Measure X Measure Between Shakespeare and Narcissus

Laura Iamurri, teacher at Università degli Studi Roma Tre, talks about Cloti Ricciardi's work

Misura x misura (1993) by Ricciardi ClotiLa Galleria Nazionale

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Misura x misura is a work by Cloti Riccardi consisting of a large horizontal plate covered with Hypoxyl resin on which seven small rectangular glass bars are applied perpendicularly in order of decreasing height.

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Placing the work on the ground redesigns the space that welcomes it and the way in which the public perceives it at the same time.

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The horizontality guides our gaze to perceive the image from above, from the point of view of those who lean out as if to observe their own reflection in a body of water that instead reveals the smiling face of the artist, which appears to emerge from an aquatic depth on the surface made glistening by the resin.

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The title, Misura x misura (Measure x measure) echoes Shakespeare's homonymous text, but the artist's image recalls other scenes, that of a female interpretation of the myth of Narcissus, capable of overturning the melancholy of self-contemplation, in an active reflection of the gaze, and to give shape in a unique way to the autonomy of a female point of view removed from the patriarchal logic, and on the contrary joyfully mocking the very patriarchal culture fought day after day by Cloti Ricciardi in her feminist militancy.

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Misura x misura was created in 1993 and displayed for the first time in the artist's personal room at the Venice Biennale in the same year.

Credits: Story

Voice message by Laura Iamurri, teacher of Contemporary Art at Università degli Studi Roma Tre.

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