There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination.
Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone
When speaking of the dimension of Fabrizio Corneli’s artistic research, we could add: between science and art. Between mathematics and the unpredictable.
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination.
Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone
When speaking of the dimension of Fabrizio Corneli’s artistic research, we could add: between science and art. Between mathematics and the unpredictable.
What we are interested in here is the portion of the “middle ground” that is created between the light source and whatever comes against it, creating a shadow which ultimately reveals the projected image. Therefore, it is not the clear distinction between darkness and light that is the strength of his works, but all the nuances of shadows we perceive on the diverse walls. Probably, this attention to the infinite shades of gray can be traced to his early love – dating from the 1970s – for photography. However, as a technique, photography captures light and then fixes it on paper, but the sense of vagueness and motion of the physical particles is lost in the process. In the evolution from silhouette to shadow, there is an intermediate step in which the artist projects the image onto a wall, but that image is still closer to a photographic “experience”, probably to the negative, as in the view of the basilica of Santa Sofia (1991).
Moving away from the photographic image creates works that keep to the initial principle of “drawing” with light or with its absence, as they expand into a different space-time dimension. When speaking of Corneli, we cannot construct a chronology of style because each time he creates something new it flanks the previous one in a continuing flow of renewal while always giving light the priority. As we look at his works, we immediately think of the Eastern shadow shows, that probably originated in China, as for example Drago (1981), in which a copper sheet separates from the two dimensionality of the wall and creates the silhouette of a dragon via a light source. Here, as opposed to shadow theater, the image is not in motion and can be easily recognized by its sharp contours, even though it seems surrounded by a magical halo, and the astonishment it triggers is probably what the audiences felt during the performances. We can imagine that the ritual Corneli repeats in his meticulous actions in projecting, creating, and setting up his works by calculating spaces down to the millimeter, was the same as in the rhythmic movements of the actors in those performances to venerate the gods and chase away the monsters.
The decision to present “real” subjects such as faces, figures, flowers, etc. is based on the same reason that part of the historical avant-gardes and neo-avant-gardes included commonplace objects or images of consumer goods in their works, that is, to give everyone the possibility of reconstructing a broken-down image or recognizing something familiar. And so, even face to face with Corneli’s anamorphosis, by having to look and think so that the image becomes one before his eyes, the viewer slows the pace of reading the visual message which, in today’s world, has become evermore immediate and frenetic[1]. The pause becomes the connecting link between the work of art and whoever wants to see it, and in the case of outdoor installations, when the sun is the sole source of light, there is a fixed time – an appointment – in which the sun, the art and observer come together for a view of the image in its entirety (Augenblick, 1997). We find time being marked, as by the public clocks that regulated the rhythms and pace of life in early times, in the installations Corneli created in a town center, where over the years the people will learn to recognize hours and seasons of development, such as the two faces in Duetto, that he installed on the wall of the Sannomya Tower, in Kobe (Japan) in 2007.
The decisive step towards light that not only constructs, but also comprises the image and becomes the body of the piece, can be recognized in the light sculptures, Luminarie ruotanti (2014); or in the iconic subject abandoned by the diffraction of light that becomes color as in the Halo series where the aureole perceived in the early works becomes real and visible to all.
This interplay of visions between what is real and what is only a representation becomes clear from the comparison of two similar but contrasting works: Equilibrista 1 (1998), where the figure begins as a “positive” starting from the light source inside a box and gradually takes over the space to almost disappear in the darkness, and Volanti (1995), spectacular shadows that seem to break away from the object projecting them and coming to life, independently of it. Both figuresremain suspended in that instant and in that portion of space-light, and remain vulnerable in as they are perceived in relation to the surface on which they are projected, the same but always different. The presence and absence of light, between real visibility and intelligent visibility: true reality is not in the dichotomy between the image and representation because both depend on the viewer’s experience of observation, and it is he, or she, who must choose the interpretation closest to him- or herself.
The dependency relationship the artist has with shadows identifies him as a possible protagonist of all the literature dedicated to the ambiguity of darkness. Like the immortal Peter Pan who chased his shadow – he considered it alive and had to recapture and control it because it was the last vestige of his humanity. Because, “without shadows there is no realism: or even reality”[2].
by Lara Caccia, 2018
[1]Cf. Fabrizio Corneli’s 2006 interview with Radio delle Papesse del 2006, on the occasion of the exhibition in Palazzo delle Papesse (Siena), curated by Lea Vergine.
[2]S. Batterzaghi, “La magia antica delle ombre cinesi, in la Repubblica, 16 October 2005.