Realm of Free Spirits : Cal State Northridge is displaying 102 costumed puppets from around the world at the Art Annex.

Throughout the ages, people have turned to puppets to express what they have been unwilling or unable to say and do on their own. For in the realm of puppetry, nothing is off limits.

A statement that accompanies the Cal State Northridge Art Galleries’ current exhibit, “The World of Puppets,” aptly conveys the free-spirited nature of this performance art: “The puppet is free from human limitations: It can throw itself to the ground in a way no human actor or dancer could do. It can speak the unspeakable and deal with taboos, deal with all our dark sides; it can portray an ideal or emotions which cannot be expressed in any other way. . . .”

One can readily imagine what the 102 puppets from almost 25 countries on display in the campus’ Art Annex have said in their “lifetimes.” Although they are inanimate here, their expressive faces, vivid, authentic costumes and the careful way they are positioned on puppet-size stages richly evoke the joys of their performances.

Puppets on display date from the early 20th Century to the present, and almost all are from the collection of puppeteer Alan Cook of Altadena. There are string puppets, also known as marionettes, that are operated from above; hand puppets, rod puppets or a combination of the two, that are controlled from below; and shadow puppets--flat puppets illuminated from the back, creating a shadow.

Cook started collecting puppets shortly before his fifth birthday. He has been doing puppet exhibits since the 1950s and has more than 2,000 puppets in his collection. Indeed, an ongoing exhibit at Palos Verdes Art Center features some of Cook’s puppets.

“This is as educational as anything gets. This was multicultural before it was fashionable,” Cook said, pointing to his cornucopia of small, colorful figures.

He took his first class in puppetry when he was in the second grade. According to Cook, “Puppetry gives you the impetus to learn math, English, art, a foreign language. It is a way of making the language interesting.

“I was also interested in animation when I was little--things moving. You can learn a lot from animals--how they move. You can use it in puppetry.”

Puppets are also “a way of reminding us of history,” Cook said, showing off one from Japan that once helped keep a local Japanese family in touch with its Japanese culture. They had to store it in a garage during World War II. Puppets, Cook believes, can fulfill the “need to emphasize and share good things when things are bad.”

Among others from Cook’s collection, a “Pink Poodle Ballerina” is the creation of widely known American puppeteer Frank Paris. Another puppet-maker, Don Cordry, was an American who lived in Mexico but made the Russian puppets “Smirnov,” “Elena Popova” and the “Maid”--characters from a Chekhov play--in 1929. Also on display are puppets from a Mexican puppet theater company, which date from the 1930s to the 1960s.

The exhibit was organized by Phil Morrison, a CSUN professor of art history and a puppeteer. He attended his first puppet show when he was 7, and he’s been fascinated with puppets since.

“There was a little theater in someone’s garage,” Morrison said. “It was before TV. I had never seen any live entertainment. The next summer, the fellow who did the puppet show taught kids how to build marionettes.”

Morrison attended that class and started performing with puppets while still in elementary school. He designed CSUN’s first puppet program, which he taught for four years. One of the puppets he has made, a clown, is in the exhibit.

“Puppets are an exaggeration of a feature or a character,” Morrison said. “They are very small, very intimate. They need to be seen up close. With puppet shows and performances, there are always wonderful things that will happen.”

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Where and When

What: “The World of Puppets.”

Location: CSUN Art Annex 116, near Nordhoff Street and Etiwanda Avenue, Northridge.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday. Open through Thursday and Jan. 3 to 13. Closed Dec. 23 to Jan. 2.

Call: (818) 885-2226.

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Also: “International Puppetry: The California Connection, Puppets from the Alan Cook Collection.”

Location: Palos Verdes Art Center, 5504 W. Crestridge Road, Rancho Palos Verdes.

Hours: 1 to 4 p.m. Monday to Saturday. Ends Dec. 31.

Call: (310) 541-2479.