Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Moto Waganari’s Wireframe Sculptures Cast Spectacular Shadows

Over the years, we've featured many artists whose works count light as their material of choice, from Kumi Yamashita's origami inspired shadow art pieces, Anila Quayyum's intricate installations, and David Begbie’s steel mesh sculptures- and today we add German artist Moto Waganari to that list. Waganari's (whose real name is Lutz Wagner) filigree polygon sculptures are already compelling, but when you shine a bright light on them from the right angle, they cast spirited and dramatic shadows that bring them to life.

Over the years, we’ve featured many artists whose works count light as their material of choice, from Kumi Yamashita’s origami inspired shadow art pieces, Anila Quayyum’s intricate installations, and David Begbie’s steel mesh sculptures- and today we add German artist Moto Waganari to that list. Waganari’s (whose real name is Lutz Wagner) filigree polygon sculptures are already compelling, but when you shine a bright light on them from the right angle, they cast spirited and dramatic shadows that bring them to life. Using a 3D printer to create a network of wires, he combined technology with inspiration, crafting delicate, surreal shapes and forms that play off light and darkness. “I wanted to create something that never existed before. Something that will amaze us because it is not feasible by human hands,” he says. His installations depict groups of figures that seem to defy gravity as they tumble into a free fall and scale walls like dancers, while hybrid bird and rabbit characters take us to a darker, even nightmarish world. Depending on the direction of light and amount of illumination, their shadows take on various forms, growing or shrinking as one moves around each piece, and challenging our perception of space. Waganari’s website also allows visitors to experience his work in virtual reality, a project he calls “Real Virtuality”, where you can manipulate them and discover them from different perspectives.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
Hsu Tung Han’s wooden sculptures carry embellishments that resemble digital distortion. His “pixelated” figures weave contemporary and age-old artistic sensibilities. The Taiwanese artist stacks blocks of wood, whether it’s Walnut or African wax wood, and then crafts those pieces into surreal creations.
Combining his own creativity and digital techniques, Dutch artist Bert Simons makes incredibly lifelike sculptures of the people around him out of paper. His paper portraits share an uncanny resemblance, and as the technology has improved over the years, so has the quality of the Rotterdam-based artist's works. Each portrait first begins with outlining his subject in little black dots (a "dot per dot" reference method) that are then scanned into the open source cad program Bender to create a "map" of the face, to which he applies color and texture. Simons then prints a flat rendering that is like a little work of art in its own right, a mask that he painstakingly cuts and glues back together again into the pieces you see here.
Emmanuelle Moureaux, known for her massive installations using numerals and letters as building blocks, recently crafted a new major work for the 100th anniversary of the Calpis brand. "Universe of Words" at 3331 Arts Chiyoda is the latest in the "100 Colors" series from the artist. Moureaux was last featured on our site here. Photos of this installation are by Daisuke Shima.
Sebastian Martorana uses salvaged marble to craft seemingly soft objects and characters. Works like "Homeland Security Blanket" and "Permanent Separation Anxiety" (above) show how the artist is able to use the dissonance between the object and the material to comment on contemporary issues. Whether it’s towels, teddy bears, or costumed characters, the artist’s mastery of the material creates a deceptive output of creations.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List