Detail of Unique Forms of Continuity in Space by Boccioni in the Museum of Modern Art, July 2007

Umberto Boccioni. (Italian, 1882-1916). Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. 1913 (cast 1931). Bronze, 43 7/8 x 34 7/8 x 15 3/4" (111.2 x 88.5 x 40 cm). Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest

Gallery label text
2006

Boccioni, who sought to infuse art with dynamism and energy, exclaimed, "Let us fling open the figure and let it incorporate within itself whatever may surround it." The contours of this marching figure appear to be carved by the forces of wind and speed as it forges ahead. While its wind–swept silhouette is evocative of an ancient statue, the polished metal alludes to the sleek modern machinery beloved by Boccioni and other Futurist artists.

Publication excerpt
The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999

In Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, Boccioni puts speed and force into sculptural form. The figure strides forward. Surpassing the limits of the body, its lines ripple outward in curving and streamlined flags, as if molded by the wind of its passing. Boccioni had developed these shapes over two years in paintings, drawings, and sculptures, exacting studies of human musculature. The result is a three-dimensional portrait of a powerful body in action.

In the early twentieth century, the new speed and force of machinery seemed to pour its power into radical social energy. The new technologies and the ideas attached to them would later reveal threatening aspects, but for Futurist artists like Boccioni, they were tremendously exhilarating. Innovative as Boccioni was, he fell short of his own ambition. In 1912, he had attacked the domination of sculpture by "the blind and foolish imitation of formulas inherited from the past," and particularly by "the burdensome weight of Greece." Yet Unique Forms of Continuity in Space bears an underlying resemblance to a classical work over 2,000 years old, the Nike of Samothrace. There, however, speed is encoded in the flowing stone draperies that wash around, and in the wake of, the figure. Here the body itself is reshaped, as if the new conditions of modernity were producing a new man.

Text from: www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=81179