Futurism, Fascism and Mass-Media: The Case of Marinetti's 1926 Trip to Buenos Aires 1. Introduction
This paper centers on the study of a specific case of contact between personalities of the European
avant-garde and Argentinean readers: the June 1926 visit to Buenos Aires by the Italian poet Filippo Tomasso Marinetti. His stay in this city was part of a South American tour organized by the Brazilian impresario
Niccolino Viggiani. He lectured in Río de Janeiro and São Paolo (Brazil), Buenos Aires, Rosario and Córdoba (Argentina) and Montevideo (Uruguay). Marinetti's objective was to make the principles of his aesthetics known
not only among writers and artists but, most of all, to a mass audience.Around 1926 the Argentinean avant-garde was at the height of its growth and expansion. Since the beginning of the 1920s, through
specialized reviews such as Martín Fierro, Proa and Inicial, the young writers of Buenos Aires, had consolidated a new aesthetic program with Spanish Ultraism as its strongest referent. 1
Through their publications and public lectures, they paid special attention to everything that was going on in European literature and art, reviewing the main events, promoting the principles of the latest movements in art and translating and publishing poetry and prose.
Besides these publications, many avant-garde writers also worked as journalists, particularly in Crítica, a sensationalist evening newspaper that printed 300,000 copies daily, and became a major
source of information on the new movements of the time. This productive association between avant-garde writers and a sensationalist commercial paper like Crítica
is worthy of attention. I believe that it is this conjunction of avant-garde and mass publication that makes it possible to explain how the "Marinetti phenomenon" became a market sensation, rather than generating an aesthetic debate among artists. In effect, unlike what happened in Brazilian artistic circles, the impact of futurism was practically nil in Argentina. Although many of its central themes and figures may be found in the manifesto published in the journal
Martín Fierro
and in the poems of Oliverio Girondo, or in the metaphorization of prose in Roberto Arlt, the Argentinean avant-garde adopted Spanish Ultraism and French Cubism as its central models. It questioned the influence of the Italian movement, as the painter Emilio Pettoruti pointed out in his memoirs:
The announcement of my imminent arrival was reflected by the newspapers and journals; not knowing what to say, they meandered and invented. I was simply presented as a futurist painter; this was not
an auspicious account, as I was soon to realize, because to say "futurist" in Argentina in 1924…was the same as saying mad, outlandish, prankster, impostor, charlatan or mountebank.…This opinion, widely held among
artists, was shared by the public interested in fine arts. Considering that I was bringing this to the country, I was taken for the buffoon of an unusual show to be performed in the coming days. 2
It was therefore with some skepticism that the Buenos Aires avant-garde observed the futurist movement and the figure of Marinetti in 1926. Their attention to
the preparations for his visit was limited to a specially-dedicated issue of Martín Fierro
(which came out the very day Marinetti arrived in the city) and to the organization of "a gastronomic demonstration of camaraderie" in the Príncipe Restaurant on June 16.3
Unlike what happened in Brazil, where many writers accompanied him and prepared their own lectures to introduce Marinetti's various public appearances,
4
in Buenos Aires the avant-garde artists remained passive spectators at the various public shows. In this regard they followed the lead, as it were, of the editor of the Revista Oral, Alberto Hidalgo, who before
Marinetti's first lecture, exhorted his peers to be silent:
Futurism is a dead school… In the name of those who have worked here for avant-garde literature and the general culture of the people, I—a humble soldier of these ranks—invite the public not to make
an uproar about Marinetti. He has never sought anything else. Argentina is by now a too-cultured country to be frightened by anyone. We should listen to him as we would to anyone else, but not exalt him with a
commotion. 5
Notwithstanding, Marinetti's visit became a major event, not so much due to the activity of the avant-garde as to the daily press, especially Crítica,
which made it the center of public attention. Marinetti's visit to Buenos Aires, as a cultural event, was then conditioned by the creation of a substantial public that had some knowledge of the evolution of the
avant-garde, and by the fact that Crítica was constructing the figure of Marinetti prior to his arrival in the country, through stories and reports that created great expectation for the possibility of scandals.With this in mind, I will focus my attention on the construction of the figure of Marinetti by Crítica,
as this newspaper was both an important arena of information for avant-garde writers and shaped Marinetti's visit, making it a unique journalistic marketing event. I will also refer to other publications with broad circulation such as
La Nación, La Prensa and La Razón, as well as to political party publications like the socialist organ La Vanguardia, the anarchist La Protesta, and the nationalist La Fronda. 2. Background
Crítica
was a widely-circulating evening newspaper built on sensationalism, crime scoops and sports. However, in the early 1920s, it quickly became aware of the appearance of the Argentinean avant-garde, taking it on as a subject of discussion, with a great deal of material about the artistic renovation aimed at a mass audience. It published one or two pages daily including striking illustrations. This quickness was the mark of a newspaper that, avid for information, paid close attention to new events and swiftly converted the avant-garde into a journalistic event. However, at the same time, this enthusiasm reflected the fact that in
Crítica
a cultural-ideological principle operated that made it an active agent in the creation and reproduction of cultural goods. At the same time, from mid-1925 on, several members of the avant-garde joined the staff of
Crítica and wrote many stories spreading the ideas of the new aesthetic movements. Among them were the brothers Raúl and Enrique González Tuñón, Pablo Rojas Paz, Córdova Iturburu and Ulyses Petit de Murat. On June 1925, Crítica
published the first of a series of stories designed to construct an "informative review of the renovation movements that are now afoot in the artistic circles of our city." Under the title "The renovation movement of the new Argentinean youth:
Martín Fierro, Proa and Inicial
are considered the benchmark of the intellectual worth of the new generation," the article attempts to describe the state of the new literature, constructing a brief history of the avant-garde in Argentina. It describes the avant-garde reviews and mentions their directors and contributors, stressing in each case the ground-breaking character of the new generation.
These stories were followed by a series of articles presenting the protagonists of the artistic avant-garde and introducing their internal debates through reportage, transcription of poems and literary
texts, and the reproduction of graphic materials. Crítica published a number of caricatures by the Uruguayan sculptor and draftsman Dardo Salguero Dela-Hanty; extensive selections from Alberto Hidalgo's
Simplismo; didactic explanations of the work of Ramón Gómez de la Serna; and a sketch of the life and work of Emilio Pettoruti, whose exposition of revolutionary art work on Florida Street caused an uproar. In most of these pieces, the subjects interviewed emphasized the importance of Crítica
in making their artistic principles known and of allowing them to reach a wider audience. Dela-Hanty for example said "Crítica
breaks the silence of the press that, in general, tries to avoid granting importance to the young artists who need the stimulus." 6
For Brandán Caraffa, "Crítica
is the first Argentinean daily to pay attention to the intellectual movement that for a year now has interested newspapers and reviews in Europe and America, and personalities of the stature of Valery Larbaud, Ortega y Gasset, Alfonso Reyes, Gómez de la Serna, Irum Feldli and Raúl Orgaz, among others. I hope this concern on the part of
Crítica will not be forgotten by the young people who are struggling in open and disinterested fashion."7Taken as a whole, the published articles construct an encyclopedia of the 1920s avant-garde. Besides the pages of the daily, Crítica
made a weekly spot in its radio programming available to the new writers. On December 15, 1925, under the title "Radio Crítica
reports on good books," it announced that "continuing the work of cultural dissemination, tomorrow our radio station LOR initiates a series of weekly lectures aimed at promoting the most important current books." In light of this alliance between the commercial press and artistic renovation, it might be affirmed that the avant-garde was proposing an alternative mode of capturing a new universe of readers through the
use of the pages of a mass-circulation daily. While Renato Poggioli pointed out that it is precisely the triumph of the popular commercial press that calls forth and justifies the existence of the avant-garde review as
a reaction "as natural as it is necessary, against the vulgarity and vulgarization of culture," 8 the Argentinean avant-garde used the mass-circulation press in an attempt to reach audiences that were inaccessible by other means.3. Marinetti and
Crítica: a market operation
A year after commencing the series of pieces aimed at making the aesthetic avant-garde known to the general public, in May 1926 the newspaper learned that Marinetti would visit
Argentina accompanied by his wife Benedetta Cappa. On the eve of his arrival, Crítica
deployed all its journalistic weaponry in the construction of a major news story. A huge volume of articles and reportage, together with efforts to build the figure of a poet into a major marketing event, made it possible to focus the newspaper's efforts on making the event attractive to a mass audience.
The visit was scheduled for June 7. Crítica
announced that "the proximate arrival of Marinetti, the creator of futurism, has led us to seek out someone who could provide interesting information about such a provocative personality." 9
From May 15 on it published a series of interviews attempting to construct the figure of the visitor for an audience they presumed completely lacked information. In these articles, a series of questions are proposed around the theme of Marinetti, futurism and its influence in Buenos Aires. The list of interviewees is astonishingly large making it possible for the reader to analyze the writers' and artists' opinions of Marinetti. They included: Sandro Piantanida (May 15), Evar Méndez (May 18), Jorge Luis Borges (May 20), Oliverio Girondo (May 21), Arturo Cancela (May 24), Ortega Ackermann (May 26), Emilio Pettoruti (May 28), Ricardo Güiraldes (May 31), Leopoldo Marechal (June 3), Victoria Ocampo (June 4), Francisco López Merino (June 7), Alberto Hidalgo (June 9), Alfonsina Storni (June 14) and Baldomero Fernández Moreno (June 16). In general terms, there was broad recognition for Marinetti as an innovator, and for futurism as the breakthrough that facilitated the emergence of the avant-garde schools. However, except for the case of Oliverio Girondo, the young writers saw futurism as a school of the past, outdated, and that had not reached great literary heights. For example, Jorge Luis Borges felt that Marinetti's books were "not worth much, being Italianate mimicry of Whitman, of Kipling, perhaps of Jules Romains." Leopoldo Marechal said that the Argentinean avant-garde had not been influenced by Italian futurism, given that "Marinetti is important as a posture, and might well have avoided his writing, a useless appendix to his dynamic work."
As for the influence of his visit, on the one hand, Ricardo Güiraldes, Francisco López Merino and the director of Martín Fierro, Evar Méndez, concur in saying that it would stimulate the Argentinean
avant-garde. On the other hand, Borges and Marechal, more skeptical, projected that his influence would be nil, because the potential of futurism had already been realized in recent avant-garde movements in Europe and
Argentina. In the same way, the editor of El Hogar, Ortega Ackermann, said that the visit would be of no artistic consequence because the trip was "unquestionably a political propaganda tour and in that capacity
Marinetti has little interest for me. The Buenos Aires public will refute the fascist propaganda with hoots and whistles" as they did in Río de Janeiro and São Paolo. In effect, Crítica, the only
Argentinean daily to send a special correspondent to Brazil to cover the seven lectures Marinetti gave in Río de Janeiro, São Paolo and Santos, reported that Marinetti's lectures in Brazil unleashed the spectators' ire.
In the first lecture in São Paolo there was a great commotion in which numerous anti-fascists, who occupied much of the hall, tried to prevent the program from being carried out with disorderly howling: "For two hours
Marinetti tried fruitlessly to speak in the São Paolo Casino. The audience, in indescribable commotion, prevented it, so that he retired two hours later amid shouts against fascism." 10
As Annateressa Fabris described it, Marinetti brought nothing new to Brazil, limiting himself to a repetition of the arguments he had been disseminating since 1909, and his concern, in the manifestos he published in Brazil ("Contra os cabelos curtos" and "Futurismo e fascismo") as well as in his lectures and interviews, was focused on justifying the achievements of the fascist regime.
11The news of these events made the Buenos Aires public
suppose that Marinetti's visit to the city would be mainly political in nature. Day after day, Crítica
recounted in detail Marinetti's doings in Brazil, increasing the expectations of its readers by opening questions at the end of every article:
The cries of "Long live Marinetti!" did not move him, nor did those of "Long live Mussolini!" He spoke in French when the audience clamored for Italian and ended his lectures in the midst of the
same commotion with which they had begun. Will the same thing happen in Buenos Aires? 12 It is not possible to predict anything definite about his performance in Buenos Aires. Our great city has calmed our fears on some occasions and
disconcerted us on others, taking on the most unexpected attitudes…It poses, then, for our capitol, a most interesting question: Buenos Aires vs. Marinetti. How will it receive him?13
Crítica
built up Marinetti's visit as a journalistic event prior to the "real" occurrence, by prefiguring its impact on the public should his preachment, rather than aesthetic, prove to be a fascist harangue. In this scenario, the paper, employing the futurist device of "parole in libertà", does a send-up of what might be Marinetti's first lecture in Buenos Aires. In a piece published in vertical format under the title "The First Futurist Loose in Argentina", an anonymous author imagines the figure of Marinetti as avant-garde and fascist:
The hour has struck. Dan! Din! Don! Futurism advances. Tararee, tararah! in cadence for attack. The general in command, with his gold braid ||||||||||| is at the door. Tereen, tereen! The door opens and
Marinetti finds himself in Buenos Aires. The price of cabbage, potatoes and turnips goes up, and this is the first victory for futurism. The greengrocers applaud: clap, clap, clap. Marinetti disembarks with a
dirty shirt. Ugh! Disgusting! But no, it's not repulsive, it's a fascist shirt. The fascists are enemies of art and of soap and Marinetti is an enemy of art, of soap and of moonlight. Down with moonlight! Ma- rin- ne- tti. gives his first lecture with objects flying onto the stage: —Gen- tle- men! —Shut up!
—Gentle... —Long live Mateotti! —Gen... —Down with the black shirts! A potato crosses the orchestra and lands on the stage. Paf! Another, followed by a cabbage. Paf! Pif! The
procession continues. Paf! Paf! Paf! Pif! Pif! Paf! Paf! Paf! Pif! Pif! etc. etc. etc. I said. The lecture is ended. Peep! Peep! Peep! 14
The night of his arrival in Buenos Aires, Crítica
received Marinetti with three full pages—including numerous photographs and illustrations—reconstructing his biography and the central features of futurism. But the main item of the day was an extensive report that
Crítica's correspondent had written in Río de Janeiro on the subject of fascism and the history of its evolution from an international point of view. In this piece, dealing with the relations between futurism and
fascism, Marinetti replies to the critics of the violence then current in Italy, differentiating it from the policy of the fascist regime. The writer, who considered Marinetti's journey to have political rather than
poetic ends, explains the commotion in São Paolo on the basis of this hypothesis:
Marinetti is no doubt a "cabotino," and a talented one. This excursion through America evidently has a political mission. He is a messenger of fascism, disguised in literary clothing. Here, in Río,
this aspect was not so prominent because most of the Italian colony paid no attention to the visitor. But in São Paolo things have been different. São Paolo has the largest Italian nucleus in this part of the
continent. Thousands of socialists of that extraction, stifled under Mussolini's regime, have established themselves in the great Brazilian city, taking part in its prominent industrial activity. Now there is the
arrival of an envoy of the irreconcilable adversary. It is natural, then, that these exiles rise up in a "revanchè", displaying in their reception all the violence of their abhorrence for the emissary and his master.
15
The appearance of this report hours before Marinetti's arrival placed the nature of his tour—whether political or literary—at the center of discussion.
Marinetti then stated that very night, both in the press conference and in his radio message, that he would only touch on artistic and literary questions, aiming to promote the achievements and goals of the artistic
movement he lead. Taking charge of the terms in which his visit was being discussed in the press, he held that he had no political mission. In Crítica, the newspaper most concerned about the probable fascist
character of Marinetti's lecture,16
the fear of a political hue to the tour lent color to the reports in all publications; in the first interviews with La Nación and La Prensa
, he was asked about the possible political character of his visit. In La Nación
Marinetti affirmed that despite being a personal friend of the head of the Italian Government "that does not mean that I have any personal participation in Italian politics at the present time. I do not hold nor have I held any post or representation of a political nature. I am merely an artist."
17 La Prensa
pointed out that Marinetti contradicted himself concerning rumors that he was on an official government mission to propagandize fascism: "I have come to Argentina with the sole aim of making the theory of futurism known. Nothing more. It is also true that if my compatriots residing in your beautiful country ask me about present conditions in Italy, I can only tell them the truth: what I have seen. The climate of order is admirable, industry is flourishing, the whole country is progressing day by day."
18 Martín Fierro
received Marinetti with an editorial that praised him as a renovator of art, for being a man who "went ahead of his time, his action full of prophetic fervor." At the same time, it underlined the journal's distance from his political position; it was not Marinetti the fascist that the
Martín Fierro group wished to acknowledge:
It has been said that Marinetti is coming to these lands of America guided by certain political aims. Martín Fierro, in its spirit and
orientation, spurns any interference of such a nature in its activities, as has been clearly established. It is perhaps not unnecessary to declare, in avoidance of any bothersome suspicion, that Marinetti as a
political man has nothing to do with our publication.19
4. Marinetti in Buenos Aires
In this climate, the announcement of Marinetti's first lecture on
June 11 in the Coliseo Theater created considerable anxiety; there was apprehension lest he fail to keep his word. A number of security measures were therefore taken; the Social Order police detachment made extensive
provision for the occasion. Many people decided not to attend because of "skepticism and fear of flying vegetables," and the press noted that in the theater, prior to the lecture, "there was a silent tension in the
hall, with glances of complicity and accusatory looks among the audience, a magnetic trap that held the public, restrained and nervous, both futurists and anti-futurists, connoisseurs and skeptics."
20 The newspapers of that day fed the expectation. Crítica
asked itself again and again about the possible commotion that might arise in the first lecture and cast doubt on the real interest of the public in artistic discourse, arguing that "more than half of the audience will go to the Coliseo, not to listen to a lecture, but with the understandable desire to witness a public altercation. What has happened so far in the lectures given by the roguish Marinetti would lead us to believe that the most natural thing in the world would be a full-fledged brawl. Incidents in the recent lectures in Río and São Paolo have raised these expectations and more than one spectator will feel cheated tonight, if, for the price of a ticket, there is not, at the very least, a noisy, prolonged 'pan francés.'"
21That night, the audience at the Coliseo Theater was
expecting not merely a futurist lecture but, especially, a political diatribe. For example, the Socialists of La Vanguardia (opposed to Marinetti as a writer and to futurism as an
aesthetic school)
attended in order to debate and refute any pro-fascist political comments. However, they found that "keeping his promise, he did not speak about fascism. Well done. Certain things are allowed in Italy, but abroad they
can be dangerous." 22
Thereafter, Marinetti disappeared from the pages of that daily and was replaced by long articles on the second anniversary of the murder of Mateotti.Contrary to all expectation, everything that had been
feared and hoped for that afternoon, the first lecture, entitled "Futurism: Its Various Aspects in the Countries Where the Avant-Garde Holds Sway," commenced with an empty stage, decorated with a backdrop of patchwork
made of pieces of cloth of varied size, shape and color. Marinetti burst through and began a lecture that ended with a recitation in French of "Free Verse in Honor of a Racing Car" and in Italian the much applauded "The
Battle of Adrianopolis." Both La Nación and La Prensa recorded the presence of a large audience, 23 but the socialist La Vanguardia and the nationalist La Fronda
concurred that, contrary to all expectations, the audience was not very numerous and the orchestra half empty. Indeed, Schnapp and Castro Rocha point out that there were only 498 spectators in a house that could seat about 1700.
24This calm and lack of discussion persisted throughout
the series of Marinetti's appearances in Buenos Aires, La Plata, Córdoba and Rosario. 25 The press followed each one of his activities with interest, publishing the lectures in their entirety. Crítica
not only dedicated more than two pages daily to comments on his talks, but on June 20 informed its readers that Marinetti "has authorized Crítica
exclusively to tell the story of his extraordinary life as an agitator. It is a most interesting story, in many ways, that will be avidly received by our readership." The story would appear under the suggestive title of "The History of Futurism." Actually, the much ballyhooed history of futurism was no more than a long report based on an interview with Marinetti made in one afternoon in his room at the Plaza Hotel. Using this material, which in any other newspaper would have been dealt with in a couple of columns,
Crítica
constructed a narrative in three installments (published June 21, 22 and 23), linked by a "to be continued." The readers' attention was captured by the amusing content and by the layout: each installment took up a full page with big headlines and striking illustrations by Pedro de Rojas.
Employing the futurist device of "parole in libertà," the first installment narrates the meeting of the reporters with Marinetti from beginning to end. There is no mention of what was said in those three hours (that
being reserved for the second and the third installments); rather the writers prepare the reception of the interview, trying to transmit to the reader all the personal characteristics of the man as well as their own
sensations during the meeting. Therefore, this first installment tells of the arrival of the reporters who, in attempting to describe in minute detail each one of his movements in the suite, make witty reflections on
the limits of written journalism as a medium for transmitting and reproducing images of audio and visual movement:
Marinetti struck us the most absurd chain imaginable: a chain that begins with a cry and ends with a wallop; a chain in which there are all sorts of things: heads, locomotives, flutes, oceans,
trenches, stages, slaps in the face, fenced-off land, newspapers, manifestos, rifles, cars, women, volcanoes and "passéistes"...Can a mere reporter be expected to put order in all that? He would need the help of a
jeweler, a photographer, an engineer, a solderer, a stamp collector, an instrumentalist, a scenographer, a deep-sea diver, an aviator, an expert in fireworks, a typographer, a stage-machine operator, a locomotive
fireman, a chef, a magician, a soothsayer, a witch, an alchemist, and finally, a film projectionist. Without all this, the journalist could not capture simultaneously the many aspects of the subjects, only put
together some impressions, two or three snapshots, four or five phrases captured on the wing, which would be a violent and precarious synthesis of the multiple and multi-humored life of this don Filippo Marinetti,
creator of futurism. 26
On the following day, the piece transcribes the first part of a long story in which Marinetti recounts the central lines of his biography: birth, childhood in
Alexandria, first love, arrival in Paris at 17, his literary and public activity—marked by turmoil—in France and Italy, his lectures in London, Moscow, Petersburg and various cities of Italy, and finally, his
participation in the world war. As the story progresses, the reporter also describes the various states of mind of the interviewee:
Psychological phenomenon: thus far Marinetti had been speaking calmly and dispassionately. He has savored the words as if tasting the evocation of his memories. But, in recalling his Paris and his
"grisettes," he saddened and now, as if wishing to quickly finish the story of his life, he speaks rapidly and synthetically. It is as if he were finishing off dramatically; he is a machine-gun sweeping the field:
poom...pooroompoom...poom-poom...poom...poom... 27
In the third and last installment, the report ends with the finale of the biography: Marinetti's entrance into the Battalion of volunteer cyclists; the death of various
futurist comrades; his passage through the Mountaineering Battalion and the corps of armored machine-gunners; his term in the hospital; and his return to Italy.Despite Crítica's enthusiasm for the
illustrious visitor in attempt at interesting its readership in the most picturesque aspects of his personality, the calm and lack of novelty grew as his program of activities advanced. Day by day, all of the press
reflected growing disappointment at the real results of Marinetti's visit: not only was there no commotion but there was no discussion of the supposed aesthetic novelties proclaimed by the poet on stage. The only
polemic that his words awoke was based on a misunderstanding. While there was objection to his idea of abolishing tradition (as reflected in his 1909 manifesto), Marinetti in 1926 was recovering a great tradition for
futurism that included Michelangelo, Leonardo, Giotto, and so on. He pointed out that it is a mistake to consider that the futurists wished to break their ties with the past, since they are its continuers, the logical
and natural projection of the great creators of all time. 28
This polemic began with a report that Lucas Ayarragaray wrote for La Nación where he argued with Marinetti's idea of tradition, saying that to ignore tradition makes any renovation impossible.
29 In an open letter published in La Nación,
Marinetti replied by differentiating between two types of tradition. If by tradition one understood "the mass of mediocre artists united by a single absurd passion for museums and plagiarism," he would declare himself a "fierce" destroyer of tradition. However, if tradition were to mean "the great, marvelous family of creative artists, each of whom successively revolutionized art, forgot what had already been done for the new and were, all of them, in greater or lesser measure, futurists, from Giotto to Michelangelo, to Manet, Cezanne, Fattori, Previati, Medarno Rosso, Boccioni, Russolo, Balla, Depero, Prampolini," futurism finds in them "the revolutionary tradition of art."
30The indignation produced by this new position of
Marinetti's was reflected in articles of both the nationalist La Fronda and the anarchist La Protesta, who called him an apostate. La Fronda
was astonished at the warm praise for tradition that could be underwritten with such fruition by any "passéiste," 31
and the anarchists proposed a polemic: "To tell us that Da Vinci, Dante, Michelangelo, etc. were futurists in relation to the sluggish rhythm of their time is a shopworn truth within the reach of any Copertino del Campo, the ultimate in intellectual ineptitude and deafness. If Marinetti has nothing new to tell us after seventeen years, he should never have taken part in this tour like a star of 'café chantant.'"
325. Conclusions on the visit
Day by day,
discontent over the lack of polemic and debate blurred the revolutionary figure of Marinetti. For example, La Fronda
said that Marinetti's revolutionary countenance, his profoundly dynamic personality, and his knack at creating great excitement and turmoil was turning out to be a myth. So far, it had found nothing futurist in his persona, nor in his pronouncements.
33
The newspapers, in summing up as his visit drew to a close, proposed several hypotheses aimed at explaining the emptiness of the event. One central theme, picked up by several journalists, attributed the lack of discussion to the dated character of futurist theory. For example,
La Prensa
refers to Marinetti's second lecture at the Coliseo by saying that he "limited himself to a superficial analysis of received values, without providing what would truly have been interesting to hear from so authoritative a source… The general impression from his lecture is that the upholder of renovating ideas has arrived long after the ideas themselves. The founder of futurism, like an apostle, has crystallized in his own dogma, without taking into account the disciples who have spread the new truth the world over with new conquests included."
34In the same sense, La Fronda
declares again and again in different pieces that futurism has declined and adds that the lack of turmoil and debate around the figure of Marinetti is mainly due to his having been transformed into an object of commerce. It also says that the public has seen a bad imitation of Marinetti because he was calibrated to make money for a theatrical enterprise; to provoke some whistling but not too much. It added that Marinetti came under contract with an impresario and for that very reason was no longer Marinetti. What happened in São Paolo cost some money, and the idea was not to pay out but to earn. So, he had come to Buenos Aires as a good boy and his lectures had held to these goody-goody promises.
35 Only the Martín Fierro
group took a positive view of Marinetti's visit. In an editorial entitled "Martín Fierro
and Marinetti," they analyzed the futurist's presence in Buenos Aires in a favorable light, considering the fact that his lectures were delivered "to the masses," as well as the repercussion of his theories in the press, concluding that this exposure represented a valuable contribution to the movement for renewal. In this popular vindication of the figure of Marinetti, the review confronted the mass-circulation newspapers, accusing them of repeatedly criticizing the futurist theories for lack of novelty when they themselves never informed their readership of the new aesthetic theories, "something Marinetti did do in his public lectures."
Martín Fierro
took the major newspapers to task for not having paid the least attention to the Argentinean avant-garde movement. What they recognize in the figure of Marinetti was, more than that of the avant-garde artist, the effective propagandizer of the new art among the general public, to whom
Martín Fierro had had no access for lack of interest on the part of the big newspapers:
A little more than two years of propaganda for new ideas and values—two years entirely spent on preaching and practicing not merely what Marinetti has said, but all the avant-garde theories, the
modern concepts of art in general, spreading the movements on foot and rising and, more than this, attempting to draw attention to the new sensibility and promote an environment of agreement (schools apart) with the
new way of feeling—very little to shorten the ears of the donkeys and change the mentality of thousands of cretins …As for Marinetti's lectures here in La Plata, Córdoba and Rosario, however much people have tried
to deny it, the mere fact that Marinetti insisted on proclaiming the beauty of modern life (although it may be common place for us, since we have been practicing it for many years) is a huge novelty for the general
public and for the great newspapers. 36
Crítica
was quite unhappy with the results of the visit. However, the mark of this disenchantment cannot be read in explicit comments or reports, but in the sudden disappearance of Marinetti as a newsworthy subject. After publishing a page or two every day on the great event from May 15 to June 17, there is absolutely no further reference to his activities, even though he stayed on in Buenos Aires until June 28. The one exception was the enormous importance they gave to "The History of Futurism," which had been prepared days before. On June 28 he left for Montevideo where he promptly gave a lecture in the Artigas Theater.
Crítica, then, behaved differently from the rest of the Buenos Aires dailies, which, although disenchanted, continued to provide coverage of Marinetti's activities. The materials published by
Crítica
in constructing the "Marinetti phenomenon" (background information, reports, illustrations) not only reflect an ideological-cultural choice, but more importantly, they shaped two highly productive journalistic zones: a public discussion of fascism and mass information on the artistic avant-garde. Marinetti's low political profile in Buenos Aires along with the lack of novelty in his aesthetic postulates frustrated a journalistic project that the daily had considered productive. Therefore, Marinetti as a mere futurist poet, incapable of generating any debate around himself which would go beyond the limits of the literary world, became uninteresting to a newspaper that announced great political and literary confrontations.
However, despite the disillusionment and then silence of Crítica, Marinetti's presence in Buenos Aires placed the Argentinean artistic avant-garde in a larger compass of circulation. This was due
less to the hoped-for mass audiences at his public lectures (which were in fact attended only by writers, intellectuals and members of the upper class), but more importantly to Marinetti's reiterated presence in the
press, in which the number and variety of articles published by Crítica played a very meaningful role. The distribution of articles on Marinetti published by the press reflects the disproportionate weight of
Crítica's coverage: it alone published about as many as the sum total of all the rest of the dailies. 37
This fact reveals that the selection of Marinetti as the personality of a media event was not an accident. It published far fewer items about other intellectuals and writers visiting the country, such as Ramón Gómez de la Serna or Waldo Frank. The root of this phenomenon would seem to be that Marinetti combined various debates in which the paper was interested: first, the political discussion about fascism in Italy and in Argentina; second, the aesthetic discussion about the legitimacy of the avant-garde; and finally, the dispute about what themes modern journalism should report.
It is hard to measure today the impact that the innumerable futurist caricatures, manifestos and poems published by Crítica
and the other newspapers may have had on the popular sectors. Nevertheless, we may advance the hypothesis that, in the close relationship that was established between mass-circulation journalism and aesthetic renewal in the 1920s, the press became a powerful intermediary as a place of dissemination and information on the cultural modernization of the period.
Sylvia Saítta Notes 1 For an analysis of the Argentinean avant-garde, see: Francine Masiello, Lenguaje e ideología: Las escuelas argentinas de vanguardia (Buenos Aires: Hachette, 1986); Graciela Montaldo, et al.,
Yrigoyen, entre Borges y Arlt (1916-1939) (Buenos Aires: Contrapunto, 1989); Fernando Diego Rodríguez, "Inicial; Revista de la nueva generación. La política en la vanguardia literaria de los años 20,"
Estudios Sociales 5.8 (primer semestre de 1995); Beatriz Sarlo, Una modernidad periférica: Buenos Aires 1920 y 1930 (Buenos Aires: Nueva Visión, 1988); Jorge Schwartz,
Vanguardia y cosmopolitismo en la década del veinte (Buenos Aires: Beatriz Viterbo, 1993); Diana Wechsler Crítica de arte, condicionadora del gusto, el consumo y la consagración de obras. Buenos Aires (1920-1930)
(Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1995).2 "El anuncio de mi llegada inminente fue retomado por diarios y revistas que, no sabiendo qué decir en concreto, divagaban o inventaban. Se me presentaba como pintor futurista, sin más; antecedente poco favorable, por lo que fui viendo, pues decir 'futurista' en la Argentina de 1924…que equivalía exactamente a decir loco, embustero, extravagante, apócrifo, amañado o macaneador… De esta opinión, ampliamente difundida entre los artistas plásticos, participaba igualmente el público interesado por las bellas artes. Visto y considerando que yo traía eso al país, se me convirtió de golpe y porrazo en el histrión de un raro espectáculo a producirse en los días venideros" (Emilio Pettoruti, "En Buenos Aires,"
Un pintor ante el espejo [Buenos Aires: Solar/Hachette, 1968]). 3 The invitation to the banquet stated, "Martín Fierro
wishes to have the pleasure of your company and invites you to its first 1926 dinner of intellectual and artistic fraternity, dedicated to the poet F. T. Marinetti, founder of Futurism. The dinner will be held in the Príncipe Restaurant, Corrientes 642, 12th floor, on Wednesday June 16, at 21 hours. We greet you with distinguished consideration: Francisco Luis Bernárdez, Pedro V. Blake, Jorge Luis Borges, Eduardo J. Bullrich, Enrique E. Bullrich, Leónidas Campbell, Hipólito Carambat, José de España, Augusto Mario Delfino, Macedonio Fernández, Alberto Franco, Lysandro Z. D. Galtier, Santiago Ganduglia, Oliverio Girondo, Luis Góngora, Raúl González Tuñón, Ricardo Güiraldes, Antonio Gullo, Leopoldo Hurtado, Piero Illari, Roberto Ledesma, Leopoldo Marechal, Evar Méndez, Nicolás Olivari, Francisco A. Palomar, Emilio Pettoruti, Sandro Piantanida, Sergio Piñero (h.), Alberto Prebisch, Horacio Rega Molina, Pablo Rojas Paz, Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz, Leonardo Staricco, Gastón O. Talamón, Antonio Vallejo, Vautier, Sandro Volta, A. Xul Solar. The price per setting has been fixed at eight pesos" (quoted from "Alrededor de Marinetti. La revista
Martín Fierro le ofrece esta noche una demostración," El Diario
16 June 1926). I should point out that, although the signature of Macedonio Fernández appears on the invitation, he later denied participating in it, in Marinetti's presence, during a meeting organized by
Revista Oral on June 26: I could not be an inviter to your banquet, as it mistakenly appeared. In polical matters I am your adversary (this may not be a known fact on all continents), since while you seem to be
'passéiste'
in theory of the State, which seems contradictory to your aesthetic, and you believe in the benefit of dictatorships, provisional or regular ones, and I no longer hold even half a faith in the State… But the truth is, Mr. Marinetti, that I deprived myself of the pleasure of accompanying you because it was not yet clear that your visit would be without political aims, and I would have been forced to disturb a climate of cordiality by expressing reservations" (Macedonio Fernández, "A toast to Marinetti,"
Papeles de Reciénvenido y Continuación de la Nada [Buenos Aires, Corregidor, 1989]). 4 For an analysis of Marinetti's visit to Brazil, see: Jeffrey T. Schnapp and João Cezar de Castro Rocha "Brazilian Velocities: On Marinetti's 1926 Trip to South America,"
South Central Review, Futurism special issue, Fall 1996. 5 "El futurismo es una escuela muerta… En nombre de lo que se ha hecho en el país por la literatura de vanguardia y la cultura general del pueblo, yo, humilde soldado de esas filas, invito al público a no promoverle escándalo a Marinetti. Este nunca se ha propuesto otra cosa. La Argentina es un país demasiado culto ya para que pueda asustarlo nadie. Se le debe escuchar como a todos, sin otorgarle la consagración del bullicio" ("Marinetti no creó el futurismo. Así nos dice Alberto Hidalgo. A su criterio fue el poeta Walt Whitmann el iniciador,"
Crítica 9 June 1926). 6 "Dardo Salguero Dela-Hanty, es un original caricaturista," Crítica 8 June 1925. 7 "A propósito de las revistas de juventud. El escritor Brandán Caraffa hace una aclaración,"
Crítica 9 June 1926. 8 Renato Poggioli, Teoría del arte de vanguardia (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1964) 38. 9 "Marinetti interesará en Buenos Aires. Un amigo del futurista nos habla con elogio. Conferencias,"
Crítica 15 May 1926. 10 "Marinetti desencadena tormentas. Anoche en San Pablo, no le dejaron hacer uso de la palabra. Esto es, precisamente, lo que desea con su viaje el
célebre futurista," Crítica 25 May 1926. 11 "A questão futurista no Brasil," Modernidade: vanguardas artísticas na América Latina, ed. Ana María de Moraes Belluzzo (San
Pablo: Cuadernos de Cultura, Memorial, 1990). 12 "Los gritos de 'Viva Marinetti' le han encontrado insensible y tampoco le han hecho mayor mella los de 'Viva Mussolini.' Habló en
francés cuando el público reclamaba con insistencia que lo hiciera en italiano y terminó sus conferencias dentro del mismo escándalo en que las iniciara. ¿Ocurrirá lo mismo en Buenos Aires?" ("Marinetti está obteniendo
éxitos 'ruidosos,'" Crítica 20 May 1926). 13 "Sobre su actuación en Buenos Aires no es posible adelantar ningún juicio definitivo. Nuestra gran urbe nos ha curado de espanto más de una vez y nos ha desconcertado otras, asumiendo las más inesperadas actitudes … Se abre así, para la capital, un nuevo e interesantísimo interrogante: Buenos Aires versus Marinetti. ¿Cómo lo recibirá?" ("Marinetti desencadena tormentas. Anoche en San Pablo, no le dejaron hacer uso de la palabra,"
Crítica 25 May 1926). 14 "Ha sonado la hora ¡Dan! ¡Din! ¡Don! El futurismo avanza. ¡Tararí, tarará! a paso de ataque. El general en jefe, con sus charreteras
||||||| está en puerta. ¡Tirín, tirín! La puerta se abre y Marinetti se encuentra en Buenos Aires. Sube el precio del repollo, las papas y los nabos y éste es el primer triunfo del futurismo. Los verduleros
aplauden, plaf, plaf, plaf. Marinetti desembarca con una camisa sucia. ¡Puah! ¡Qué asco! Pero no: no hay tal asco, es una camisa fascista. Los fascistas son enemigos del arte y del jabón y Marinetti es
enemigo del arte, del jabón y del claro de luna. ¡Abajo el claro de luna! Ma- ri- net- ti da su primera conferencia con proyecciones de artículos al escenario:
—¡Se- ño- res! —¡Que se calle! —¡Se- ño... —¡Viva Matteoti! —Se... —¡Abajo las camisas negras! Una papa
cruza velozmente la platea y aterriza en el escenario. ¡Paf! Otra le sigue y luego un repollo. ¡Paf! ¡Pif! Sigue el desfile. ¡Paf! ¡Paf! ¡Paf! ¡Pif! ¡Pif! ¡Paf! ¡Paf! ¡Paf! ¡Pif! ¡Paf! ¡Pif! etc. etc. etc.
He di- cho. La conferencia terminó. ¡Pío! ¡Pío! ¡Pío! ("El primer suelto futurista," Crítica 27 May 1926) 15 "Marinetti es sin duda un
'cabotino' y un 'cabotino' de talento. En esta su excursión por América se trae, evidentemente, una misión política. Es un mensajero del fascismo, disimulado bajo un ropaje literario. Aquí, en Río, este aspecto no
adquirió mayores contorno por haberse desinteresado del viajero la totalidad de la colonia italiana. Pero en San Pablo el asunto cambia de aspecto. San Pablo es el mayor núcleo italiano de esta parte del continente.
Millares de socialistas de ese origen, imposibilitados de respirar bajo el gobierno de Mussolini, se han trasladado a la gran ciudad brasileña, integrándose en la actividad industrial que la caracteriza. Llega ahora un
enviado del adversario irreconciliable. Es natural, pues, que estos exilados se levanten en una 'revanché', poniendo en el 'meneo' de recepción toda la violencia de su odio al emisario y a su amo" ("¡Dos horas y cuarto
aguantó Marinetti el 'meneo' de San Pablo! El líder futurista habla para Crítica," Crítica 7 June 1926). 16 "'I have not come—he tells us then—I have not come to America
with a political mission of any kind. My voyage is solely and exclusively aimed at strengthening ties of affection with the youth of America, at preaching in this new continent, as I have preached for many long years in
Europe, the creed of futurism'. Perceiving in us a shade of incredulity or skepticism, he insists: 'I don't know! I don't know! But it seems I am going to have to take a megaphone and cry out from a tower, to all of
Buenos Aires, that I am not a fascist!'" ("Io non sono fascista, nos dice Filippo Tomasso Marinetti," Crítica 8 June 1926). 17 "Ha llegado anoche el fundador del futurismo F. T. Marinetti,"
La Nación 8 June 1926. 18 "Desde ayer es nuestro huésped Felipe T. Marinetti. El creador del 'futurismo' nos hizo interesantes declaraciones," La Prensa 8 June 1926. 19 "Se ha dicho que Marinetti viene hacia estas tierras de América obedeciendo a cierta finalidad de orden político. Martín Fierro, por su espíritu y su orientación, repugna de
toda intromisión de esta índole en sus actividades ya claramente establecidas. Y acaso no sea innecesario declarar, para evitar alguna molesta suspicacia, que con Marinetti, hombre político, nada tiene que hacer nuestra
hoja" ("Homenaje a Marinetti" Martín Fierro, 29-30 [8 June 1926]). 20 "Marinetti habló otra vez anoche. Fue interesante la conferencia que el público escuchó sin nerviosidad,"
Crítica 16 June 1926. 21 "Marinetti empieza hoy. Esta tarde en el Coliseo ocurrirá el espectáculo," Crítica 11 June 1926. 22 "Marinetti. Su primera conferencia ha sido un rotundo fracaso,"
La Vanguardia 12 June 1926. 23 "A select and numerous audience, that almost filled the Coliseo Theatre…followed the lecture with visible good humour and impermeability that was
both evident and to be feared" (La Nación
12 June 1926). "Before a large audience, Mr. Felippe T. Marinetti pronounced, yesterday afternoon, in the Coliseo Theatre, the first of his lectures on Futurism, an artistic movement of which he is, of course, the head" (
La Prensa 12 June 1926). 24 See Schnapp and Cezar de Castro Rocha. 25 Marinetti's lectures in Argentina were as follows:
1. June 11, Coliseo Theatre, Buenos Aires. "Origins and true concept of Futurism." 2. June 12, Aula Magna, Faculty of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences, University of Buenos Aires. "Futurism in architecture."
3. June 15, Coliseo Theatre, Buenos Aires. "The Theater and Futurism." 4. June 17, Wagnerian Association, Buenos Aires. "Music and musicians from Wagner to Russolo." 5. June 17, Friends of Art Society, Buenos Aires.
Inaugural lecture at the exposition of paintings of Pettoruti, Xul Solar and Norah Borges, and of the architectural projects of Vautier and Prebisch, decorated by Pedro Illari.
6. June 18, Círculo Italiano, Buenos Aires. "The Futurist poets: Buzzi, Folgone, Carli, Settimelli." 7. June 19, Friends of Art Society, Buenos Aires. 8. June 19, Argentine Theatre, La Plata.
9. June 22, Engineering Faculty, Univesity of Córdoba, Córdoba. 10. June 25, Argentine Library, sponsored by the cultural institution El Círculo, Rosario. "Integral Futurism."
11. June 27, Coliseo Theatre, Buenos Aires. "Sports, gambling, luxury, fashion, long hair and 'tactilismo' (new art)." 26 "Marinetti se nos antoja la más absurda cadena imaginable:
una cadena que empieza en un grito y termina en un puñetazo; una cadena en la que hay de todo: cabezas, locomotoras, flautas, océanos, trincheras, escenarios, bofetadas, cercados, periódicos, manifiestos, fusiles,
automóviles, mujeres, volcanes y 'pasatistas'... ¿Puede exigírsele a un simple cronista la ordenación de todo esto? Haríale falta ser joyero, fotógrafo, ingeniero, soldador, filatélico, instrumentalista, escenógrafo,
buzo, aviador, pirotécnico, tipógrafo, maquinista teatral, fogonero, 'chef' de cocina, prestidigitador, adivino, brujo, alquimista y, finalmente, operador cinematográfico. No reuniendo todas estas condiciones, el
cronista no podrá dar a su crónica una realidad simultánea. Apenas algunas impresiones, dos o tres instantáneas, cuatro o cinco frases cazadas al vuelo, una síntesis violenta y precaria de la múltiple y multánime vida
de este don Filippo T. Marinetti, creador del futurismo" ("Historia futurista de Filippo Marinetti. El revolucionario de la estética sintetiza su historia en una catarata indescriptible de casos, de cosas y de ideas.
Los botines de Marinetti, su 'pyjama' rojo, pantuflas; automóviles, locomotoras, platillos, carretas, cañones; saludos y mareo. Impresión," Crítica 21 June 1926). 27 "Fenómeno psicológico: hasta ahora Marinetti hablaba, tranquila, despaciosamente. Paladeaba las palabras, como gustando la evocación de sus recuerdos. Pero, al recordar su París y sus 'grisettas', entristecióse y ahora, como queriendo finalizar pronto la historia de su vida, habla veloz y sintéticamente. Es como si estuviera rematando; es una ametralladora haciendo fuego en 'abanico': púm... purumpúm... púm-púm... púm... púm..." ("Historia futurista de Filippo Marinetti. Recuerdos de Alejandría de Egipto. Un frenético amor en la adolescencia. Las primeras deudas. Un brazo fracturado. París. Todas las 'grisettas' del barrio latino. París conquistado. Raid literario a través de Italia. 'Seratas' futuristas. Grandes batallas a tiros y a garrotazos. Arrestos. Banderas quemadas. Conferencias. Más arrestos. Más garrotazos. La guerra,"
Crítica 22 June 1926). 28 "Conferencias: Orígenes y verdadero concepto del futurismo," La Nación 12 June 1926. 29 "Divagaciones antifuturistas, por Lucas Ayarragaray (para
La Nación)," La Nación 16 June 1926. 30 "El futurismo: Una carta de F. T. Marinetti," La Nación 19 June 1926. 31 "Apuntes del día,"
La Fronda 29 June 1926. 32 "Exposición Pettoruti, Xul Solar, Norah Borges (A. A. del Arte)," La Protesta 28 June 1926. 33 "Hoy hablará Marinetti,"
La Fronda 11 June 1926. 34 "Las dos conferencias de ayer. Marinetti disertó en el Coliseo sobre literatura teatral y escenografía," La Prensa 16 June 1926.
35 "Marinetti pour l'exportation," La Fronda 1 July 1926. 36 "Dos años y pico de propaganda de ideas y valores nuevos—dos años en que no hemos hecho otra
cosa que predicar y ejercitar, no sólo lo que ha dicho Marinetti, sino todas las teorías de vanguardia, los conceptos modernos del arte en general, difundir los movimientos iniciados y en auge, y por sobre ello, tratar
de poner de relieve esa nueva sensibilidad y formar un ambiente de acuerdo (aparte escuelas) con el nuevo sentir—son muy poca cosa para conseguir acortar las orejas de los burros y transformar la mentalidad de millares
de cretinos … En cuanto a las conferencias de Marinetti aquí, en La Plata, Córdoba y Rosario, por más que muchos individuos se hayan empeñado en negarlo, el solo hecho de que Marinetti insistiera en proclamar la belleza
de la vida moderna—aunque ello para nosotros resulte una perogrullada, pues lo venimos practicando desde hace muchísimos años—para el público y los grandes rotativos esto es una enorme novedad" (Martín Fierro
30-31, [8 July 1926]). 37 This is the comparative scheme of the number of articles published in the press during Marinetti's visit from May 15 to July 1: |
