in Milan. Art historians prof Ester Coen And Niccolò D’Agatithe historian Giordano Bruno Guerripresident of Il Vittoriale degli Italiani, the biographer Gino Agnese and the writer Marella Caracciolo Chiaauthor of the book A bright parenthesis dedicated to the love story between Umberto Boccioni and Princess Vittoria Colonna.

The special contributions of Floriane D’Aubervillegreat-grandson of the French gallery owner Joss Bernheim-Jeune, Romana Severinidaughter of the artist Gino Severini, a great friend of Umberto Boccioni since his youth, e Giacomo Rossiheir of Gianni Mattioli who lent his important collection of futurist art to the Museo del 900 in Milan where it will soon be presented to the public in a new setting.

“The Museo del Novecento in Milan has a unique collection in the world of futurist works of art in which Boccioni’s role is central” declares the director Gianfranco Maraniello “The new exhibition, enriched by the masterpieces of the Mattioli Collection, including some of the most significant of the artist, makes the Gallery dedicated to Futurism even more complete and precious ”.

“We all live, like Boccioni, Freud and Einstein – says James M. Bradburne, director of the Pinacoteca di Brera – without knowing what the future holds, just as Einstein in 1907 did not foresee the full impact of his awareness that energy and matter were related . However, the future of Einstein, that of Freud and that of Boccioni have been largely realized. “

“Peggy Guggenheim has always loved sculpture, just think that the first exhibition she organized at Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, in 1949, is precisely dedicated to contemporary sculpture. Her transfer to Italy undoubtedly influenced her interest in Futurist art, so much so that it led her to acquire in 1958 Dynamism of a running horse + casea unique sculptural work of its kind, created by Boccioni in 1915 ”, says Karole PB Vail, director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, in Venice.

TITLE: FORMIDABLE BOCCIONI
DURATION: 54 ‘
FORMAT: FULL HD
YEAR: © 2022 ARTE.it Originals in collaboration with ITsART and Rai Cultura

A film by Eleonora ZAMPARUTTI & Piero MUSCARÀ
Director: Franco RADO

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