Professor Maria Elena Versari published a new essay that reconfigures the relationship between Fascism and Futurism in the catalogue of “Arte e fascismo,” the major retrospective on art and dictatorial power. The exhibition opened on April 14th at the Mart museum in Trent, Italy.
Versari’s essay reveals the unexpected strategies that the Italian avant-garde movement put in place to redefine its role and often bypass the Fascist State’s bureaucracy under Mussolini’s rule, casting light on two unknown issues: Futurism’s radical exploitation of the media and its creation of a private-public structure for the propaganda market.
Image: Renato Bertelli, Head of Mussolini (Continuous Profile), 1933