Summary: The first Futurist Manifesto, written by the poet and writer F.T. Marinetti and published on the front page of Le Figaro on February 20, 1909, proclaimed a burning desire—fueled by industry, war, and the rise of the machine—to race into the future. Tired of resting on the laurels of their cultural heritage and disdainful of their uneventful present, the Futurists called for a new aesthetic language appropriate for the new modernity. On the one hundredth anniversary of the publication of the Founding and Manifesto of Futurism, poets Charles Bernstein, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Joshua Mehigan, and Alicia Stallings recite historical works, as well as their own contemporary manifestos, in the public space of the Museum's Garden Lobby. Excerpts from Luca Buvoli's video Velocity Zero (2007), in which the slow reading of the tenets of the Futurist Manifesto by people with aphasia contrasts with the frenetic speed that characterized Futurism, will also be on view. This program is a collaboration with Poetry magazine, whose forthcoming portfolio of manifestos, with an afterword by Mary Ann Caws, will be released at MoMA on February 20. Recording courtesy of the Poetry Foundation www.poetryfoundation.org
