Forget downtown New York in the 1970s, Milan in the 1980s was the actual coolest place in history. And Cinzia Ruggeri was probably the coolest person there.
Ruggeri (1942-2019) fused fusion, design and fine art into a surreal, funny, punny, silly, gorgeous mess. Her runway shows – one is recreated upstairs here – ditched human models for mannequins and Cure-soundtracked videos, with baggy shirts covered in eyes and mouths, ties that zig and zag, sleeves that unbutton all the way to the shoulder. Her shoes, stacked up the staircase, are wearable sculptures covered with hair and flowers. Her furniture is humanoid, her sunglasses are totally opaque, her boots are the shape of Italy, with matching Sicily and Sardinia-shaped handbags.
The whole show is a diary of a life lived without boundaries, where art smashes into design and collides with fashion, because why not. Why not be an artist and a designer and a tailor and a sculptor. Ruggeri existed at the intersection of comical surreal Fluxus and chic Milan hipness, a world of cigarette smoke and blow and music and clothes and parties. I’m not convinced anything here is great art, but it is great fun.
