Goldsmiths' Art Gallery Houses New Exhibition 'Cinzia says'
'Cinzia says' marks the first major retrospective of artist and fashion designer Cinzia Ruggeri, offering a selection of her creations that range from clothing to sculpture to glassware.
'Cinzia says' marks the first major retrospective of artist and fashion designer Cinzia Ruggeri, offering a selection of her creations that range from clothing to sculpture to glassware.
Creatively driven by a desire to 'redefine the form and function of elements of everyday life', artist Cinzia Ruggeri's (1942–2019) practice never centred around one thing. During her long-spanning career, Ruggeri experimented with fashion in a surrealist manner (culminating in works that arguably gave Schiaparelli a run for her money), mosaics, sculpture, theatre, glassware, furniture and jewellery, all of which fall at the focus of Goldsmiths CCA's new exhibition Cinzia says...
Associated with the Radical Design scene in Milan in the 1970s, particularly the city's Studio Alchimia and Memphis groups, Ruggeri became known for 'boundary-pushing' works that sat somewhere between performance and architecture, all of which consistently played a part in questioning how the body might inhabit space. 'Cinzia Ruggeri’s clothes refuse to be just clothes. They are better understood as genre-defying explorations of the human body' wrote Helen Barrett in her Financial Times review, an apt analysis of a designer that refused to look at the world through anyone's lens but her own. Her use of architectural forms like the ziggurat and her incorporation of technology meant she was one of the first designers to experiment with electronics, incorporating liquid crystals, LED lights and kinetic movement into everything she designed.
Although born at the tail end of Europe's surrealist movement, her most successful designs - or at least the ones that achieved worldwide success in the 1980s - borrowed from motifs that engulfed many surrealists of the 20th century. From her famous 1983 Slap-glove bag (fusing a glove and a clutch) to her 1986 Bed Dress which saw its gown with a matching pillow headpiece design go on to serve as inspiration for both Viktor & Rolf's A/W 05/06 and Maison Martin Margiela's S/S 15 collections, Ruggeri's imaginative works both amused and bemused its spectators, never conforming yet continually evolving.
Cinzia says... will be open to the public at Goldsmiths CCA between 8 Oct 2022 and 15 Jan 2023.
