Collectors and Futurists
Collectors and Futurists. The centenary of Umberto Boccioni’s death has awakened great interest in this important 20th century artist, but also in Futurism.
2016 have already been characterized by a strong interest in the exhibition dedicated to Boccioni himself at the Palazzo Reale in Milan (to which I dedicated the post Boccioni. Genius and Memory), and in the tour of the exhibition at the Museo del Novecento (the Museum of the 20th century) in Milan devoted to the “pre-futurist” season.
Futurism was obstructed for decades by critics who labelled it as a fascist artistic movement, and it wasn’t a matter for the debate about contemporary art in the second post-war period.
In addition, Futurism was ignored by collectors for a long time.
In fact, Futurist artists always aligned themselves, were politically active, and a lot of them joined Fascism, as I touched on in the post about Futurism.
Futurism was re-discovered only in the 1970s, and since then works by Futurists have become desirable objects for a lot of people.