Gagosian’s Rome exhibition ‘Lately I Find a Sliver of Mirror Is Simply to Slice an Eyelid’, devoted to Francesca Woodman, has been extended through September 12, 2026. Open since April 29, the presentation brings together nearly fifty prints made during the photographer’s lifetime, many of which have not previously been exhibited.
The exhibition focuses on Woodman’s affinities with Surrealism, grounding that direction in a substantial selection of photographs. Woodman studied Dada and Surrealism at the Rhode Island School of Design, and her notebooks contain references to ideas associated with both movements. Her pictures draw on the Surrealists’ transformative uses of allegory, language and ordinary objects to evoke the marvelous and uncanny.
Woodman photographed her own body as well as other models in natural landscapes and dilapidated interiors. Through composition and mise-en-scène, she created images marked by mystery and theatricality, destabilising boundaries between bodies, objects and settings. Figures may be nude, clothed or shrouded; exposed or partially hidden. Eggs, gloves, masks, seashells, teacups, fruit and fish appear alongside figures as everyday objects that hint at symbolic significance.
Among the lifetime gelatin silver prints in the exhibition are ‘Untitled or #4 from a Series “Dissection of a Portrait”’ (1976), ‘Horizontale or Horizontal Legs’ (1976), and ‘But Lately I Find a Sliver of Mirror Is Simply to Slice an Eyelid’ (c. 1975–77). ‘Self-Portrait Talking to Vince’ (c. 1976–77) is also included.
Italy played an important role in Woodman’s development: she spent summers in Tuscany with her parents while growing up.
