Michele FALANGA (Bagnara Calabra, RC 1865 – Messina 1937)
Michele Falanga was born in 1865 in Bagnara Calabra (RC).
In 1879 he moved with his mother to Messina. The disastrous earthquake that struck the city in 1908 involved him personally.
His culture and in-depth knowledge of the dynamics of the city, pushed him to devote himself in an almost spasmodic way to writing; he created prose texts, poems and short poems.
He was repeatedly called to write articles on political and social events for magazines of the time.
The outbreak of the First World War dragged him into war propaganda, making him personally participate in patriotic demonstrations.
Influenced by the authoritarian Fascist regime, he ventured into visual art from the 1920s until his death. Being a contemporary and at the same time a fellow townsman of artists such as Pippo Rizzo and Giulio D’Anna (adopted by Messina), having the opportunity to personally visit their exhibitions dedicated to aeropainting, as a variation of Futurist art, enticed him into the self-taught experimentation of sketches, drawings, projects and paintings, creating his works mostly on “poor” media, such as sheets of old magazines and newspapers that became a blank canvas for him to fill. These are works that are fine in themselves, created not for commercial or exhibition purposes, but to please his own creativity and cultivate his own talent.
He died in Messina in 1937.
EXHIBITIONS
2025 Mondo Futurista, curated by Giordano Bruno Guerri and Matteo Vanzan, Castello di Desenzano del Garda, 4 May – 26 October.
2025 Michele Falanga – Aeropittura teatrale. Opere pittoriche e manoscritti, curated by the Associazione Culturale Flegone, Teatro Sociale, Como.
2024 Michele Falanga – Aeropittura Futurista. Opere pittoriche e manoscritti dal 1908 al 1937, curated by the Heirs M. F. and with the patronage of the Confcommercio of Lecco, Palazzo Falck, Lecco.