Counter-Currents
Remembering Filippo Marinetti:
December 22, 1876 to December 2, 1944
Greg Johnson
150 words
Those on the Right who believe that modern art is always “decadent” need to come to grips with Italian Futurism. In commemoration of the birthday of Filippo Marinetti, the founder of Italian Futurism and one of the prophets of Fascism, I would like to draw your attention to several writings on this website.
First, there is Marinetti’s “Futurist Manifesto” of 1909.
Second, there is Kerry Bolton’s essay “Filippo Marinetti,” now in an expanded version. (Portuguese translation here.)
Third, there is Mark Dyal’s essay, “Life is Always Right: Futurism and Man in Revolt.” (Portuguese translation here.)
Fourth, there is Ted Sallis’ review essay on Mark Antliff’s Avant-Garde Fascism.
There are two excellent English language editions of Marinetti’s principal works:
1. Selected Poems and Related Prose
2. Critical Writings
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3 comments
I have been reading The Futurist Cookbook by Marinetti. He wanted to get the Italians to stop eating pasta because it made them impotent. That certainly riled up the natives. He had a lot of fun provoking people.
I first heard Marinetti when attending an industrial band performance somewhere in the depths of Los Angeles, back when I was in grad school. The band was promoting the new sounds of the (20th) century, to be generated by the hum of finely tuned motor engines and the smooth staccato of machineguns firing.
The idea was that there were revolutionary art forms on the horizon, entirely new realms of awareness, which the industrial age was awakening. And with them would come political forms. The political struggle goes alongside the cultural struggle and all that sort of thing.
You can look at today’s industrial music scene and related as one wing of the underground reserve army of the True Right. It’s so underground, that often its own members do not realize they have signed up for the struggle!
Obviously, I meant to say: “I first heard of Marinetti…”
He was a little before my time!
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