Shadow Anamorphic Art

Shadow art is the common definition for those contemporary artistic phenomena in which cast shadows are the artwork’s main protagonists because they end up dominating the physical presence of those plastic objects whose projection they are. Between the illuminated object (usually by a lamp, properly placed) and its cast shadow, the traditional correspondence that induces the observer to recognise in the shadow the shapes of the three-dimensional body on which it depends seems to be lost in such installations. Through this sensation of otherness, shadow art induces the observer to feel a magical epiphany of shapes and meanings. However, the artistic subject (the shadow), the installation’s protagonist, in order to manifest itself, necessarily needs light and therefore depends on it. Light induces the eye to change direction, no longer orienting itself on the solid objects shaped by the artist but towards the cast shadow on the surface that intersects the light rays and geometrically acts as the image plane on which the casted shapes appear. The chapter focuses on some of the most famous contemporary artists, such as Kumi Yamashita and Fabrizio Corneli.