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A shadow theater in which the protagonists are jungle animals is what the Peruvian artist Grimanesa Amorós (Lima, Peru, 1962) features in her site-specific public art project Frente Feroz (Ferocious Front). The artist has transformed an entire floor of the Lee Buiding, located in the mythical Harlem neighborhood into an “urban safari”, a panorama in which foam board shapes of animals come alive and become mobile and threatening shadows through the projection of colored lights. This permanent installation was commissioned by the building´s owner, real-estate developer Eugene Giscombe, who has a passion for exotic and wild animals. Frente Feroz covers twelve windows and can be appreciated from the street at dusk. The work fuses with the ever-vibrant and animated street life characteristic of Harlem, a place that has fascinated Amorós since her teenage days in Peru. The installation consists of foam board silhouettes of elephants, lions, snakes, deer and other animals that seem to float and create moving shadows in the windows; they appear and disappear as part of a lights show controlled and programmed by a computer. The animation of the figures begins at sunset and finishes at sunrise, which makes this a strictly nocturnal experience. Due to its location, Frente Feroz captures the attention of passers-by on the streets of Harlem and commuters on the adjacent MTA Metro North platform. From a sensory point of view, Amorós´s work fluctuates between two opposite poles, that is, between light and shadows, the playful and the terrific, and between present and absent. At the same time, Frente Feroz exemplifies the new direction in which the work of Amorós, who traditionally produces her sculptures and installations in her workshop later to mount them in museums and galleries, is heading. The artist, who has been a New York resident for many years, says she has found in public art projects one of the most direct and immediate channels to communicate with the viewer.
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