NisN IRL : Depero Futurista

Posted on December 9, 2009
Filed Under 1930s, Artists, Books, Designers, Europe

IRL (in real life) at the Wolfsonian Library this Monday I was turned on to Depero Futurista. A book created by Futurist founder Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in honor of his colleaugue & friend Forunato Depero. A total inspiration! Please excuse my wonky photographs—I got too excited. A big thanks to librarian Frank Luca for pulling this book for me to review.

Update : Bolted Book was designed by Forunato Depero, not Marinetti as I had previously written.
The correct information provided by Nancy Stock-Allen at Design History

Comments

6 Responses to “NisN IRL : Depero Futurista”

Cory Garfin

on December 9th, 2009 at 11:42 pm

Hi,

i just saw your post and thought you might be interested in a project that I am currently a part of for a team at Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center. We have been completely inspired by Fortunato Depero, and have re-imagined his 1918 puppetry ballet, Balli Plastici, for the digital age.

Please take a look at our website, and let me know if you have any questions about the project.

Long live Futurism!
andrew

on December 10th, 2009 at 8:28 am

super great
KellyR

on December 10th, 2009 at 10:20 pm

Cory, your puppets are totally amazing. You interpret Depero so perfectly, colorfully! I think he’d be proud. Futurist would love technology, right?
Cory Garfin

on December 16th, 2009 at 11:05 am

Thanks so much, Kelly! I do think that the Futurists would love today’s technology – reading through Depero’s work for this project, I found that he had ideas that were not really possible to bring to fruition using the tech of his day. He was ahead of his time, for sure.

He was also playful in his work. I’m glad you like the color palette we used – after visiting his home and archives in Rovereto, we (a team of 7 graduate students) were inspired by his sense of whimsy. The colors we used were meant to highlight that aspect, as well as his theatrical sensibilities.
Dan Nelson

on December 16th, 2009 at 1:15 pm

Thanks for showing us this. Futurism is all about the vectors, the lines of force, everything jumping off the page…
Yesenia España

on April 24th, 2010 at 7:52 pm

“Depero Futurista” was not created by Filippo Marinetti. Depero designed and published the book himself. According to “Meggs’ History of Graphic Design”, “In 1927 Depero published his ‘Depero Futurista’, a compilation of his typographical experiments, advertisements, tapestry designs, and other works. ‘Depero Futurista’ is a precursor of the artist’s book, published by an artist as a creative expression independent of the publishing establishment.”

Also, this link below provides more information on Depero and his bolted book:
http://english.mart.trento.it/gallery.jsp?ID_LINK=96&area=42&page=1&id_context=108