After abandoning the naturalistic style of her early work in marble and plaster, Regina Cassolo Bracchi – better known just as Regina – began creating iconic metal objects that made her the sole Futurist woman sculptor of the early 1930s. Layering, joining, and slicing thin sheets of aluminium, she made sleek figures in the round and relief-like panels. Although the chilly, hard-edged nature of the material gives them an air of futuristic brutality, these robot-like figures suggest a kind of movement that – as we can see from the élan of her famous Danzatrice (1930), or the sinuous girl in Aerosensibilitá (1935) – takes on a vibrant lyricism. Regina’s female subjects, in particular, strike such light, supple poses that they bring abstract nuances to Futurism’s technological iconography. L’amante dell’aviatore (1935), for instance, shows a young woman with arms wrapped around her head and her face tilted back. Though her image is inscribed on two sharp-edged, superimposed sheets of aluminium, it houses a delicate energy that is clearly spiritual in nature. In 1948, after about a decade of exhibiting alongside Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Benedetta Cappa,and Fillìa, among others, Regina shifted towards the visual language of the Movimento per l’Arte Concreta (MAC), and her sculptures became even more sensorial.
Stefano Mudu
