Page 130 - Decadence

ARNAUD NAZARE-AGA
the book’s author, WWII pilot Antoine de Saint- Exupéry, and even own together with him on the legendary Breguet XIV airplane at the beginning of the 20th century. Thereafter taking the task to heart, he decided it was his duty to faithfully reproduce exactly what Saint-Exupéry wished to express when he had written this semi-autobiographical novella.
“One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes,” said the fox to the Little Prince. It is perhaps this quote from The Little Prince – this pocket-sized book of poetic and philosophical signi cance with timeless planetary appeal (credited as the most widely-known French literary work) written in 1943, which has become one of the best-selling books in the history of literature, translated into more than 270 languages and dialects– that best summarizes Arnaud Nazare- Aga’s latest art project where sculptures have been made “visible” to the blind. Through the sense of touch they are able to “see” his artworks in a kind of induction to the world of art and all the emotions that experiencing art brings.
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The story began in 2013 when fate came knocking on Nazare-Aga’s door. Nicolas Delsalle, secretary-general of the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Youth Foundation, turned up at the artist’s studio and subsequently asked him to create sculptures as part of a pioneering project of making the watercolor illustrations in The Little Prince accessible to the blind in a world rst, nally bringing them to life in tactile three-dimensional form. It may have been one of the rst books Nazare-Aga had read as a child, but he was unsure whether he should accept the commission. The answer became clear when his father serendipitously revealed to him that his grandfather, Djibrail Nazare-Aga, had known