Milan may not be the best holiday destination in August, as summer means soaring temperatures in the Italian capital of fashion, yet, with most offices closed (or going to close soon) for the holidays, the city is more or less deserted and can lead you to intriguing discoveries.
If you head to Federico Vavassori Gallery (via Giorgio Giulini 5), you can for example discover a new surreal exhibition by artist and fashion and interior designer Cinzia Ruggeri.
If the previous exhibition at the gallery was a sort of retrospective with some new pieces added, "La règle du jeu?" (on until tomorrow), is a homage to the history of cinema and in particular to a film.
A deconstructed black propeller hints indeed at the protagonist of Jean Renoir's 1939 film "La règle du jeu" - record-breaking aviator, André Jurieux.
A stylish fashion film with costumes by Coco Chanel, the comedy-drama and satirical film "The Rules of the Game" develops on the brink of WWII when André lands at a small airport after completing a record-breaking flight across the Atlantic. He soon realises that the Austrian-French noblewoman he has fallen in love with, Christine, is not there to greet him. André starts a quest to win her back that eventually takes him to a hunting weekend that develops through intrigue, rivalries, love affairs and human weaknesses.
From the propeller, visitors discover more fragments conjuring up André's existence, such as an aviator's jacket stained with blood and lined with a map of Paris and a photograph of Christine. Hanging in front of a window, there is instead a black see-through négligée covered in plasters, maybe to symbolise Christine, love wounds and broken hearts.
Ruggeri explores the lives of Renoir's chatacters in a typical Ruggeri style, leaving delicate and surreal cues, from an aviator glasses-shaped mirror covered with a large crocheted dolly hinting at André's life in the sky trapped by insidiously domestic feminine laces that do not allow him to see clearly, to a mosaic representing one of Ruggeri's iconic grass-sprouting glove, now symbolising a metamorphosis André goes through, from human to plant, that starts right from his gloves.
There are direct links between Renoir and Ruggeri: the director put many actors in the frame to suggest multiple viewpoints and juxtaposing interior and exterior spaces; Ruggeri does the same here, scattering around objects that provide visitors with multiple interpretations and leaving the windows open to create a continuous space between the gallery-apartment and the street.
Renoir's film combined farce with tragedy and so does Ruggeri in her surrreal pieces that at times make you smile, at others make you cry, after all André's plane has crashed inside the gallery (it is worth noting that "La règle du jeu?" is in a way slightly darker compared to other events that were dedicated this year to Ruggeri's work).
Just like André breaks the unwritten social rules declaring to a radio reporter his disapointment at the fact that Christine has not come to meet him, Ruggeri has her own way of breaking conventional rules and boundaries between different disciplines.
Yet Ruggeri is not detached from reality and, if you read between the lines, you will realise this exhibition is pertinent to the times we're living in. Renoir's film took place before the Second World War, humanity and civilisation were to be swept away by the conflict, something ominously foreseen by the "danse macabre" in the film, a dance of death hinting at the apocalyptic destruction of the old Europe.
In "La règle du jeu?" there is destruction and death, but there is also the possibility of a rebirth for André and therefore for all humanity through nature, almost as if Ruggeri reassured us that, yes, death comes, but never despair, a new life is indeed still possible.
All images in this post by Alessandro Zambianchi, courtesy Galleria Federico Vavassori
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