Droppings from the Sky: Futurist Interwar Protests and Fears

Gabriele D’Annunzio’s 1919 occupation of the city of Fiume (Rijeka) is considered to have a central place in the genealogy of fascism by influencing Mussolini’s political rhetoric. During the occupation, D’Annunzio gave the Italian Prime Minister, Francesco Nitti the nickname Cagoia (Shittitist or Shit-bag) which became a metonym for the Italian left-leaning government. Cagoia and the derivations cagoieria or cagoiesco made their way into political speeches, Futurist manifestos and satirical cartoons.

The paper examines the implications of using feces in a Futurist aerial theatre performance carried out by a lesser-known artist-pilot Guido Keller. In 1920 he flew from Fiume to Rome and dropped a used chamber pot on the Palazzo Montecitorio (the seat of the Italian Chamber of Deputies) protesting the Deputies’ support for the Treaty of Rapallo, which gave Fiume to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. I argue that the performance echoes the works of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Guillaume Apollinaire and Marcel Duchamp, political cartoons from local newspapers as well as D’Annunzio’s and Mussolini’s speeches − the organic, fecal and terrestrial imagery is associated with political enemies, the mechanical, pure and celestial with allies.

By discussing the use of feces in the broader context of the Futurists' engagement with politics the paper asks: What kind of fear was expressed through scatological imagery in art in the ascent of fascism? I argue that Keller’s performance, as a political and artistic act, is emblematic of the Futurist sense of political urgency caused by the fear that Italy will lose its geopolitical standing.