Palma Exhibition Fails to Make Cohesive Statement

One glance at the current display of the photographs at the Art Institute of Boston reveals a decided inconsistency; it is as if the exhibition is shared by two different photographers, with different styles and approaches to conveying emotion in a photograph, rather than being the work of just one artist: Guatemalan Luis Gonzáles Palma.

The exhibition, “Hierarchies of Intimacy,” will run through October 25. “Intimacy” is presented as one cohesive collection, but is actually divided between small, sepia-toned images and much larger color digital prints. The Kodalite photographs of the former category, mounted on peeled gold leaf on top of bright red paper, exude a sense of intimacy. In contrast, Palma’s digital photographs feel artificial. The surrealist elements Palma is known for including in his art are integrated well in the Kodalite images, so they do not seem out of place, despite the fact that they are obviously fantastic. The content of the digital photographs, however, seems computer-generated in comparison. As a consequence, Palma’s choice to juxtapose the two dichotomous forms makes for a collection that lacks focus.

Palma’s cracked sepia photographs, taken from 2003-2004, evoke antiques recently discovered in a dusty attic. With their appearance of maturity, they recall a time before image-altering software could modify the color, shadow, and even content of a photograph, creating a sense of legitimacy despite the bizarre elements of Palma’s pieces; thus, the floating hands and impossible physics of these photos seem well-integrated into the images.

Palma’s use of illusion has an eerie, shocking effect. In “Coagulated love,” a young woman appears contemplative as she stands with her head down, back to the viewer; a severed hand grasps her shoulder, as if it is pressing her into that bowed position. At the entryway of the gallery, Palma states that one of his objectives is to “give a body to ghosts that govern personal relationships.” In this piece, he exemplifies that artistic mission. Though Palma has only depicted an interaction between a hand and the woman, he infuses the photograph with a tension, the implication of an unseen force behind the relationship and an invisible person attached to the hand.

Other photographs may not employ surrealism, but still prove evocative; one example, “The light in his eye,” trembles with loneliness. Two empty chairs face each other on a wooden porch, their seemingly hand-stitched seats insinuating that modern society has lost face-to-face communication. The chairs appear to be expecting company or a conversation, but people are nowhere to be seen. This pervasive loneliness lends depth to the photograph and others like it, rendering them poignant yet haunting.

People make rare appearances in Palma’s works, but when they do, they often offer the most striking portrayals of hopelessness and loneliness. In the diptych, “The shadows of his youth,” a young man sits at the head of a table, looking solemnly past the viewer. Across the table and physically in the other panel is a blackened human skull donning a birthday party hat. The protagonist’s body, half masked by shadow, seems to refer to the title of the piece; despite the time that has passed, symbolized by the gap between the two panels of the diptych, the man cannot escape the “shadows of his youth.”

The contrasting ability of Palma’s earlier and more recent works to convey genuine depth becomes most obvious for those pieces that have similar content, despite being produced at separate times. As in “Coagulated love,” “Variation #2,” a digital photograph, features a hand ominously placed on a woman’s shoulder. However, the composition also includes a man watching the woman from stairs behind her. The attractive models fitted in elegant clothing, the ostentatious chandelier, the immenseness of the print itself, and the light, which illuminates the hallway without reaching the figures, feels superficial and excessive. By abandoning the subtlety of his earlier works, Palma sacrifices the quality of verisimilitude that made his older pieces seem so genuine.

Similarly, in “Variation #1,” two chairs face each other, but in this photograph, they sit on a stage. With this setting, the viewer does not feel as if she is intruding on an intimate moment or stumbling into an abandoned room occupied by the subjects, animate or inanimate, of the photograph. Instead, like a bad actor, these more recent images fail to give a convincing performance, and this apparent falseness also keeps Palma’s intended deeper meaning from captivating the viewer. In these digital photographs, any arms that protrude from a wall or hands that float in reverential pose do not evoke Palma’s “ghosts,” but rather, resemble cheap props.

Though Palma attempts to capture and project the emotion of his earlier works on the larger and more modern medium of digital print, he fails to transfer that same intensity. His earlier works are less grand, yet they are ultimately more moving.