In Coppia di Sirene, Ragazzini uses a satirical twist to portray mythological figures in a way that feels both absurd and thought-provoking. The mismatched fish tails and fragmented torsos of the “mermaids” are humorously unsettling, reminiscent of folk art and Renaissance iconography distorted by modern imagination. These figures parody traditional depictions of myth and beauty, questioning the human tendency to romanticize or exaggerate. The hand-cut, collage-based forms enhance their imperfect, cobbled-together appearance, highlighting Ragazzini’s playful critique of idealized myths and our desire for the fantastical.
In Coppia di Sirene, Ragazzini uses a satirical twist to portray mythological figures in a way that feels both absurd and thought-provoking. The mismatched fish tails and fragmented torsos of the “mermaids” are humorously unsettling, reminiscent of folk art and Renaissance iconography distorted by modern imagination. These figures parody traditional depictions of myth and beauty, questioning the human tendency to romanticize or exaggerate. The hand-cut, collage-based forms enhance their imperfect, cobbled-together appearance, highlighting Ragazzini’s playful critique of idealized myths and our desire for the fantastical.
The mermaid as a figure exists entirely in the register of the imaginary: she has no natural history, only cultural persistence, the accumulated desire to believe in creatures that are more than one thing at once. By making his sirens from physically incompatible materials, one tail ribbed and dark, one scaled and green, the bodies assembled from historical painting fragments, Ragazzini exposes the arbitrary nature of that persistence. The myth was always made from whatever was at hand. The collage only makes it honest.
The small format amplifies the intimacy of the observation. These are not monumental mythological figures; they are objects held together by hand, appropriately modest in scale for a work whose subject is the human need to believe in things that cannot hold together under scrutiny. Ragazzini's humor here is neither mocking nor dismissive. He is fond of these figures, which is precisely what makes the critique work: affectionate exposure rather than satire.
