Many creative minds operate in different fields nowadays, but this often happened in the past as well and, in some cases, we simply forgot about them. In multiple posts on this site we analysed and rediscovered the work of the late Cinzia Ruggeri, before many other people (Gucci included) jumped on the bandwagon.
Ruggeri was active in a variety of disciplines, from art and fashion to costume and interior design, but, in her work, there was a subtle coherent path of correspondences that sometimes is missing in the production of designers nowadays.
This path of correspondences hasn't emerged in the retrospectives dedicated to Ruggeri, including the latest one, "Cinzia Says" at Rome's Macro. Quite often in such retrospectives curators opted for what could be defined as "the chaotic bazaar approach", which means, throwing objects together without creating proper dialogues or links between them. But spotting the intriguing relations in Ruggeri's productions, can be inspiring for younger generations interested in creating subtle logical threads throughout their works.
Let’s move from an example – grass. Leaves of grass sprouted on the dresses, hats and shoes Ruggeri created in the '80s. These designs also appeared as costumes in the Mefisto Funk film.
In a cover from 1988 of Casa Vogue featuring the "Invidia" (Envy) glass table designed by Franco Raggio and produced by Fontana Arte, there is an arrangement of leaves of grass on an almost invisible net styled by Ruggeri next to a bird cage.
The long blades of grass look as if they were made with the same strands she used for her glove that had grass sprouting from each finger.
The glove was turned into a mosaic exhibited at "La regle de jeu" event in 2019. In that case, Ruggeri's iconic grass-sprouting glove was used to symbolize a metamorphosis from human to plant of André Jurieux, the record-breaking aviator in Jean Renoir's 1939 film "La règle du jeu" ("The Rules of the Game").
The grass theme was reinvented for the "Ocio" box, a piece created for an exhibition (and charity auction) in 2018. The event revolved around recycled and sustainable designs and Ruggeri's submisstion comprised a cardboard cube sprouting grass. This was a way to elevate cardboard to art, reminding us about the transfigurative power of things and the cycle of trees from seed to paper and compostable material.
So these are just a few examples of how to build a series of subtle correspondences in a variety of fields, using the same idea, but reinventing it in different ways and through different mediums.
