Circular mirror c. 1930

Curator: Here we have "Circular Mirror," crafted around 1930. It is attributed to Emmy Roth, who produced it from metal and glass and is located at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Editor: There’s an almost unsettling gleam to it, this precise arrangement of reflective surfaces and crimson bristles. Austere and opulent, all at once. Curator: The reflective nature is what I find most engaging; as a looking glass it mirrors self, an intimate object reflecting not just our visage but the ideals we hold about ourselves. Editor: And ideals during this interwar period were shifting radically. We see in this Art Deco object the tension between mass production, made clear with the uniform simplicity of each item, against desires of pre-industrial bespoke and bourgeois vanity reflected in the luxurious red bristle detailing. Curator: Consider the circle, too, endlessly turning back on itself, without beginning or end; perhaps symbolic of an epoch preoccupied with anxieties around historical and personal destiny after immense social rupture? Editor: Yes, its reflective surface holds both social progress and individual yearning, even a subtle questioning of who gets to engage in luxury. Is it not just a looking glass but a subtle societal mirror held up in our contemporary cultural discourse about equity and privilege? Curator: One could interpret the red bristles as hinting toward a fiery passion, but perhaps, even aggression, while this highly crafted mirror presents an aspiration to perfect beauty. Editor: It makes me ponder the ways these seemingly disparate eras converse. What does a reflective, streamlined, but somewhat austere set mean in our age of filters? How have our aspirations changed? Are our devices acting as both tools for personal empowerment and tools for corporate greed and are we reflected in them? Curator: A beautiful set that serves to illustrate those continuous refractions within historical change. The object itself contains worlds beyond just personal image. Editor: Indeed; Emmy Roth offers an elegant study of progress, image, class and the perpetual question of our identities through the simplest form—a looking glass.