FUTURISTS IN REVIEW : IT AINT WHAT IT USED TO BE

The TATE MODERN'S current show FUTURISM brings out a few big guns, but doesn't create enough energy to convince this reviewer that the self-proclaimed avant garde movement spearheaded by Italian poet Marinetti almost a century ago, lived up to the hype of his original (rather manic and misogynistic) manifestoes.

In fact, the better paintings on show are the Picasso, and the more cubist works which the futurists so heavily relied on in terms of the simultaneity expressed, motion implied and multiple perspectives. Of note too are the London based "VORTICIST" paintings by David Bomberg and a few of his contemporaries who stripped Futurism down into a more purist expression of form- of course this came later and is indebted to the original precepts - but then how much of Futurism could so categorically be to Marinetti's credit?

There was always Pointillism in the background, a late impressionist genre in painting liberated via the advances in photography and film, and there was Cubism and Fauvism, all that was needed was a bit of machine-age inspired hysteria and a cheap printing press to whip up a froth. And of course froth ultimately settles.

Indeed paintings like Boccioni's "THE FORCES OF THE STREET" and Carra's "THE FUNERAL OF THE ANARCHIST GALLI" seem positively juvenile compared with Bomberg's "IN THE HOLD" that still stands the test of time as a well composed and executed work. It is as contemporary as ever.

Considering that the Futurist movement was mostly literary hype spawn by manifestoes, poetry and outrageous correspondence between artists and the press, an obvious disappointment in the TATE's treatment is lack of effort on the character of Marinetti himself. Although the exhibition does well to represent the influence of Futurism on artists as far afield as Russia (Natalia Goncharova & Ljubov Papova) and England (Chris Nevinson), the show lacks critical insight into what author Cinzia Sartini Blum calls the "FUTURIST FICTION OF POWER" - all the very very bad things that the early 20th Century spawned too, vis. nationalism, fascism, violence and war. Indeed it is surprising that less 'media' has survived the Century concerned and it is odd to see these oh so static paintings being the final word. It wasn't meant to end this way.

FUTURISM is on at the TATE MODERN until 20th September 2009.