Machine Looking at Itself in a 3-Way Mirror 1953

Nella Fermi made "Machine Looking at Itself in a 3-Way Mirror" using etching, a printmaking technique that involves scratching into a metal plate. I imagine her bent over this plate, scratching away, building up the image line by line, almost like a form of drawing. I can't help but think about what she might have been thinking while making it. It's like she's created a weird stage set, where the machine is both performer and audience, caught in an endless loop of self-regard, while the tiled floor tips up towards us! It makes me think about the surrealists, like de Chirico, who used sharp perspective and unsettling imagery to create a sense of unease and dream logic. Fermi’s work seems to pick up on those ideas, adding her own strange, personal twist. Each artist borrows, responds, and argues with the generation before. Art-making is like a big conversation, where everyone is talking at once, across time.