Back to the Futurists

The Guggenheim is a machine for viewing art… and as luck would have it, the swirling, whirling lines of the Italian Futurists coincided nicely with the building’s aspiring spiral. But alas, the happy accident went downhill faster than the sloping floor. It was amazing that Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) outpaced the younger Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944) and his avant-garde dilettantes on the speedway of time.

There is nothing futurist about these fascists railing against museums and libraries without offering alternatives. And as I wondered the meaning of it all, I came across a side gallery with a picture of the group dressed in formal attire.  Suddenly it occurred to me that these vogue rogues were a band of gynophobes with a love of guns, racecars and violence. 

My main interest was the drawings of utopian visionaries Antonio Sant’Elia and Mario Chiattone. Many of the others I remembered from The Machine exhibit at MoMA back in 1968. The second time around left me with the feeling that the movement was best suited for the house of Dior – with manifestoes as frivolous and fleeting as the fads of fashion. They parroted every contemporary movement of the time in affectations of Cubism that could be called Lubism, Tubism or Dudism.

The Guggenheim is also a machine for printing money, students are gouged $18.00 and the pay-as-you-wish day is now down to two hours, from 5:30 to 7:30 on Saturdays. Get there early or you might not make it inside before closing. In any event, the guards are sure to suck the enjoyment out of the experience.

Interior of Guggenheim Museum