In his words, “Finding a way to have people’s issues stand on their own terms without there being a dead end,” describes a multi-media art show titled: Systems Appearances Dogma Taboo. Stylized, titled and intellectually explored by a man named Francis Palazzolo, who was also esteemed as my mentor at HAI.
Unfortunately, the show—a solo exhibit at the Proposition Gallery—is no longer on display, but a conversation with the artist and a humble self-published ‘zine were all I needed to be a part of the experience.
Francis or “Frank” as I like to call him, has been working in the arts as a student, a master, a teacher, director, curator and filmmaker for over two decades. And with such experience handles his various hats with an acute specificity and charm. He challenges authority systematically as would a thug, while smirking behind his lens as the quintessential philosopher.
I got an opportunity to catch up with Frank way downtown in of all places, Starbucks. He smiles and dresses appropriately very eager to share. We had a discussion of the work that went almost entirely over my head, but later, as I began to read the art and commentary, some elements began to clear up for me.
Take the simple concept of an elf. It embodies myth, which is unreal, and yet it has a likeness that appears real. It is true and yet false. And in the word “elf” itself, it can stand in between True & False: truELFalse. This goes to show that there can exist, “competing (philosophies) without a loss of integrity.”
Frank goes beyond reason to speculate the merits of a major motion picture, ELF starring Will Ferrell and out-rightly scoffs at the advertising image of the poster while simultaneously being inspired by it. He says it is “creating a new lens to look at things.”
Mr. Palazzolo has gained a notable quantity of ridicule, confusion as well as other insightful nods. His better reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker as well as The Daily News. He challenges copyright law and the first amendment. It got so intense that New Line Cinema threatened to take legal action against him. They insisted that Palazzolo “cease and desist” from “infringing and exploiting” their image of Ferrell. However, they were too late and Palazzolo had already made his point.
And what is his point? That there is an “unsettled controversy about the relationship between signs and things. Bluntly, the art shows philosophy in action…”
Frank has been working at HAI since 1993 as a Senior Artistic Consultant, then Curator and has worked the last two years as Director of the Art Studio. He oversees, critiques and educates a large group of artists who have been diagnosed with an Axis I mental illness. When asked how he responds to his own internal stimuli, Frank says, “I’ve seen the abyss—I’ve been there—but I’ve always got a tether pulling me back.” And this must have been the result of his having been so grounded. Yet he claims that, “…the artwork exposes my nutty adolescent fear, and coping skill for dealing with life and death.”
He merges elves, selves, extraterrestrials and figments of literary and original imagination. Palazzolo’s world is colorful and complex. Leaving the viewer to question, “What is real?” And as “real” as he gets is a 30 inch by 24 inch piece titled “Plucked but Not Eaten.” Which he says gets to the “heart of the matter.” It represents hundreds of cherries detached from their stems. He debates the analytic theory that “…metaphors are the very stuff with which human beings make sense of the universe” with the continental idea that “metaphor…is another word for non-identity.”
This leaves me with the difficulty of summarizing. And so instead, I will pose to you the question, “Is what you see what you get?”