Crash

2017
21cm × 29.7cm
Edition: 45

Crash takes the perspective of a car mechanic who happened to be in the passenger seat when F.T. Marinetti's mythical car crash occurred, and approaches the history of Italian Futurism through a maintenance manual specifically designed for Marinetti's FIAT.

One morning in 1907 F.T. Marinetti was driving his new Fiat 24-32 HP down Domodossola when by the sudden appearance of two bicyclists he had to turn the wheel, and drove his car into a ditch. This minor incident (no one got hurt) had great cultural significance. The crash not only served as an introduction to Futurism 2 years later, but arguably functions as a mythical big-bang for all of Modernism. By taking the role of a side character to this story, Ettore Angelini, I give this story an alternative future.

I aimed to provide a history of Futurism which is much more fitting to an art movement which above all wanted “... to destroy four centuries of Italian tradition” than a purely historical display or document.