About this project
The Bolted Book Facsimile: An Exact Copy of Depero Futurista
$254,971
1,315
“One of the world’s most iconic design books.” — WIRED
More press: Fast Company, Hyperallergic, Metropolis, Seattle Review of Books, Curbed, Creative Boom, Architect’s Newspaper, Design Arts Daily
In 1927, the Italian Futurist artist and designer Fortunato Depero created a monograph of his work unlike anything that had been seen before. Called Depero Futurista, or “Depero the Futurist,” it is also known as The Bolted Book, because it is famously bound together by two large industrial aluminum bolts.
Filled with bold typographic experimentation, daring layouts, and featuring work in nearly every artistic and design medium, it is universally recognized as a landmark avant-garde example of the “book as object.”
Long unavailable, The Bolted Book is now coming back to print. Designers & Books, the Center for Italian Modern Art in New York (CIMA), and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto, Italy (Mart), which houses the Depero archives, are collaborating to publish a new facsimile edition, which will be the first exact copy of Depero Futurista ever produced since its original publication 90 years ago.
Help us reissue The Bolted Book as it appeared in its original form and return this resonant piece of design history to the present.
You can view all 240 pages of the original Bolted Book in detail as well as English translations from selected pages at www.boltedbook.com.
We asked members of the design community to talk about The Bolted Book.
Not just a book, The Bolted Book is also a portable museum. With the bolts removed, it transforms into 240 individual prints that can be displayed on a wall — individually, or as a group.
For Our Italian-Speaking Visitors — Benvenuto!
Un benvenuto a tutti coloro che, come noi, amano l’arte, il design e la creatività in Italia.
Vi ringraziamo del vostro interesse per il progetto Kickstarter con cui intendiamo pubblicare una ristampa anastatica del pionieristico libro di Fortunato Depero, Depero Futurista, noto come “Il libro imbullonato.”
Per qualsiasi domanda sul progetto o sul funzionamento di Kickstarter scriveteci, in inglese o in italiano, al seguente indirizzo: info@designersandbooks.com.
The Rewards
In addition to The Bolted Book Facsimile itself, we are offering an array of rewards developed from the art and design as well as the ideas found in The Bolted Book and the work of Fortunato Depero.
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For $22: Depero Futurista Tote Bag, featuring artwork from The Bolted Book (Depero’s portrait and the title page). Unbleached certified organic cotton, 13 in. wide x 14 in. high. Manufactured by Enviro-Tote, a family-owned business operating since 1990 in Bedford, NH.
- For $29: Depero Futurista T-Shirt, featuring logo designed by Fortunato Depero in 1926–27. Designed and manufactured by AS Colour, based in New Zealand. Charcoal gray, 100% combed cotton. Printed by Gowanus Print Lab — a community screen printing studio in Brooklyn.
- For $34: Depero “Promote Yourself” Tote Bag, featuring Depero’s exhortation to artists to vigorously advertise themselves: “Necessità di auto-réclame” (“The Need for Self-Promotion”), first published in The Bolted Book in 1927. 15 in. wide x 14 in. high with a 5-in. printed gusset. Printed on all 4 sides. Two internal pockets: cellphone size pocket on one gusset; 8 x 8-in. pocket on one wide side. External art: original layout from the book on one wide side, with text in Italian; English translation (by Ilaria Dagnini Brey) on the opposite side. Gusset panels with art as shown. 100% organic and ethically sourced cotton using environmentally safe dyeing and printing processes. Manufactured by London-based re-wrap—a not-for-profit enterprise that equips women living in rural India with sewing skills, enabling them to gain economic independence.
- For $49: Bolted Book 8 Great Pages Poster. Specially created for this project and featuring eight iconic images from the new facsimile edition, 36 x 24 inches, designed by Laura Lindgren, printed in Italy. Ships rolled.
- From $119–$268: The Bolted Book Facsimile. All book offers include a copy of the Reader’s Guide and your name on the book’s acknowledgments page (for a description of the Guide, see “About The Bolted Book Facsimile and Reader’s Guide,” below on this page).
EARLY BACKER SPECIALS: we are offering special prices on The Bolted Book Facsimile to our early backers. The earliest backers get the best discounts!
- For $119: Early Backer Special 1 - 20% discount. Limited to the first 48 hours of the campaign. Reward no longer available.
- For $127: Early Backer Special 2 - 15% discount. Limited to 4,000 copies.
- For $134: Early Backer Special 3 - 10% discount. Limited to 3,000 copies.
- For $142: Early Backer Special 4 - 5% discount. Limited to 2,000 copies
- For $149: “The Book” - Unlimited.
- For $151: Book and Depero Futurista Tote Bag Bundle. Get the book AND the Depero Futurista Tote Bag, featuring artwork from The Bolted Book. This special bundled offer gives you a substantial discount on the tote bag (which alone is $22); the two items ship together. For photo of tote bag artwork and a description of the bag, see first entry above (Depero Futurista Tote Bag) under the heading “Rewards.” Unlimited.
- For $268: Two-Book Special: “Get One, Give One” (one for yourself and one for a friend or a favorite library) - 10% discount, shipped together. Unlimited.
SUPPORT INDIE DESIGN BOOKSTORES ON KICKSTARTER WITH THE BOLTED BOOK!
- For $130: Independent Bookstore Affinity Specials. Love indie design bookstores? Pledge on these rewards (12.5% discount) dedicated to a selection of independent design bookstores from around the world for a copy of the book plus Reader’s Guide to show your support! Your name will be featured in a special section of the acknowledgments reserved for friends of the bookstore you select.
We believe that the community spirit that fuels Kickstarter and the sense of community created by independent bookstores are complementary. This reward allows you to back the Bolted Book campaign on Kickstarter and simultaneously support a bookstore you feel a connection to.
- The Book: Strand Bookstore. Show your affinity for Strand Bookstore, in New York City.
- The Book: Hennessey + Ingalls Bookstore. Show your affinity for Hennessey + Ingalls, in Los Angeles, California.
- The Book: Peter Miller Bookstore. Show your affinity for Peter Miller Architectural & Design Books and Supplies, in Seattle, Washington.
- The Book: Books & Books, Miami Beach. Show your affinity for Books & Books, in Miami Beach, Florida.
- The Book: Swipe Design Bookstore. Show your affinity for Swipe Design | Books + Objects, in Toronto, Canada.
- The Book: Magma Bookstore. Show your affinity for Magma, in London, UK.
- The Book: Konst/ig Bookstore. Show your affinity for Konst/ig Books, in Stockholm, Sweden.
- The Book: Lia Wolf Cabinett. Show your affinity for Lia Wolf Cabinett, in Vienna, Austria.
- The Book: Corraini Bookstores. Corraini Bookstore, Mantua; Corraini Bookstore, Bologna; Corraini Bookstore, Milan; Rotonda Corraini, Milan; Corraini Bookstore, Turin (Corraini Lingotto); Camera Corraini, Turin
- The Book: Papercup Bookstore. Show your affinity for Papercup, in Beirut, Lebanon.
- The Book: Beautiful Pages Bookstore. Show your affinity for Beautiful Pages, in Sydney, Australia.
- GIVE THE BOLTED BOOK FOR THE 2016 HOLIDAYS! For $128: Louise Fili December Holiday Special. Give The Bolted Book for the December holidays — with a handwritten touch by Louise Fili.
For full details, see the $128 reward in the rewards column on the right, LOUISE FILI DECEMBER HOLIDAY SPECIAL.
- For $160 (small, 7 x 9 in.) and $270 (large, 13.80 x 17.70 in.): Depero-designed marionette “Black Cat” (replica of 1981 reconstruction from Depero’s design notes).
The “Black Cat” was featured in Depero’s Plastic Dances (Balli Plastici), a Futurist ballet Depero conceived in 1918 for mechanical puppets in place of human actors. The original marionettes were destroyed but were reconstructed according to Depero’s notes for a revival of the performance in 1981. The reconstructed puppets are part of the collection of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Mart) in Rovereto, Italy.
Authorized by Mart, the “Black Cat” replica will be crafted from solid Koto wood by dESIGNoBJECT, a company based in Padua, Italy, and founded in 1991 to create products that are well designed, beautiful, and focused on technological innovation and style to provide fun and stimulate the emotions. The “Black Cat” will be created for and available exclusively to Kickstarter backers.
The manufacturers described above represent our current plans for fulfilling rewards. The project creator reserves the right to substitute a manufacturer of the same or better quality if warranted. Occasionally, special purchase terms may be offered to new backers. If that that happens, those same terms will also be made available, upon request, to existing backers.
To pledge for multiple rewards
Would you like to pledge for a book and a t-shirt, or any other combination of rewards? You can! Follow these instructions:
- 1. Select (but don't pledge on) the first reward you're interested in and determine the pledge amount plus shipping to your destination.
- 2. Follow #1 for the second reward you’re interested in.
- 3. Add together the total pledge amounts plus total shipping for the two rewards. (For more than two rewards, repeat #1 for each additional reward.)
- 4. Pledge total from #3 by, first, clicking the green button to the right of the video called “Back This Project,” then, selecting “Make a Pledge Without a Reward,” and then entering your total pledge amount.
- 5. Send us an email, to: info@designersandbooks.com with “Bolted Book Kickstarter,” your backer name, your shipping destination, the total amount amount you pledged, and the list of the rewards you pledged for. We will send you an e-mail within 24 hours confirming your rewards and amount pledged.
Schedule for Project and Rewards Delivery
The current schedule calls for The Bolted Book Facsimile and all additional rewards to ship in July 2017.
A Word About Our Shipping: Your book and other rewards will arrive safely! Our top-quality shipping company, highly experienced in shipping and handling fine-arts materials and Kickstarter projects (clients include the creators of the NYCTA and NASA Graphics Standards Manuals, launched on Kickstarter), has developed special packaging for The Bolted Book, designed to shield the bolts and protect the book.
About the Original Bolted Book and Fortunato Depero
Before artists like Andy Warhol blurred the lines between commercial and fine art, before there were zines that questioned the concept of the printed page, Fortunato Depero (Trento, Italy, 1892–1960) created The Bolted Book.
The book was a showcase for Depero’s work completed between 1913 and 1927 and also a platform for his iconoclastic ideas — what today would be called an artist’s book. These ideas anticipated, by almost 100 years, an approach to design and art making that can now be seen everywhere — from the breaking down of barriers between fine art and popular culture, to an emphasis on working in multimedia, to the necessity of self-promotion by artists and designers.
As a portfolio of Depero’s career, The Bolted Book includes paintings, sculptures, textile and architectural designs, theater, dance, and advertising work, wordplays, manifestos, and reviews he received in many different languages. The book in particular highlights Depero’s work in graphic design and typography, including his well-known advertisements for the Italian apéritif Campari.
Depero by 1913 had embraced the modernist movement Futurism, which was marked by a love of the new century’s machine-driven technology and “dynamic” motion (in the form of cars, trains, and airplanes), coupled with a forceful rejection of past traditions and institutions.
With painter Giacomo Balla, in 1915 Depero authored the manifesto “Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe” – whose aim was to reimagine and redesign every aspect of the world to make it more exhilarating: to fuse life with art. The Bolted Book summed up Depero’s attempt, over the next decade and a half, to do exactly that, challenging the very structure of the book at the same time.
Published in Milan in 1927 by the painter-aviator Fedele Azari, who on an introductory page describes it as “a mechanical book bolted down like an engine,” the book was dubbed “a typographical racing car” by Futurism’s founder, F. T. Marinetti.
Selections from The Bolted Book
MANIFESTOS
TEXTILES
THEATER AND DANCE
ARCHITECTURE
ADVERTISING
FUTURIST HOUSE OF ART
The Bolted Book in New York
Depero took The Bolted Book with him on his first trip, in 1928, to New York, where it served as a business card for securing design work and as a “portable museum” (when the bolts were removed, the pages could be pinned up on a wall, exhibition style). He was the only Futurist ever to live in New York City and while there, he produced graphic designs and covers for publications such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker.
The Bolted Book and Depero in the 21st Century
Depero continued a long and varied career in the years following the publication of The Bolted Book. In 1959, a year before he died, he opened in his hometown of Rovereto the Casa Depero, a museum-laboratory dedicated to his Futurist work and ideas (today part of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto).
After Depero’s death in 1960, the vast range of the artist-designer’s production receded from public view and attention. As Futurism approached its 100th anniversary in 2009, however, Depero was gradually rediscovered and his adventurous, playful, and expansive outlook on art and design, expressed in The Bolted Book, came to be seen as an embodiment of the 21st century.
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“Depero’s Futurist vision is now ubiquitous. We are living in his reconstructed universe.” Jonathon Keats in Forbes, May 29, 2009
About The Bolted Book Facsimile and Reader’s Guide
The new Bolted Book Facsimile will be an exact copy of the original Depero Futurista. The scans used for printing will be of number 843 (out of a stated total of 1,000) from the original edition. This copy was personally presented in 1928 to Gianni Mattioli, who was one of Depero’s most important patrons and supporters and who actively participated in the production of the original book. His daughter, the Milanese art historian Laura Mattioli, is the founder of the Center for Italian Modern Art in New York.
Two facsimlle editions were published previously (in 1978 and 1987). Both were published in collaboration with the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto (Mart) and both are now out of print. Unlike those editions, which included added front and back matter, a table of contents, and page numbers, the new facsimile will be a faithful re-creation including only material that appeared in the original edition.
SPECIFICATIONS:
- Trim: Length: 32 cm (12.5 in.); height: 24.2 cm (9.5 in.). Oblong
- Page count: 240; 146 with text or images
- Binding: Open on four sides, cover and all pages hole-drilled for bolt binding and fastened with aluminum bolt, nut, and cotter pin (2)
- Cover: Textured, colored cardstock
- Paper: Various colors, weights, and textures, plus 4 tissue (glassine) pages
- One two-panel gatefold
- Inks: 4/4; occasional pages throughout 5/5
- Production and Reader’s Guide Design by Laura Lindgren
- Printed by Graphicom, Vicenza, Italy
- Bolts manufactured by VIPACO, Maniago, Italy, under the supervision of artist Paul Etienne Lincoln
READER’S GUIDE:
- A Reader’s Guide, featuring essays by Depero scholars, English translations and annotations of key texts, and previously unpublished archival photographs and other materials from the Fortunato Depero archive (Mart), as well as an acknowledgments section listing the names of Kickstarter backers, will accompany each copy of the facsimile. Specifications: 48 pages, sewn paperback, 10.5 x 9.5 in. (26.5 x 24 cm), 4-color throughout.
Project Team
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART OF TRENTO AND ROVERETO (MUSEO DI ARTE MODERNA E CONTEMPORANEA DI TRENTO E ROVERETO) (Mart) is one of the most important museums in Italy and also in Europe. Opened in 1987, it encompasses a museum in Rovereto, the Casa d’Arte Futurista Depero in Rovereto, and the Civic Gallery in Trento.
THE CENTER FOR ITALIAN MODERN ART (CIMA), founded in 2013 in New York City, is a nonprofit exhibition and research center established to promote scholarship and advance public appreciation of modern and contemporary Italian art in the U.S. and internationally. Heather Ewing, Executive Director; Ilaria Conti, Exhibitions and Programs Director
DESIGNERS & BOOKS (campaign management) is a website that advocates for books as important sources of inspiration. Steve Kroeter, Founder and Editor in Chief; Stephanie Salomon, Executive Editor; Russell Fernandez, Director of Publishing and Video Production; Nicolò Nieri, Social Media Manager
LAURA LINDGREN (book production and design) is an award-winning designer specializing in the design of art and photography books and museum exhibition catalogues. Laura is also publisher of her own imprint, Blast Books.
PAUL ETIENNE LINCOLN is an artist whose work has been exhibited internationally in many solo and group museum exhibitions and is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Arts Council, London.
MARK THOMPSON/SKYLAB 5 (video director); video producer: Russell Fernandez; video soundtrack: “Amazing Plan” by Kevin MacLeod (www.incompetech.com); licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
MARCELO GUIDOLI (designer) AND GIOVANNI DE CARLO (website developer): www.bolted book.com
NOVITÀ (media relations): Christine Abbate, President; Kristin Coleman, Vice President; Christopher Farrell, Junior Account Executive; Barbara Musso, Director, Novità Italia
GIANLUCA CAMILLINI (original research on The Bolted Book for www.boltedbook.com and Kickstarter campaign) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading, UK, where he is completing a major work of scholarship on Depero Futurista. He is aggregate professor in graphic design and typography at the Faculty of Design and Art — Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy.
RAFFAELE BEDARIDA (project consultant) is an art historian and curator specializing in art, politics, and cultural diplomacy between Italy and the United States in the 20th century. Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at Cooper Union, he regularly lectures at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and MoMA. As a CIMA fellow in 2014 he focused his research on Fortunato Depero’s time in New York.
MELANIA GAZZOTTI (project consultant) is a freelance curator and art historian, specializing in European avant-gardes. For several years (2004–2010) she worked for the Museo d’arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e di Rovereto (Mart). In 2013 she was awarded by the Guggenheim Foundation the Hilla Rebay International Fellowship. This grant gave her the opportunity to work for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. In 2015 she worked for the Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA), New York, and in 2016 she was awarded a Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar Fellowship at Yale University. She is currently collaborating with the Italian Cultural Institute, New York.
STEVEN HELLER (project consultant) and Reader’s Guide contributor) is co-chair School of Visual Arts MFA Design / Designer as Author + Entrepreneur, is the author, co-author, and editor of more than 170 books on graphic design, visual propaganda, and satiric art. With Seymour Chwast he has co-authored more than 10 books, including Graphic Style, and was editor of The Nose. He is the 2011 recipient of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum National Design Award and the 2016 Eric Carle Award.
Image Credits
All pages from Depero Futurista, Dinamo-Azari, Milan, Italy, 1927, artist’s book bound with bolts, 12.5 x 9.5 in. (32 x 24.2 cm). © 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / SIAE Rome. Reproduction, including downloading of Fortunato Depero works, is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Photographs of Depero Futurista details are courtesy of Designers & Books. Except where otherwise noted, book exterior photographs by Adam Reich; book interior photographs by Jason Burch.
Archival photographs, except where otherwise noted: Mart, Archivio del '900, Fondo Fortunato Depero.
Visit www.boltedbook.com to see the complete Bolted Book and for more information on Depero’s life and work.
Thank you for supporting The Bolted Book!
Esteemed graphic designer Louise Fili has found a way for you to give The Bolted Book for the holidays, even though it won’t yet be available.
Louise chose two images from the book and adapted them into a gift card. Then she generously agreed to write —by hand—the name of the sender and of the recipient on each card. We will send out these cards so they arrive for your recipient by December 23, 2016. This is a great way to say to those hard-to-buy-for creative types on your gift list that they will receive something very special from you in the new year! $128. Ships to continental U.S. addresses only.
For full details, see the $128 reward in the rewards column on the right, LOUISE FILI DECEMBER HOLIDAY SPECIAL.
Esteemed graphic designer Louise Fili has found a way for you to give The Bolted Book for the holidays, even though it won’t yet be available.
Louise chose two images from the book and adapted them into a gift card. Then she generously agreed to write —by hand—the name of the sender and of the recipient on each card. We will send out these cards so they arrive for your recipient by December 23, 2016. This is a great way to say to those hard-to-buy-for creative types on your gift list that they will receive something very special from you in the new year! $128. Ships to continental U.S. addresses only.
For full details, see the $128 reward in the rewards column on the right, LOUISE FILI DECEMBER HOLIDAY SPECIAL.
Risks and challenges
Our team includes two important cultural institutions — the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto (Mart) and the Center for Italian Modern Art — that focus on the work of Fortunato Depero. Through them we have access to multiple original copies of The Bolted Book.
Also on our team is an award-winning book designer who designed and managed production for the catalogue for the 2014 Depero exhibition at the Center for Italian Modern Art. Our printer, based in Vicenza, Italy, specializes in superior-quality fine-art books.
Handling and fulfillment for our project will be done by an expert fine-art shipping company based in New York with extensive experience in domestic and international fulfillment of Kickstarter projects.
The team at Designer & Books has decades of experience in the design book publishing world, covering all aspects of the process from developing book concepts through delivering finished books into the hands of eagerly awaiting fans and supporters. Designers & Books managed the successful campaign in 2015 to publish a facsimile edition of the classic design book “Ladislav Sutnar: Visual Design in Action” (now available from Lars Müller Publishers) as well as the original letterpress hardcover edition of Seymour Chwast’s book “At War with War” in Spring 2016 (and which is scheduled for release at the end of the year).
This experienced team has been working on The Bolted Book project for more than a year and is dedicated to delivering a beautiful facsimile edition that will provide endless enjoyment and inspiration.
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Funding period
- (45 days)