Théâtre Princesse Grace – Performance Monaco Veloce – Luciano Chessa and The Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners

Imagined by the Italo-American composer, musician, and visual artist Luciano Chessa, Monaco Veloce is a reflection on speed, where movement, visual art, and sound art merge. It concludes a year-long residency at the Ateliers d’Artistes of Quai Antoine 1er.

The scenography of this performance—initially presented as an “off-site” installation during the artmonte-carlo fair last July 6th—is inspired by Giacomo Balla’s set designs for Stravinsky’s Feu d’Artifice, produced by Serge Diaghilev in 1917. Chessa’s work draws on two key elements: the sharp, characteristic shapes evoking dynamism and speed, and the idea of scenography as more than just a backdrop but as an action in itself.

These centrifugal lines are balanced by an inherent structure: the winding shape of the Monaco Grand Prix circuit, with its continuous, intense, and liberating turns; its looping repetition inducing trance, and its history of speed, adrenaline, danger, and death. An echo of the Futurists’ fascination with the automobile and the aesthetics of the machine…

Chessa uses the sounds of race cars recorded during the Historic Grand Prix, the Formula 1 Grand Prix, and the E-Prix to construct an evolving soundscape whose clear trajectory moves from the roaring engines of the 1930s to the lamenting sounds of hybrid Formula 1 engines, passing through the mysterious and futuristic tones of contemporary electric vehicles. This sound backdrop interacts with the instruments of the Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners. This ensemble was born from a commission to the artist in 2009 by the Performa Biennial in New York, where Chessa reconstructed the “Intonarumori,” created in 1913 by Futurist painter and composer Luigi Russolo, considered the ancestors of modern electronic instruments.

Throughout this ensemble’s performances, Luciano Chessa commissions musicians and performers to create new pieces and scores, continuously enriching its repertoire beyond mere historical testimony.

LUCIANO CHESSA

Luciano Chessa is a composer, audiovisual and performance artist, and music historian. Chessa’s compositions include A Heavenly Act, an opera commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, featuring an original video by Kalup Linzy; Piombo, a piece for two-bow cello written for Frances-Marie Uitti and commissioned by MAGAZZINO Italian Art in New York, and Cena oltranzista nel castelletto al lago, an opera merging experimental theater and reality TV that required over 55 hours of fasting, commissioned by the TRANSART Festival and MUSEION, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano. Chessa has received several commissions from the Performa Biennial and in 2014 presented three events at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as part of the exhibition Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe. Chessa’s work has been featured multiple times in Artforum, Flash Art, Art in America, and Frieze, and has appeared in the Italian editions of Marie Claire and Vogue Italia. He has collaborated with artists such as Mike Kelley, Kalup Linzy, Ugo Rondinone, Tarik Kiswanson, Chris Newman, and Jacopo Benassi; he has also presented his works at museums including the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Berkeley Art Museum, MONA in Tasmania, and MART in Rovereto. He has been an artist in residence at Civitella Ranieri, Lucas Artists Residency at Villa Montalvo, the Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice, the Harrison House in Joshua Tree, the Tavioni Art Gallery, and Vanganga in Avarua, Rarotonga (Cook Islands). He is currently in residence with the Cultural Affairs Directorate of the Prince’s Government, in one of the studios at Quai Antoine 1er.