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(M.K. Publishers) The Drama of Marinetti or the Story of how the Leader of World Futurism flopped in Russia. A feature-documentary- compilatory-comedy from the Life of Italian and Russian Futurism in eleven scenes. Album by Mikhail Karasik. [St. Petersburg. Russia.] 2008. 22.75″ x 15″. 13 leaves in an illustrated card cover with black cloth spine and two brass screws. Twelve compositions with the combination of lithograph and author’s offset on BFK Rives Cream paper; text – author’s offset. Text inside the book is printed in Russian; the separate English version is printed on blue paper and laid in a printed cardboard box. One in an edition of 15 numbered and signed copies. Fine.

Karasik writes: “‘The Triumph of Futurism’ was the title of a show planned by the director of the new mechanistic and urban movement in modern art. In Russia, however, the production unexpectedly underwent a change of genre, taking the director himself by surprise. The Russian performers – Futurist poets and artists – had been allocated technical walk-on parts. The Italians had a poor opinion of Futurists ‘of the Slavonic race’. Following his trip to Russia, where ‘the apostle of the electric religion’ counted on acquiring pupils and associates, Marinetti found himself up against sabotage and misunderstanding. In a show of aggression and freethinking, the Russian Futurists not only refused to recognize Marinetti as their leader, but, it transpired, themselves counted on taking new territory and conquering new minds. As a result, the expected triumph turned into a drama of a different kind.~~~~”The Drama of Marinetti has been composed from newspaper and literary sources of the beginning of the 1910s. Fragments of texts, memoirs, and manifestos have been turned into lines spoken by the characters. The chain of events, meetings, lectures, and receptions has been recreated. The monologues and one-liners reveal both the relationship between the Italian and Russian Futurists and the conflicts which were tearing apart the Russian Avant-garde movement. Marinetti expected a more Futuristic reception, and all the tokens of success showered upon him – the bouquets of flowers, crowded auditoria, and the attention from students and high-society salons – conflicted with both the spirit and ideas of Futurism. Marinetti had the feeling that the leaders of Russian Futurism were spending the first few weeks hiding from him, avoiding contact, and shunning the meetings that had been organized. It was only towards the end of his trip that the situation improved, but the result was the realization that Russian and Italian Futurism had little in common. Italian Futurism promoted urbanism, the cult of technology and machines, the destruction of tradition and old culture, and militarism. Russian Futurism, on the other hand, focused on folk culture and the Russian icon and was oriented more of the East than the West, while its belligerence was directed against old forms of art, but not against politics, and it was not naturally inclined to aggression (Futurist works of a patriotic character appeared on at the beginning of World War I). Artistic life in Russia was itself more dynamic and radical than in Italy. Italian Futurism existed until the end of the 1930s, while the Russian version, modified and politicized and stripped of its artistic essence, survived only until the beginning of the 1920s. After the October Revolution Futurism’s political direction also changed. The Russian branch became Communist (Komfutu was a Communist Futurist organization led by Mayakovsky), while Italian Futurism turned to Fascism.

“The illustrative material in the album consists of collages of well- and less well-known photographs of the Futurists. There are visual allusions to the texts, documentary materials, and famous pictures. The pages of the album have been designed to look like the old postcards which Marinetti and his Russian correspondents used in their correspondence with one another. the result is a graphic version in which the author tries to evaluate Marinetti’s legendary visit to Russia.”

Related items: Catalogue 37 - Summer 2009, Fine Printing & Private Press, M.K. Publishers