Kumi and her shadow
A Dali House reader who happens to make some very cool boots marched in here via an email after seeing my write-up on Peter Callesen, Denmark’s answer to Edward Scissorhands (my post here and Callesen’s website here).
If I like that, she said, I’ll love Kumi Yamashita, and sure enough, this 40-year-old artist’s website is filled with startling inventions. Heading off on a tangent from the Dane, she focuses on the shadows that manipulated paper and metal can be made to cast.
With the right lighting, a seemingly meaningless frill hanging on a wall produces an ethereal pair of lovers, an exclamation mark throws the shadow of a question mark, and a field of ostensibly random objects turns out to be a strolling human torso. There are also some compelling traditional portraits — but the tones are formed from written words or, in the case of 1996’s “Someone Else’s Mess”, the prints of military boots.
The piece that I’m sure everyone is most enamoured of is “Dialogue” from 1999. Yamashita fixed 60 cut-outs of a human head in profile on a rotating spindle. The shadow forms two heads, back to back, whose lips seem to be moving. It’s fascinating enough to warrant a video on YouTube.
The website’s nicely designed in itself but doesn’t really do her creations justice because the images are on the small side and not always clear. But you certainly find yourself smiling at the cleverness in the samples offered from every year since 1993. I’d love to see one of her shows or, better yet, get a version of “Dialogue” of my own.
