Silano's reworking of queer archives enters a darkened space of reflection in his haunting typologies of obscured men, presented as a handmade limited oversized artist's book.

Shadow Cast is the latest handmade, limited edition book by lens-based artist Pacifico Silano. Known for his practice of excavating melancholy, tension, emotion, and friction from vintage gay pornography, Silano continues his exploration of the dark interior of queer identity through this evocative work.

Shadow Cast follows Silano's Aperture-nominated experimental Leporello hardcover I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine, shifting focus to life-size, gritty headshots, obscured beyond recognition through rasterization and printing. Silano's conceptual gestures of reframing comment on marginality, with his subjects literally kept in the shadows, speaking of a mental hidden space pulsing with desire and longing.

Printed entirely on the risograph and laden with ink, this oversized artist's book is corporeal in scale, blowing Silano's Shadows up to life-size crops. Shadows is hand stab-stitched with a thick PVC cover, transforming it into a covetable design object that elevates Silano's ephemeral approach into an experimental publishing gesture. Limited to just 500 signed and numbered copies, Shadow Cast is a testament to Silano's ability to comment on queer identity through a unique and intimate lens.