Honesty, which means living free of the cunning mind. Compassion, because if we have no concern for others, we are monsters. Curiosity, for if the mind is not searching, it is dull and unresponsive.”
Beatrice Wood, aka the “Mama of Dada” was born into a wealthy San Francisco family in 1893. Defying her family’s Victorian values, she moved to France to study theater and art. On the brink of WWI, her parents brought a reluctant Beatrice back to New York, where her mother did everything within her power to discourage her plans for a career on the New York stage. Despite this, Beatrice’s fluency in French led her to join the French National Repertory Theater, where she played over sixty ingénue roles under the stage name “Mademoiselle Patricia” to save her family’s name and reputation.
Wood’s involvement in the Avant-Garde began in these years with her introduction to Marcel Duchamp and later to his friend Henri-Pierre Roché, a diplomat, writer and art collector. Roché, a man fourteen years her senior, joined the duo, becoming creatively (and romantically) entangled. Together they wrote and edited The Blind Man (and the Rongwrong magazine), a magazine that poked the conservative art establishment and helped define the Dada art movement.
Marcel Duchamp brought Beatrice into the world of the New York Dada group, which existed by the patronage of art collectors Walter and Louise Arensberg. The Arensbergs’ home became the center of legendary soirees that included leading figures of the time including Francis Picabia, Mina Loy, Man Ray, Charles Demuth, Joseph Stella, Charles Sheeler and the composer Edgard Varèse.
Beatrice Wood’s career as an artist of note began when she created an abstraction to tease Duchamp that anyone could create modern art. Duchamp was impressed by the work, arranging to have it published in a magazine and inviting her to work in his studio. It was here that she developed her style of spontaneous sketching and painting that continued throughout her life.
Following the formation of the Society of Independent Artists in 1917, Beatrice exhibited work in their Independents exhibition. [text extracted from Wikipedia entry and Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts]
Giannina Censi con il costume di scena di Il mistero di Persefone Teatro Licinium di Erba, 1929. | src Fondo G. Censi ~ Mart (*)Giannina Censi con il costume di scena di Il mistero di Persefone Teatro Licinium di Erba, 1929. | src Fondo G. Censi ~ Mart (*)Giannina Censi con il costume di scena di Il mistero di Persefone Teatro Licinium di Erba, 1929. In verso nota ms. “Teatro Licinium. Erba” | src Fondo G. Censi ~ MartScena tratta da Il mistero di Persefone al Teatro Licinium di Erba, 1929. In verso nota ms. “Il Mistero di Persefone – Teatro Licinium. Erba”. | src Fondo G. Censi ~ Mart (**)Scena tratta da Il mistero di Persefone al Teatro Licinium di Erba, 1929 di Fot. Camuzzi. Milano. | src Fondo G. Censi ~ Mart (**)Scena tratta da Il mistero di Persefone al Teatro Licinium di Erba, 1929 di Fot. Camuzzi. Milano. | src Fondo G. Censi ~ Mart (**)
(*) Pubblicata in Vaccarino E., (a cura di) Giannina Censi: danzare il futurismo. Milano: Electa; Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, 1998, p. 15
(**) Pubblicata in Vaccarino E., (a cura di) Giannina Censi: danzare il futurismo. Milano: Electa; Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, 1998, p. 85
(1) e (2) Pubblicata in Vaccarino E., (a cura di) Giannina Censi: danzare il futurismo. Milano: Electa; Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, 1998, pp. 50-51
(1) e (3) Pubblicata in Belli G. (a cura di), Sprachen des Futurismus, Berlin: Berliner Festspiele- Martin Gropius Bau, 2009, p. 243
(3) Pubblicata in Bonfanti E., Il corpo intelligente. Torino: il segnalibro, 1995, p. 51
Aerodanze 4: Pubblicata in Vaccarino E., (a cura di) Giannina Censi: danzare il futurismo. Milano: Electa; Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, 1998, p.102; Bonfanti E., Il corpo intelligente. Torino: il segnalibro, 1995, p.27; G. Lista, Cinema e fotografia futurista. cat. della mostra (Rovereto, Archivio del ‘900, 18 maggio – 15 luglio 2001) Milano: Skira editore, 2001, p. 211; E. Martera, P. Pietrogrande (a cura di), Il mito della velocità : arte, motori e società nell’Italia del ‘900: Firenze ; Milano : Giunti, 2008, p. 117
Aerodanze 5: Pubblicata in Bonfanti E., Il corpo intelligente. Torino: il segnalibro, 1995, p.27; Vaccarino E.,(a cura di) Giannina Censi: danzare il futurismo. Milano: Electa; Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, 1998, p.106; G. Lista, Cinema e fotografia futurista. cat. della mostra (Rovereto, Archivio del ‘900, 18 maggio – 15 luglio 2001) Milano: Skira editore, 2001, p. 211; E. Martera, P. Pietrogrande (a cura di), Il mito della velocità : arte, motori e società nell’Italia del ‘900: Firenze ; Milano : Giunti, 2008, p. 117; Belli G. (a cura di), Sprachen des Futurismus, cat. della mostra (Berlino, Martin Gropius Bau, 2 ottobre 2009- 11 gennaio 2010), Berlin: Berliner Festspiele, 2009, p. 236; Adrien Sina, «Feminine futures. Valentine de Saint-Point. Performance, Danse, Guerre, Politique et érotisme», Les Presses du réel, 2011, p.230; Macel C., Lavigne E. (a cura di) Danser sa vie : art et danse de 1900 à nos jour. Paris : Centre Georges Pompidou, 2011, p.114; Greene V.(a cura di), Italian Futurismus 1909-1944 : Reconstructing the Universe. cat. della mostra (New York, Guggenheim Museum, 21 febbraio-1 settembre 2014) Solomon R.Guggenheim Foundation 2014, p. 306
Aerodanze 6: Pubblicata in Vaccarino E., (a cura di) Giannina Censi: danzare il futurismo. Milano: Electa; Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, 1998, p.105; G. Lista, Cinema e fotografia futurista. cat. della mostra (Rovereto, Archivio del ‘900, 18 maggio – 15 luglio 2001) Milano: Skira editore, 2001, p. 211; E. Martera, P. Pietrogrande (a cura di), Il mito della velocità : arte, motori e società nell’Italia del ‘900: Firenze ; Milano : Giunti, 2008, p. 117; Belli G.(a cura di), Sprachen des Futurismus, cat. della mostra (Berlino, Martin Gropius Bau, 2 ottobre 2009- 11 gennaio 2010), Berlin: Berliner Festspiele, 2009, p. 237; Adrien Sina, «Feminine futures. Valentine de Saint-Point. Performance, Danse, Guerre, Politique et érotisme», Les Presses du réel, 2011, p.230. Esposta alla mostra Danser sa vie. Art et danse de 1900 à nos jour, a cura di Macel C., Lavigne E., Paris : Centre Georges Pompidou, 2011; Greene V.(a cura di), Italian Futurismus 1909-1944 : Reconstructing the Universe. cat. della mostra (New York, Guggenheim Museum, 21 febbraio-1 settembre 2014) Solomon R.Guggenheim Foundation, 2014, p. 226
Aerodanze 7: Pubblicata in Bonfanti E., Il corpo intelligente. Torino: il segnalibro, 1995, p.28; Vaccarino E., (a cura di) Giannina Censi: danzare il futurismo. Milano: Electa; Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, 1998, p.101; G. Lista, Cinema e fotografia futurista. cat. della mostra (Rovereto, Archivio del ‘900, 18 maggio – 15 luglio 2001) Milano: Skira editore, 2001, p. 212; E. Martera, P. Pietrogrande (a cura di), Il mito della velocità : arte, motori e società nell’Italia del ‘900, cat. della mostra (Roma, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, 19 febbraio – 18 maggio 2008) Giunti, 2008, p. 117; Belli G. (a cura di), Sprachen des Futurismus, cat. della mostra (Berlino, Martin Gropius Bau, 2 ottobre 2009- 11 gennaio 2010), Berlin: Berliner Festspiele, 2009, p. 236; Adrien Sina, «Feminine futures. Valentine de Saint-Point. Performance, Danse, Guerre, Politique et érotisme», Les Presses du réel, 2011, p.231; Macel C., Lavigne E. (a cura di) Danser sa vie : art et danse de 1900 à nos jour. Paris : Centre Georges Pompidou, 2011, p. 114; Greene V.(a cura di), Italian Futurismus 1909-1944 : Reconstructing the Universe. cat. della mostra (New York, Guggenheim Museum, 21 febbraio-1 settembre 2014) Solomon R.Guggenheim Foundation, 2014, p. 306
source Fondo Giannina Censi · Mart · Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto
Jaromír Funke :: After the Carnival I (from 12 Avant-Garde Photographs portfolio), 1924-1926; printed 2014. Gelatin silver print on Foma paper, printed from original glass negative. | src Robert Koch Gallery
Болт ~ The Bolt (1931), ballet choreographed by Fyodor Lopukhov. Music by Shostakovich. Following its premiere at the Leningrad Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet in 1931 it was banned in the Soviet Union. From: Silencing the Avant-Garde: Censorship and Film in the Soviet Union. | src GRAD ~ Gallery for Russian Arts and Design (London)Болт ~ The Bolt (1931), ballet choreographed by Fyodor Lopukhov. Music by Shostakovich.Болт ~ The Bolt (1931), ballet choreographed by Fyodor Lopukhov. Music by Shostakovich. Following its premiere at the Leningrad Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet in 1931 it was banned in the Soviet Union. From: Silencing the Avant-Garde: Censorship and Film in the Soviet Union
‘The Bolt’, written in 1931, is an unruly satire full of skulduggery and drunken conspiracy, populated by a host of comical characters. Following its premiere at the Leningrad Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet in 1931, an unfavourable reaction from critics saw ‘The Bolt’ promptly pulled off the programme. Any performance of the ballet was thereafter strictly forbidden, and it was 74 years before it saw the stage again, reconstructed for the Bolshoi Ballet by its director Alexei Ratmansky. GRAD’s exhibition brings the neglected story of this tumultuous production to life through a selection of costume designs and period photographs.
The ballet, which is based on a true story, tells of the exploits of Lyonka Gulba (‘Gulba’ in Russian means ‘idler’), an indolent worker who persuades a young man to throw a bolt into the factory machinery, sabotaging the production of his workplace in revenge for his being sacked. In this industrial production, which featured real hammers and machine-inspired choreography, Shostakovich embellished the story with aerobics and acrobatics, with several passages mimicking the swishing and hammering sounds of modern factory machinery.
GRAD’s display will feature the witty and grotesque costume designs by Tatiana Bruni bringing to life the characters that populate the ballet: from the Sportsman, the Textile-Worker or the Komsomol Girl, to the Drunkard, the Loafer and the pompous Bureaucrat. Featuring striking geometrical colour blocking, Bruni’s designs have been called ‘the apogee of postrevolutionary Russian experiments in stage design’ and were inspired by the aesthetics of agit-theatre and ROSTA windows or artist-designed propaganda posters. Shostakovich’s exceptional blend of proletarian music genres play through the gallery space, catapulting the viewer to early 1930s Russia and evoking Fedor Lopukhov’s daring choreography. Constructivist values and aesthetics are reflected in all of the elements of the ballet, from the costume designs to the score, choreography to set design.
Shostakovich was commissioned by the Moscow Art Theatre to compose the score to a ballet that would serve and support the goals of socialism and communism. Combining circus music, waltzes, marches and tangos together with popular tunes, the composer envisaged the piece to be a celebration of the proletariat. Nonetheless, ‘The Bolt’ was banned by the Soviet authorities amongst suspicions that it was a satirical work.
That ‘The Bolt’ was produced in 1931 is significant. Visual art and literature were on the cusp of monumental change in Soviet Russia, after a series of political and artistic revolutions had changed the course of modernist art and modern history. The critical rejection of the ballet can be understood within the context of a progression toward Socialist Realism, and the suppression of the vanguard imagination, accelerated by the 1932 issue of the ‘Decree on the Reconstruction of Literary and Artistic Organisations’, a measure designed to curtail artistic independence. The satirical characters and acid comedy of ‘The Bolt’ stand as a bastion of an experimental spirit, which demonstrated an extraordinary edge and robustness. (quoted from WSI review on GRAD’s exhibition)
Kasyan Yaroslavich Goleizovsky’s avant-garde choreography of Prokofiev’s Visions fugitives, Nºs 10-11 (Ridicolosamente, Con vivacità) for his own company, the Moscow Chamber Ballet, in 1922. The configuration of the bodies is architectonic, like so much art of the time, and acrobatic. The avant-garde costume design was adapted to the new dispositions of the body. | src The Russian Art of Movement review
Aerodanze 1. Pubblicata in Bonfanti E., Il corpo intelligente. Torino: il segnalibro, 1995, p.25; Vaccarino E., (a cura di) Giannina Censi: danzare il futurismo. Milano: Electa; Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, 1998, p.101; Vergine L., (a cura di) L’altra metà dell’avanguardia: 1910-1940: pittrici e scultrici nei movimenti delle avanguardie storiche. Milano: Mazzotta, 1980, p.128
Aerodanze 3. Pubblicata in Poggi Longostrevi G., Cultura fisica della donna ed estetica femminile. Milano: Hoepli, 1933, p.246; Vaccarino E., (a cura di) Giannina Censi: danzare il futurismo. Milano: Electa; Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, 1998, p.107
![Giannina Censi all'aria aperta, Plan Maison a 3200 m., 30 luglio 1938 di [Guido Tovo] (1) | src and © Mart ~ Fondo Giannina Censi](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52160045230_13b1f96d9f_o.png)
![Giannina Censi all'aria aperta, Plan Maison a 3200 m., 30 luglio 1938 di [Guido Tovo]. In verso nota ms. "Dal Plan Maison 3200 metri, luglio 1938" (2)](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52159793959_4e87e900f0_o.png)
![Giannina Censi. Aerodanze 10 : giochi nell'aria [1931] src & © Mart · Fondo Giannina Censi](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52141988667_eb3c0921a9_o.png)
![Giannina Censi. Aerodanze 12 : velocità ascensionale [1931] src & © Mart · Fondo Giannina Censi](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52143248394_afed85ce8c_o.png)
![Giannina Censi. Aerodanze 9 : trivello verso l'azzurro [1931] src & © Mart · Fondo Giannina Censi](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52143013386_e4b549e808_o.png)
![Giannina Censi. Aerodanze 8 : stanchezza di volo [1931] src & © Mart · Fondo Giannina Censi](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52141053531_83d59d11d5_o.jpg)
![Giannina Censi. Aerodanza 11 : decollo di un aeroplano [1931] src & © Mart · Fondo Giannina Censi](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52143013401_4c1078ef00_o.png)
![Giannina Censi in "Aerodanze 3: rovesciamento d'apparecchio" di [T. Santacroce. Milano?], [1931 ?]. Mart, Archivio del ’900, Fondo Censi. | src Mart, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto on Google Arts](https://unregardobliquehome.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/giannina-censi-aerodanze-3.png)
![Giannina Censi. Aerodanze 1 [1931] src Mart - Fondo Giannina Censi](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52143074134_a567118836_o.png)
un regard oblique 