literature

The shadow signifies not only an absence but also a presence. The absence is that of the body, the presence is that of its projection. So writes Victor I. Stoichita (A Short History of the Shadow, 1997) who, along with Michael Baxandall (Shadows and Enlightenment, 2003), reminds us how Pliny the Elder attributed the birth of painting to the moment when man succeeded in tracing the silhouette of a human being. A “negative” birth, so to speak, begotten by man's desire to represent reality.

More interesting still is Plato's proverbial myth of the cave. In The Republic (514-519), Plato imagines a man imprisoned inside a cavern forced to look into its recesses. Projected onto the wall he sees the shadows of objects passing in the external reality, unaware of its existence. The philosopher thus establishes different levels of consciousness, distinguishing between the reality of sensible things and their semblance in the form of shadow.

Shadow declares a presence but does not replace it.

Shadow plays a fundamental role in Marco Campanini's photographs. Hegel claims that the presence of both light and shadow are necessary, and attributes the difference between them to the sensible reality of things, since in absolute darkness, just as in absolute light, nothing can be seen. In Campanini's case, however, the question to ask oneself is: “Which shadow?”

The answer would clarify a second question of equal importance: “Which reality?” Technically speaking, Marco Campanini's pictures are reproductions of reproductions, i.e. photographs of volumes and publications depicting ancient artwork, paintings, or etchings.

So where can we find true reality? In the original ancient artwork, on the page on which it was published, in the photographic image we see before us? But, in essence, is not the original artwork first of all an ideal representation of reality that conforms to the aesthetic cannons of the XVIII century?

Therefore, to which time and space do the photographs we behold today refer? Perhaps the solution to all these questions is not to ask them at all. Whatever it is that we are seeking, assuming it ever existed at all, can be considered lost, extinct. Or maybe it belongs to the world of the unconscious, something that seems at the same time both familiar and alien - “disturbing”, as Freud might say.

The work stands as a consubstantial and metalinguistic conglomerate in which multiple identities of different origin blend to become a single whole. Indeed, it is here, in its dual ability to communicate with the present whilst keeping alive the spirit of the past that the work comes to life before our eyes. Shadows brought in from the outside lengthen across the scene alternating with shards of light of various intensity. The plane of focus meets an undulating surface to create unexpected blurring effects. The eye is constantly drawn towards a peripheral view.

Campanini's works thrive on this perennial rippling, balancing between the interior and the exterior, the distant and the near, inside and outside time. They oscillate, first giving then taking, without continuity. Succumbing to a sensation somewhere between the wonder of a revelation and the inebriation of a castaway, one senses that a process of consciousness is triggered which transcends sensible reality and passes through the perception of a continuous alternation and difference.

Alfredo Sigolo