The Italian painter, sculptor and designer Enrico Prampolini was born in Modena in 1884. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. Eminent representative of Italian futurism, he will have close contacts with representatives of the European avant-garde such as Dada, the Golden Section, the

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  Biography of Enrico Prampolini

  The Italian painter, sculptor and designer Enrico Prampolini was born in Modena in 1884. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. Eminent representative of Italian futurism, he will have close contacts with representatives of the European avant-garde such as Dada, the Golden Section, the Bauhaus, De Stijl, Abstraction-Creation and many renowned artists such as Picasso, Mondrian, Kandinsky or Jean Cocteau.
  Wishing to put the futurist dynamism at the service of the decompartmentalization of the artistic disciplines, Enrico Prampolini will publish several works on the topics of the futurist architecture (1914), on the sculpture (1915), and will be interested in the arts of the scene ("Scenography and futurist choreography"). The spectacle thus conceived is an abstract scene where human representation and the play of the actors are excluded. He further radicalized his positions in "L'Atmosphère scénique futuriste" (1924) and in the manifesto of the "Art mécanique" of 1923 that he co-signed.
  His revolutionary ideas became concrete in 1917. He publishes series for films of futuristic inspiration ("Thaïs") for which he will create the stifling interior of a dream villa where the walls are decorated with spirals, rhombuses, symbolic figures and inspired by chess; this work will have a lot of influence in the anti-naturalist landscape and German expressionism. He continued with the staging of "Matoum and Tevibar" (1919) for the puppet theater, in 1925 with his project of "Magnetic Theater" which, exhibited in Paris, received the world grand prize of the theater at the Universal Exhibition of Decorative Arts, and, in 1927, with a pantomime whose characters are mechanical devices.After his exclusion from Futurism in 1915, Prampolini co-founded (with Bino Sanminiatelli), in 1917, the avant-garde magazine "Noi" where works by Tzara, Albert-Birot and Blaise Cendrars were published. In 1920, he joined the Futurist movement again, publishing its theories in his magazine "Noi" until 1925, and in 1927 he founded (with Paul Dermée and Michel Seuphor) the "Documents internationaux de l'Esprit nouveau", a cosmopolitan magazine devoted to aesthetics. In 1929, Enrico Prampolini was one of the signatories of the "Manifesto of Aeropainting" (with, among others, Marinetti, and Giacomo Balla). He was also a professor at the famous Brera Academy. In addition, he will establish and develop in Rome a Casa d'Arte Italiana (House of Italian Art).Prampolini occupied a special place in the European landscape of abstract art, which was characterized by his deep interest in dynamism and organicism, which manifested itself in the 1930s and 1940s in cosmic and dreamlike visions organizing the space of large political and commercial events.He then worked on the realization of bio-plastic works. His most typical productions can be found in his sketches of sets. Enrico Prampolini died in Rome in 1956.
  
  

  

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