On the occasion of Monza Photo Fest, LeoGalleries proposes the exhibition “Avant-garde photography. Bragaglia, Drtikol, Vetrovsky”, edited by Maurizio Scudiero.
A selection of shots taken between the 1910s and the 1930s which demonstrate how the most experimental discoveries in the photographic field proceeded hand in hand (in some cases, indeed anticipating) with the parallel pictorial and sculptural research carried out by the movements of avant-garde.
An example of this is Anton Giulio Bragaglia, author of the 1911 essay Futurist Photodynamism, very close to Marinetti’s ideas (but openly opposed by Boccioni), who introduced the concept of movement in the frame with the intention of eliminating the fixity of traditional reproduction . On display are authentic photodynamics and some futurist postcards (photolithographs).
With Drtikol, and later with his most important pupil Vetrovsky, the scenario is that of Czechoslovakia between the twenties and thirties, and the influences are those of Futurism and Cubism absorbed by Drtikol during his stay in Paris.
Their research is based on the relationship between the naked body and geometric shapes. The shots relate the solid elements (bodies and shapes) to a neutral space through a studied play of shadows produced by them.
On the day of the inauguration there was a presentation by Maurizio Scudiero, curator of the exhibition, who will delve into various aspects of photographic research of the early twentieth century.
Anton Giulio Bragaglia (1890-1960) he began working as an assistant director. With his brothers Arturo and Carlo Ludovico he dedicated himself to experimenting with photographic and cinephotographic techniques, focusing above all on photodynamics, that is, “making the concept of movement visible”. Photodynamics look like blurry photos, but in reality they mark the various positions of a body moving in space. In that 
they anticipated the research on the Futurist movement and for this reason they put themselves “on the cross” with Boccioni. In 1911 Bragaglia published the revolutionary book Fotodinamismo futurista, which then saw two further editions. In 1917 he made 4 films: a “short” (A Drama in Olympus), Thaïs, My Corpse and Perfidious Enchantment of which only Thaïs survived. These are all works with a futurist imprint, in which the avant-garde scenography by Enrico Prampolini stands out. In 1918 he founded and directed the Casa d’Arte Bragaglia for many years and in 1922 he opened the Teatro Sperimentale degli Indipendenti which became a point of reference for the Italian avant-garde, staging the best of contemporary international drama.
Frantisek Drtikol (1883-1961), after studying in Munich he opened a photographic laboratory in Prague, creating portraits of the personalities of the time. His name, however, remains linked to the numerous nude studies in which he created unprecedented dynamic relationships between the body, the geometric elements and the shadows they produce, suggesting the sense of movement sought by the avant-gardes, such as Futurism. His photos are unique in the panorama of avant-garde photography of the time and were also the subject of studies and monographs by MIT and Harvard. Often unique copies or limited editions are very rare even at home. In the early 1920s a student joined Drtikol, Josef Vetrovsky (1897-1944)who in the second half of the twenties also produced his own line of photos in tune with Drtikol, but often even more interesting in the search for relationships between nude and geometric volumes. Most of the studio’s photographic plates were destroyed during the war, and the few original photos of the time are always marked with the respective embossed marks of the two photographers.
Carlo Franza