Skip to main content

Steel, Light and Shadow


Larry Kagan creates wall-mounted wire sculptures that seem to resemble abstract art pieces when the lights are off, but create complete images when illuminated from just the right angle. The New York-based artist bends, twists, welds and meticulously arranges steel rods beneath a single beam of light to produce these illusions. 

He says: "We are more or less aware of the presence of shadows, since they tell us something about our environment, but we do not actually look at them – unless they call attention to themselves by some unfamiliar or unexpected behavior. My challenge was to induce viewers to actually look at the shadow rather than solely at the steel. I began shifting more of the narrative burden to shadow. The more content the eyes could detect in the shadow, the more time and attention they would expend on exploring its details."

Below is a selection of Larry's shadow art. Visit his website for more.





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Eagle Blue

Set to Julia Holter's This is a True Heart, Eagle Blue follows the story of a mother eagle looking to feed her young, but is lured into the town with the temptation of an easy meal.

Powered by body heat, this tiny flashlight doesn't need batteries

For the past ten years or so, I've made it a habit to carry a tiny penlight in my pocket whenever I travel. I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore flashlight enthusiast, but when I was younger I used to collect flashlights of different shapes, sizes and output colors. I still have them, lying somewhere in the house, ready for action in case of a zombie apocalypse. If you're looking for a small flashlight with enough light output to find objects in the dark but would rather not keep supplying it with batteries, you might be interested in Lumen. It doesn't need any external energy source except your body heat. Ross Zhuravskiy is using Kickstarter to raise funding for his creation, and with 26 days until his initiative closes, he officially surpassed his initial $5,000 goal thanks to 477 backers. So how does it work? "Lumen has relatively simple work principle - you touch TEG (Thermoelectric Generator) - small ceramic bar that can produce electric current when ...

The Unexpected Visitor

Eugene Silva was born and raised in Tanauan, Batangas, the youngest of five siblings in an upper middle-class family. He went to the Philippine Science High School and then U.P., where he intended to major in applied physics. Eugene is around 5'9, with dark sad eyes, a small birthmark on his nape, and wavy hair half covering his ears. He's six years younger than I am and he has this serious look on his face, but he's really a humorous guy who always takes time to talk to everyone he encounters. I first met Eugene when I was working at Runway Productions, an events management company filled with hot biracial women. "This is f*cking brilliant – why on earth didn't I do this before," he whispered in my ear while taking photos of Michiko, a gorgeous half-Japanese model he was attracted to. I used to supply Mich with weed and hash. She grew up in Boston and was a funny lap dancer, but that's another story. Although the idea of becoming a physicist intere...