CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/14/2014

Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe

"Today it is the MACHINE that distinguishes our era. Pulleys and flywheels, bolts and smokestacks, all the polished steel and odor of grease (the perfume of ozone from power plants). These are the places that we are irresistibly attracted to. It is no longer nudes, landscapes, figures, symbolisms no matter how Futurist, but the painting of locomotives, the screams of sirens, cogs, pinions and all that mechanical sensation KEEN RESOLUTE which makes up the atmosphere of our sensibility." This excerpt of Ivo Pannaggi and Vinicio Paladini's 1922 manifesto and the featured image, "Numbers in Love" (1920-23), by Giacomo Balla, are reproduced from Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe, published to accompany the epic and unshrinking exhibition currently on view at the Guggenheim Museum.