FUTURISM AND SURREALISM, STUDIES COMPILED BY FRANÇOIS LIVI

Review par Iveta Slavkova-Montexier

Futurism and Surrealism brings together eighteen communications presented at the international colloquium of the same name organized by the University of Nantes in 2002. The announced goal is the study of links between these two avant-gardes which, apart from the sabotage of some Parisian futurist evenings by the Dadaist future surrealists (1), neither collaborated nor dialogued directly. Yet, despite ideological and formal differences, the two movements remain among the most powerful catalysts of creation in the first half of the 20th century – both had international influence, seduced several generations of creators, displayed a desire for violent rupture, announced a life project surpassing the domain of arts, became politically engaged, used similar modes of communication not hesitating to provoke, privileged new formal procedures producing exalted and virulent manifestos or pamphlets. All these aspects are evoked in the foreword as well as in the introductory article "The Crossed Paths of the Avant-Gardes" by François Livi. The organizers nevertheless display their will to go beyond these general considerations mostly applicable to all avant-gardes. They aim to examine with precision the links between the various personalities, engaged in the movements or gravitating around them, the resonances between publications and between works, the more or less admitted networks that historical distance allows us to grasp. The work wants to show that futurism has its place among the immediate precursors of surrealism (p. 7), explore the "attachment points" between the two movements, but also their "substantial differences" (p. 8).

However, as one advances, the reader realizes that the publication often deviates from the announced intentions. First of all, not all texts truly deal with the futurism-surrealism relationship. Many concentrate on the relationship of surrealism or futurism with other avant-gardes – they therefore address a completely different subject. There are however a certain number of pertinent studies that we will present first, following the order of publication. Giuseppe Nicoletti (University of Florence) returns to the so-called "pre-surrealist" themes among the writers of the Florentine review L'Italia futurista. The article opens with a historiographical reminder and some precise bibliographical references, indicating the absence of studies in French on this subject and making this text all the more interesting. Based on concrete examples, Nicoletti reinterrogates the surrealist elements in the literary production of L'Italia futurista, considered by many as a sure value. His analysis leads to the conclusion that, despite the common exploration of the soul's underground, these futurists remain tributary to an obscurantist mysticism that surrealism surpasses (p. 66). Even if Nicoletti's argument remains obscure in places, the article incontestably brings new elements to French researchers working on the subject.

The text by Karine Martin-Cardini (University of Nantes) entitled "Carrà, De Chirico and the Genesis of Surrealism" reveals the unsuspected affinities between Carrà's aspirations and those of the surrealists. According to the author, these affinities are detectable in Carrà's texts, sometimes close to automatic writing rather than in his canvases (p. 91; p. 95). However, the deepening of the analysis reveals some gaps in the knowledge of surrealism. For example, Martin-Cardini considers automatic writing as a production devoid of aesthetic premeditation (p. 96). Indeed, this is what surrealist theoretical texts postulate, but numerous studies have shown that these affirmations should not be taken literally. Thus, the article's conclusions are easily contestable and appear vague.

Further on, Barbara Meazzi of the University of Savoy studies the margins of futurism and surrealism through the figure of Paul Dermée and two reviews directed by him – L'Esprit nouveau and Les Documents internationaux de l'Esprit nouveau. Dermée engages in the quarrel around the definition of the word "surrealism" alongside Yvan Goll and against Breton. Moreover, he collaborates with the futurists Marinetti, Falgore and Prampolini (p. 118). By showing various indirect collaborations between personalities close to futurism and surrealism, the article allows us to grasp some underground connections between the two movements. The conclusions remain however hazardous, relying on suppositions so that the issues inherent to the colloquium's theme do not appear clearly.

In "Teratophany and Sexuality. From Futurism to Surrealism," Simona Cigliana (University of Rome) draws an interesting parallel between the images that futurists and surrealists draw from the "subliminal reservoir of the psyche" (p. 126). The author analyzes some of these figures, frequent among surrealists as among futurists – monsters, madness, rape and other violence involving the body. She notes a sexualization of prose among futurists, notably in Marinetti, relating the feminine to the monstrous, of which one finds the analogy in surrealist painting rather than in surrealist texts which venerate an idealized woman (p. 134-135). Haunted by fantasies, Marinetti, Dalí or Magritte exorcise woman's power by transforming her into a monstrous container of pleasure, enjoyment and sperm (p. 137). Cigliana concludes that futurism explores the depths of the self in a non-systematic and unconscious manner. In this way, it anticipates certain psychoanalytic practices as well as the systematic and conscious updating of repressed desires by the surrealists (p. 143). These conclusions deserve to be refined, but the text establishes an interesting parallel that will generate, we hope, other studies on this theme.

Toward the end of the work, two texts highlight the crossed influence of futurism and surrealism among groups that are more difficult to define, linked to the avant-garde, which remain for now less well studied. In "A Metaphysical Gap: the Italian Part of German Magical Realism," Nicolas Surlapierre (Matisse Museum) attempts to unveil the complex mechanisms by which futurist and surrealist problematics are found in the works of German magical realism, a movement that groups artists from the right wing of New Objectivity (p. 237). He establishes a parallel between the veneration of Germans and futurists for Italianism, while insisting on the different perception they have of it (p. 240-241). German magical realists also seek to penetrate the deep ramifications of memory, thus approaching the surrealists' quest. However, according to the author, the former operate at a more superficial level (p. 250). Despite confused argumentation and an overabundance of themes, addressed a bit hastily, this article manages to make us feel the complex circulation of ideas between ideologically opposed avant-gardes.

The second text, very specialized, written by Loïc Fravalo (University of Nantes), deals with the influence of futurism and surrealism on the nationalist revolutionary movement in Galicia. The Galician artists and writers of this era called segundo rexurdimento ("second renaissance"), seek to reconcile anchoring in local tradition and the possibility of international influence (p. 254). They are also interested in avant-garde production, even if they do not truly adhere to it. The manifestos of futurism and surrealism are quickly published in Galician reviews (p. 255-256). Influential nationalists, such as Alfonso Castelao, have a very pertinent judgment on the two movements (p. 258). After the presentation of some major figures (Castelao, but also Vicente Risco, Manuel Antonio, Alvaro Cunqueiro) and some reviews (Alfar, Ronsel, Nós), Fravalo concludes that despite the excellent diffusion of the two avant-gardes, neither makes school in Galicia, because, fundamentally, their ideas threaten the segundo rexurdimento (p. 264). However, Galician nationalists are conscious of international issues and the fact that to impose their doctrine, they must know the most innovative ideas of their time (p. 261).

Of the eighteen texts therefore, only the six we have just cited analyze, at different levels, the crossings and interferences between surrealism and futurism. For the rest, the authors forget either one or the other, or even both. The most flagrant off-topic is Ernst Dautel's text "Dada between Arp and Merz" which makes a general synthesis of Dada and Merz, mentioning futurism and surrealism only once – the first as a precursor of Dada (p. 74), the second as its prolongation (p. 87), very general affirmations that are surprising in an academic publication. Without going to such extremes, certain texts, while remaining off-topic, bring interesting facts and conclusions. Many of them notably present Italian creators very little known in France. One can divide these texts into two large groups: those eluding futurism and those forgetful of surrealism. (The following list is not exhaustive. It lists the articles which, while being off-topic, caught our attention.)

In the first group, let us cite the study by Fulvia Airoldi Namer (University of Paris IV) "The Improbable Surrealism of Paola Masino" which stops at one of the most influential writers of the Novecento movement, companion of Massimo Bontempelli, the Italian author most often associated with surrealism. Contrary to Bontempelli, adept of a rational imagination, Paola Masino, tempted by a "troubled and perilous sacredness," does not hesitate to plunge into the sickly, the decadent, depression, death at a moment when Italy is dominated by an official fascist art exalting a youth healthy in body and spirit (p. 165-167). The study proposes summary-analyses of Masino's novels: Monte Ignoso (1933), Periferia (1933), Nascita e morte della massaia (1945). These summaries are very appreciable, as none of the works is translated into French. The author operates various rapprochements between Masino and the surrealists. The Italian novelist's style recalls surrealist automatic writing, even if the structure and characters remain classical (p. 169). Masino addresses themes and figures typical of surrealism: dream, delirium, childhood, the repressed, the unconscious, the monstrous, madness, metamorphoses, Gradiva... However, the article does not mention futurism at all, concentrating on the astonishing proximity between another Italian movement, Novecento, and surrealism. Indirect crossings more appropriate to the work's theme could undoubtedly have been established.

The two articles that immediately follow are, on the contrary, exclusively devoted to futurism. The first, "Futurism and Radiophonic Language" by Antonio Saccone (University of Naples), offers a detailed analysis of Marinetti's Radio Manifesto (1933) which exalts new means of communication as catalysts of a new creation. One finds in this manifesto the futurist refrain of a perishable art, replaced by another, more advanced one. Saccone's conclusions are not uninteresting, but are not new either – futurism always repeats the same formulas, "disguised" by technological terminology (p. 191). In any case, the article has no link with surrealism which is not mentioned. Similarly, the text by Serge Milan (University of Nice), "Fillìa, or Futurism as Style" brings rich and useful information on Luigi Enrico Colombo, called Fillìa, the principal futurist theorist after Marinetti (p. 202), little known in France, as well as on the internal conflicts of second futurism (p. 199-200) and the paradoxical teleological aspirations of this avant-garde so attached to the notion of perpetual movement (p. 206). Here too, no link with surrealism appears.

Finally, certain texts, like that of Paul Colombani (University of Nantes) entitled "Marcello Gallian: between Futurism and Surrealism or rather Squadrism as Ideology," enter into none of the groups we have distinguished and inscribe themselves in the work's theme in a very vague manner. The principal interest of this article is to trace the portrait of Gallian, one of the most popular revolutionary fascists (squadrists) of his time, rather ignored today. Despite the explicit title, this character's link with futurism and surrealism is very tenuous. There is no parallel between the fascist engagement of futurists and that of Gallian, nor analogy between his new man, present in his writings such as La Casa du Lazarro (p. 215), and the futurist superuomo. Similarly the rapprochements with surrealism – lack of logic in narrative construction, strolling, encounter with mysterious strangers – should be developed (p. 216-218). The conclusion remains too general – Gallian would be on the side of surrealism and futurism by his desire for rupture (p. 219), a desire common to all avant-garde.

Thus, one emerges from reading this work a bit frustrated. Certainly, the subject is by definition vague, the exchanges between futurism and surrealism being indirect. Moreover, this publication is, as the organizers announce, the first on this theme and will perhaps incite researchers to examine its thorny ramifications in more detail. However, one could have expected from such a publication more precision and pertinence. The fact of finding so many off-topic texts blurs paths already difficult to define. Let us also note a recurring lack of clarity in the articles (the first, for example, "Apostilles to the 'Futurist Manifesto' on the Functions of Language" by Gérard Génot, is very hermetic) which reveals a lack of editorial unification. Similarly, the division into three parts, announced in Livi's text already cited, remains very confusing. Given the articles, the three themes "Intersections," "Figures and Problems" and "Dialogues" overlap and mix. Why call the last part "Dialogues," when the entire work is supposed to study the dialogue between futurism and surrealism and this last part – moreover the most coherent – precisely surpasses this dialogue in order to open onto "conversations" with other movements and figures? One also regrets the obstinacy of maintaining practically all citations in Italian, even those which are originally in another language such as the letter from the Berlin Dada club to D'Annunzio (p. 112). It would have been useful to translate them into French, at least in notes, most of the texts being unpublished in France. Finally one would have also liked a brief presentation of the authors specifying their specialty and their research domain.

(1) Let us recall that the famous tract Dada Lifts Everything is published on the occasion of Marinetti's conference on tactilism at the Œuvre theater (Paris) in January 1921.