Fragments of totality : futurism, fascism, and the sculptural avant-garde / Ara H. Merjian.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Merjian, Ara H., 1974- author.

Contributor:

Yale University Press, publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Futurism (Art)--Italy.

Futurism (Art).

Fascism and art--Italy.

Fascism and art.

Sculpture, Italian--20th century.

Sculpture, Italian.

Art--Political aspects--Italy.

Art.

Avant-garde (Aesthetics)--Italy--History--20th century.

Avant-garde (Aesthetics).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (247 pages) : 262 illustrations (chiefly black & white), portraits

Other Title:

Futurism, fascism, and the sculptural avant-garde

Place of Publication:

New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, [2024]

Summary:

"As the first comprehensive avant-garde of the twentieth century, Italian Futurism sought to integrate modern life with every imaginable aesthetic medium. The detached materiality of sculpture offered a singular proving ground for the drive to merge art and existence. Sculpture's theory and practice offers a distillation of Futurism's larger aims and frustrations: a will to mechanize haunted by the tradition of craft; the liberation of flight burdened by mass and gravity; the lyrical mutiny of form chastened by the exigencies of design; and a dream of totality splintered by the contingency of the fragment. Centered on avant-garde sculpture in Italy and other European countries between the world wars, Fragments of Totality ventures a new history of Futurism and its fraught ideological ambitions. Illuminating understudied works by prominent artists like Giacomo Balla, Enrico Prampolini, Fortunato Depero, and Bruno Munari alongside the efforts of many lesser-known figures, this first major study of Futurist sculpture opens onto wider questions: from labor and leftist Futurism, to the politics of aesthetic autonomy, to the intersections between race, imperialism, and materials" -- Publisher's description.

Contents:

Introduction. Slap : sculpting modernity/modernizing sculpture

Chapter 1. Launch : will and plasticity

Chapter 2. Design : domesticating transcendence

Chapter 3. Incorporate : bodies between international constructivism and fascist corporatism

Chapter 4. Spin : the Duce as subject and sculptor

Chapter 5. Soar (bomb, crash) ... boom : aerosculpture, Autarky, and the empire of air

Conclusion. A totality of fragments : design and dematerialization.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and online resource (A&AePortal, viewed on February 28, 2026).

ISBN:

0-300-28470-5

OCLC:

1574813570