Giovanna Zapperi looks at Italian Futurism as a relevant historical example of the relation between art and fascist ideology in the early twentieth century. Zapperi considers Futurism as an aesthetic laboratory for the historical rise of Fascism in modern Italy, with particular focus on Futurism’s obsessions with the male body, time, and technology. The gendered dialectics between past and present, which can be observed in the writings of poet F. T. Marinetti and works of painter Umberto Boccioni, forms the core of Futurism’s reconfiguration of history. Even as its avant-garde spirit was marginalized in favor of the typical monumental aesthetic of the ventennio during the late 1920s and 1930s, Fascism never really got rid of Futurism: its representation of myth versus history became one of Italian Fascism’s fundamental features.
Propositions #4: Unpacking Aesthetics and the Far Right is part of BAK’s long-term artistic research series and convening platform Propositions for Non-Fascist Living (2017–2020) prompted by the surfacing of contemporary fascisms. This is the fourth performative conference within the series and brings together artists, theorists, and writers to seek ways of unpacking the current relations of art and fascist-curious aesthetics.
Propositions #4: Unpacking Aesthetics and the Far Right is part of BAK’s long-term artistic research series and convening platform Propositions for Non-Fascist Living (2017–2020) prompted by the surfacing of contemporary fascisms. This is the fourth performative conference within the series and brings together artists, theorists, and writers to seek ways of unpacking the current relations of art and fascist-curious aesthetics.
The political landscape in Europe and North America is peppered with fascisms whose nihilism bleeds vividly into everyday life. These are fascisms—post/neo/crypto or proto-fascisms—without a (seemingly) clearly articulated ideology. Their narratives may not cohere politically with each other, but they do cohere aesthetically: they align themselves with, or attach themselves to, objects, idioms, or tropes, and open a toxic conduit between antiestablishmentarianism and outright racism and misogyny. This brings up the questions: Are present-day fascisms aesthetic or emotional in structure, rather than fully-fledged political doctrines? How to describe the nexuses between art form and far-right ideologies that take shape under the aegis of neoliberal governance? Is it possible to draw parallels with the early twentieth-century artistic movements that became ambivalent laboratories for fascisms-yet-to-come?
With contributions by: art historian and critic Larne Abse Gogarty; artist Kader Attia; writer and art historian Angela Dimitrakaki and writer and curator iLiana Fokianaki; writer, curator, and musician Morgan Quaintance; writer and cultural theorist Ana Teixeira Pinto; art historian and researcher Harry Weeks; and art historian Giovanna Zapperi.
In recent years, the ethos of the tech industry has transmogrified—from the market-besotted optimism of business mogul Bill Gates to the digital feudalism represented by California Bay Area neoreactionaries and cyber monarchists. If, as philosopher Walter Benjamin has argued, “every rise of Fascism bears witness to a failed revolution,” one could say that the rise of crypto-fascist tendencies within the tech industry bears witness to the failures of the “digital revolution,” whose promises never came to pass. From this perspective, the mix of cyber- obscurantism, far-right esoterica, and paranoid ideation so popular online can be read as a morbid symptom of this ongoing transformation.
Propositions #4: Unpacking Aesthetics and the Far Right is part of BAK’s long-term artistic research series and convening platform Propositions for Non-Fascist Living (2017–2020) prompted by the surfacing of contemporary fascisms. This is the fourth performative conference within the series and brings together artists, theorists, and writers to seek ways of unpacking the current relations of art and fascist-curious aesthetics.
What are the conditions that facilitate an individual’s participation in and allegiance to reactionary, fascist, and extremist groups? Conventional social, cultural, or economic dissatisfactions are often presented as the most reliable and fertile grounds for determining motivations. Morgan Quaintance considers a fourth: the cultic. By using sociologist Colin Campbell’s notion of a “cultic milieu” —a social environment consisting of groups who adhere to deviant and esoteric systems of political, scientific, religious, or socio-cultural thought—Quaintance thinks through the idea that exploring the further reaches of such arenas (arguably the activity from which much research- based contemporary art emerges) can be psychically hazardous. In short, the “cultic milieu” can function as a gateway to membership and participation in the fascist forum.
Propositions #4: Unpacking Aesthetics and the Far Right is part of BAK’s long-term artistic research series and convening platform Propositions for Non-Fascist Living (2017–2020) prompted by the surfacing of contemporary fascisms. This is the fourth performative conference within the series and brings together artists, theorists, and writers to seek ways of unpacking the current relations of art and fascist-curious aesthetics.
Giovanna Zapperi looks at Italian Futurism as a relevant historical example of the relation between art and fascist ideology in the early twentieth century. Zapperi considers Futurism as an aesthetic laboratory for the historical rise of Fascism in modern Italy, with particular focus on Futurism’s obsessions with the male body, time, and technology. The gendered dialectics between past and present, which can be observed in the writings of poet F. T. Marinetti and works of painter Umberto Boccioni, forms the core of Futurism’s reconfiguration of history. Even as its avant-garde spirit was marginalized in favor of the typical monumental aesthetic of the ventennio during the late 1920s and 1930s, Fascism never really got rid of Futurism: its representation of myth versus history became one of Italian Fascism’s fundamental features.
Propositions #4: Unpacking Aesthetics and the Far Right is part of BAK’s long-term artistic research series and convening platform Propositions for Non-Fascist Living (2017–2020) prompted by the surfacing of contemporary fascisms. This is the fourth performative conference within the series and brings together artists, theorists, and writers to seek ways of unpacking the current relations of art and fascist-curious aesthetics.
Propositions #4: Unpacking Aesthetics and the Far Right is part of BAK’s long-term artistic research series and convening platform Propositions for Non-Fascist Living (2017–2020) prompted by the surfacing of contemporary fascisms. This is the fourth performative conference within the series and brings together artists, theorists, and writers to seek ways of unpacking the current relations of art and fascist-curious aesthetics.
