A rare art book produced in 1927 by Italian Futurist Fortunato Depero, which many scholars regard as a key work in the field of artist books is expected to be reprinted as a nearly exact facsimile. Depero Futurista (Depero the Futurist), a key work in the history of books as art objects, is a monograph of the artist's works in painting, graphic design and even home decorating is known among aficionados as the Bolted Book for its unusual binding, featuring two bolts holding the pages together, as conceived by Fedele Azari, the publisher.

“He was creating a book as machine,” says design critic Steven Heller, who served as a consultant on the project, pointing out that the book was highly unusual for its time as an interactive object-into-exhibition. Only a few copies of the original print run of less than a thousand copies exist, and when the Center for Italian Modern Art [CIMA] presented the work of Depero for its 2013 exhibition, the copies were disassembled and mounted page by page as an exhibition—according to the artist’s intentions. 

Influenced by the focus on the machine that characterized Futurism in the early 1920s, this book could be considered a manifesto of the Machine Age. However, Depero's innovation was not confined to the cover; the inside text features a wealth of typographic inventions including the use of different typefaces, the text formed into various shapes, and the use of different papers in a variety of colors.

One of the advocates for reprinting the book is Raffaele Bedarida, assistant professor of art history at The Cooper Union, who said at a presentation at CIMA in August, "Some art historians go so far as to say this is the first artist's book," Professor Bedarida says. "I am not so sure. Anyway it is a milestone in the history of the book as an object and in the history of the avant-garde." Depero, a less well-known member of the Futurist artistic movement that originated in Italy, created the book just prior to arriving in New York for an extended stay.

"He considered it a portable museum and used it to promote his work across media including architecture, set design, painting, prints, advertising and even a line of throw pillows. As a member of a movement that sought to wreck divisions between art and life—one manifesto he co-authored proposes turning the entire cosmos into a Futurist work—Depero lived in Chelsea where he established the Futurist House that fostered interdisciplinary collaborations of artists, artisans, industrialists, and entrepreneurs, which Bedarida characterizes as a "proto-Warholian Factory."

Professor Bedaridawill appear at CIMA along with Laura Mattioli, its founder-president, to lead a discussion on Depero Futurista on November 3 at the Center for Italian Modern Art, 421 Broome Street, NY, NY,  Info

The Center for Italian Modern Art in New York, the Mart, Museum of modern and contemporary art of Trento and Rovereto, Italy (which houses the Depero archives), and Designers & Books (New York) have collaborated on a Kickstarter to publish a new facsimile edition of this groundbreaking book. Info

To learn more about the book, watch Raffaele Bedarida discuss the Bolted Book on Vimeo