The artwork “Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe” by Giacomo Balla, revealed art’s revolutionary and all-encompassing role in redefining the known universe, from the landscape to the still life. His “Valori plastici”, which features in Dorotheum’s auction of modern art, is part of this role.
Balla’s house was a forge of ideas in which the artist, part artisan and part wizard, invented and brought to life highly colourful projects and objects (coloratissimi) whose ingenious manufacturing criteria often foreshadowed solutions that would later be adopted in modern design.
In 1926 the artist was forced to abandon his home in via Paisiello, a green oasis between Villa Borghese and the countryside, on the border between the city and the Ager Romanus. The family were able to secure a modest apartment in the Delle Vittorie district in Rome, thanks to the intervention of Balla’s friend Michele Biancale. The year 1929, and Balla, driven by an overwhelming desire to “render the useful beautiful”, threw himself into the total transformation of his new home, which he reconstructed in the Futurist style. The modest apartment in Rome saw the explosion of joyful, unconstrained innovation by a genius who transformed everything. Furniture, objects and walls were totally transformed, no corner was left untouched. The long corridor that led from the entrance hall to the interior of the house was lined with exposed water pipes. Balla decided to cover them, transforming the space into a gallery, but also, and primarily, in an opportunity to contemplate his Futurist work.
22 square (77 x 77 cm) canvases revisit, in an historical manner, the themes developed by the artist from the 1910s on: from the study of light in Düsseldorf (“Compenetrazione iridescente”) to the study of space (“Linee spaziali”); from the lines of velocity combined with other factors (“Velocità + forme rumore”) to “Ritmo compenetrato”; from the studies of the sky (“Dinamismo spaziale”), the sea (“Linee forza di mare”), the light (“Ricerca luce ideale”), and the word (“Buon appetito and Motivo con la parola Balla”) to Art Deco (“Balfiore”) and the idealistic art of the 1920s (“Istante, Dramma di paesaggio, Simpatia di contrasti”).
Almost in opposition to the Futurist proclamation to destroy museums, which were viewed as cemeteries of art, Balla’s home became a house-museum.
“Valori plastici” is one of the best innovations from among the studies of movement and light that lined the corridor/gallery of the Balla house; the marble clouds looming on the horizon move from the past to the skyline of the new, rising city.
The future will be a flash of light.
