I wrote the exhibition essay for Neeko Paluzzi's The little prince, an exhibition at the Karsh-Masson Gallery at Ottawa City Hall from February 25, 2021 to April 11, 2021. In spite of the disruptions caused by the pandemic, it was a pleasure to be involved and to see the exhibition installed. The text of the essay was only available as a didactic on a wall in the gallery, so I am reproducing it here in full:
Constellations.
Neeko Paluzzi, Homunculus (detail), 2019, pigment ink on cotton rag
It is always entertaining and illuminating to hear Neeko Paluzzi talk about his artwork. His technically rigorous approach to making art is matched by an intellectual curiosity that drives its production. He is usually either in the finishing stages of an ambitious project or embarking on a new one. The artist imbues each project with great significance through copious research and reference materials. At first, his work can appear abstract and seem to transmit minimal information. However, the work remains sufficiently open to interpretation for viewers to connect with it in their own way.
For example, when I met him to talk about the work displayed in his exhibition The little prince, he noticed that my notebook had a constellation of stars on its cover. It was a happy coincidence that this image should relate to the content of the exhibition, which explores outer spaces, both real and imagined. Later in our conversation, Paluzzi mentioned that he is from the small town of Turkey Point, Ontario. I remembered seeing old photographs of my Dad’s family spending their summer vacations there, years ago. Auspicious coincidences like these can accrue around a work of art and lend it a patina of significance.
If such coincidences or associations are given any weight, they can form a constellation of ideas that provide a framework for interpreting an exhibition. With his exhibition at the Karsh-Masson Gallery, Paluzzi refers to the children’s book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The book mourns the loss of imagination that often occurs when a child grows into adulthood. Tellingly, the book is dedicated not to the grown-up dedicatee but to the child from whom he grew. Viewers who have read the book will be able to bring their own recollections of it to bear on their visit to the gallery.
Neeko Paluzzi, The view from my bedroom (left) | The little prince, 2020 (right)
Even those unfamiliar with the book will surely notice the atmosphere of nostalgia and references to childhood that permeate the exhibition. One image shows the artist as a little kid, dreaming of becoming an astronaut, his face peeking out of a photo stand-in spacesuit. The body of work on view was actually inspired by a visit to Paluzzi’s childhood home. He describes the experience of sleeping in his old bedroom, represented by an enlarged photograph in the exhibition: “Once the feelings of nostalgia faded, thoughts entered my mind about failing to become who I wanted to be.” However, the work in the exhibition does not simply capture this notion of realizing your limitations as you age. It is also very much about addressing these limitations and overcoming them through imagination and art. Paluzzi may not have grown up to be an astronaut, but through his art he can project himself, and his audience, into outer space.
At the centre of the exhibition is a series of images directly inspired by the narrative of The Little Prince. Seven dioramic images of seven sculpted figures on seven little planets/asteroids roughly correspond to the characters in the book: the king, the flower, the snake, etc. (These images have also been prepared to be seen through a View-Master, another item that Paluzzi associates with his childhood.) It is not easily discernible that many of the figures in the images are actually 3D printed miniatures of Paluzzi’s body. With these images, Paluzzi exploits the characteristics of photography to lend a real existence to the subjects depicted. 3D printing also enables Paluzzi to underscore the sculptural qualities of photography. In this vein, the artist brings the lunar surface within reach by hanging, on the back wall of the gallery, a series of 3D etched wood sculptures that replicate photographic images taken of the Moon in 1968.
It might appear that the strength of Paluzzi’s practice lies in the one-to-one relationship he sets up between his artworks and what they depict. However, the looser associations are what allow for greater communication. For example, in a related body of work Harmony of the spheres (2020), Paluzzi created a series of tone photos based on Johannes Kepler’s Harmonices Mundi, published in 1619. This text actually notates the music of the spheres, an ancient concept according to which the planets move in harmony, and assigns musical scales to each of the six known planets, as well as the Moon. Following a method that he developed for previous projects, Paluzzi uses darkroom equipment to create photographic prints in which tones of gray are directly associated with musical tones. Each of the seven prints in the series has a different tone of gray. These seven tones correspond to the chords of Kepler’s planets, which Paluzzi associates in number with the celestial bodies visited by the Little Prince. How far the viewer is willing to go along with the connections suggested by Paluzzi may depend on how deeply they accept the moral of Saint-Exupéry’s story: “It is only with the heart that one can truly see. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Replete with well-known and obscure references, as well as suffused with a relatable personal history, Paluzzi’s exhibition gives the viewer multiple entry points. Correspondingly, Paluzzi has produced the image of his childhood bedroom so that the window by his bed is a blank screen upon which viewers can project. You can imagine looking out the window and daydreaming of what lies beyond, be it Turkey Point or some more distant realm. Though Paluzzi has focused on his failure to realize a childhood dream, he has also transcended limits with imagination.
