"We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates… Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty,” wrote Japanese author Jun'ichirō Tanizaki in his famous essay 'Praise of Shadows' in 1933.
South African artist and activist Marcus Neustetter has taken the quote to heart as shadows play a leading role in his artwork 'Shadow Scapes'.
It’s no coincidence that these shadows can be seen on the facade of the Maritime Museum. Neustetter researched the museum’s collection, which contains around 400.000 objects relating to Dutch maritime history, and selected a variety of objects. They caught his eye for different reasons: they have interesting, ambiguous, symbolic or recognisable silhouettes, play with scale, serve a mix of purposes (aesthetic and functional) or represent specific stories, perspectives or power relations. Neustetter recreated these objects – among which a ship model, a goblet, pieces of jewellery, a globe and several nautical instruments – as flat silhouettes and placed them around the building. By alternatingly illuminating the silhouettes with multiple lights, the shadows overlap each other in different ways, consequently creating a range of patterns and imaginary landscapes.
You could view this as a map of light and darkness: a shadow scape. Neustetter compares this process to the maps drawn by Dutch settlers and traders who travelled different continents and appropriated entire territories, cities, villages, (art) objects, and even people. Neustetter shows us that tools of exploration and objects that were once taken as souvenirs and are now stored in the dark, can literally be ‘brought to light’ and become the subject of discussion.
'Shadow Scapes' is part of a larger series of work in which Neustetter investigates the way in which light and shadow can provide a certain distribution of power. Consider, for example, the lighting of sculptures of national ‘heroes’ or certain government buildings, while other objects or subjects remain underexposed, both literally and figuratively. To whom does light belong and what are we trying to say with it?
SHADOW SCAPES IS SUPPORTED BY:
Het Scheepvaartmuseum
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