Futurism's African (A)temporalities

Abstract

Emerging from the paradox of early Futurism’s appetite both for progress and technology and for Africa and the primitive, this article seeks to reconcile these aspects of the movement by comparing Futurism’s and Africa’s temporalities. Drawing on anthropological and art historical discourse on the temporality of the tribal/primitive/non-Western and with reference to turn of the century Italian anthropological and political concepts of Africa, this article demonstrates how the use of African, "primitive" and "barbaric" elements in early Futurist theory, the art of Umberto Boccioni and Carlo Carrà and the literature of F.T. Marinetti, was a key aspect of the Futurist relationship with the past, present and future.