“In a moment historically where there are regimes all over — why not analyse a regime?” these are the words, quoted by Hannah McGivern in The Art Newspaper, that curator Germano Celant used to explain the purpose of his current exhibition Post Zang Tumb Tuuum. Art Life Politics: Italia 1918–1943, currently on view at Fondazione Prada.

The title is a riff on “Zang Tumb Tumb,” a poem by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, dated between 1912 and 1914, which consists of a mixture of sounds and words, the result of Marinetti’s direct observation of the battle of Adrianople during the First Balkan War. As cacophonous as it might sound, it is one of the cardinal texts of Futurism, and Futurism, in post-World War I revival, known as “il secondo Futurismo,” remained a very important presence in the interwar artistic scene of Italy.