Francis Palazzolo is an artist who and disrupts and mitigates the many problems of polarization. His artwork is trained on methods for generating in-between-ness, bridging divides, altering oppresive patterns and creating social change. This has been his thesis for more than thirty years. His artwork spans being an activist with adults confronting social marginalization to working with light waves as art.
To highlight Palazzolo’s oeuvre, below is a selection of sketches and links to the artwork on this site. Currently, Palazzolo, as artist-in-residence, is co-creating interdependent portraits with adults at five transitional housing facilities in the Bronx. Together they are decentering agency to reduce the exclusive and discriminating systems of power and knowledge. Palazzolo has continued to work in-person throughout the pandemic. Select portraits from this series, in transitions, are on display at the New-York Historical Society Museum from December 2021 to April 2022. To complement his residency, Palazzolo founded being neighborly in 2016. This network of public and private institutions expands his ability to organize educational workshops and art exhibitions for adults experiencing social marginalization.
In logiCritic, a large body of multimedia work, Palazzolo subverted the systems, appearances, dogma, and taboos that obscure the horizon of the middle way. From movies and literature, to math and metaphor, to illegal acts and property rights, the sprawling series unhinges categorical distinctions, theoretical bonds and cultural norms. This artwork was on display in a solo exhibit at the Proposition Gallery, and group shows at Deitch Projects and Exit Art. Reviews of note appeared in ArtForum and the New York Times.
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