Aiuola fiorita accerchiata e lacrima di perla / Encircled flowerbed and pearl tear, 1975

Assemblage, foam rubber covered with fabric, various appliques and materials on jute
51 × 26 × 5.5 cm

The Italian artist Clemen Parrocchetti (1923-2016) was an active participant in the feminist liberation movement in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s, a period that is still considered one of the most heated moments in the country’s history in the fight for women’s suffrage. This translated into a strong visual grammar in the materials of domestic labor – needles, spools, bobbins, cooking utensils, textiles – repurposed into the subversive tools of denunciation and protest. By using such “modest materials”, drawn from the confines of feminine domesticity, Parrocchetti critiqued and contested female subjugation and objectification.

Encased in plexiglass, this work comprises an abstract assemblage arranged like a circular flowerbed blooming around a fabric mouth sewn shut and pierced by needles. Within Parrocchetti’s oeuvre, the mouth and lips function as symbols of women’s voices and their potential release in protest against oppression. The addition of the rear-shaped pearl bead may suggest additional emotional burdens and suffering embedded within the composition.