th
# 78 APRIL 18 , 2016
tic experience Futurism
advocated. We can fairly
assume that it was indeed Futurism that really
promoted cuisine as a
form of conceptual art.
Futurist meals were very
creative and challenge
all preconceptions about
food (and taste!). Mutton
fillet and shrimps sauce,
banana and cheese, herring and strawberry jelly
were just a few “creative”
juxtapositions that Futurist cooks experimented.
3• Futurist women. The
writer and artist Valentine de Saint Point wrote
an actual Manifesto della
Donna Futurista in 1912
as a response to Marinetti’s. This Manifesto reported what de Saint Point
proposed as a modern
view on women. Here
are a few lines: “Enough of those women, the
octopuses of the hearth,
whose tentacles exhaust
men’s blood and make
children anemic, women in carnal love who
wear out every desire so
it cannot be renewed!”;
and “We must not give
woman any of the rights
claimed by feminists […]
To give duties to woman
14 | WE THE ITALIANS
www.wetheitalians.com
Umberto Boccioni, Rissa in galleria (Riot at the gallery), 1910, Milan,
Pinacoteca di Brera – Collezione Jesi. Courtesy of the museum.
is to have her lose all her fecundating power.” Feminism was way too far from these words, but it is interesting to notice the influence Futurism was having
throughout society, to the point that a well-cultured
woman would have promoted a form of self-su ppression.
Futurist punches. Aggressiveness belonged not only
to the field of art and ideas, but also to the real artistic
life of the group. Futurists’ exhibitions often ended up
in riots – more or less organized – which terminated
with the arrival of security forces. Such events resulted in gaining a relevant interest by the media, which