Though they are not as well known, the Italian first wave feminists were busy fighting the repression of Mussolini and the restrictive, male society of pre war Italy. As usual ahead of the pack were the artists. This rousing declaration by Marinetti who had penned so many of the Futurist tracts only one of many efforts. If you were going to be as fast as a train or a car you better have a woman be out front. Benedetta Cappa an artist and his wife who resented the misogyny of even the fellow futurists said, “I am too free and rebellious…I do not want to be restricted. I only want to be me”.
Benedetta Cappa, Romance and the Birth of Tactilism
I’ve fallen in love with Benedetta Cappa--one half of the Marinetti couple from the Lucia Re Magazzino Museum lecture series--but as compelling as her more famous husband.
Benedetta was a student of Giancomo Balla, Futurist par excellence, but when she met Filippo Marinetti, the two were forever conjoined in love and art. Benedetta experimented with many art forms, and was an intriguing writer, but it is her colorful paintings that we might know best.
Contemporary of Hilma Af Klint and Agnes Pelton, Benedetta’s work has synergies that recall these other artists yet I don't know of a time when they might have seen each other's work.
She and Marinetti birthed Tactilism--which was a multi dimensional production of objects that took Futurism to the third dimension. It sounds like an early virtual reality experience, "to perfect spiritual communication between human beings, (get this) through the epidermis". (This reminded me of the moment in ET when the beloved space creature sticks out his finger.)Benedetta--who jettisoned her surnames as she came into the fullness of her own self--went on to promote Aeropainting along with her husband and Balla and others. All in all, a very modern woman.
Her Palermo post office murals were the piece de resistance of the Guggenheim Futurist exhibition a few years back. But she is still less known than the other two women who have been subjects of recent solo exhibitions.