Steidlville

“Thanks to Carlo Collodi, the real creator of Pinocchio, I have for many years been able to live through the wooden boy. His ability to hold the metaphor in limitless ways has made my drawings, paintings and sculpture of him richer by far. His poor burned feet, his misguided judgment, his vanity about his large nose, his temporary donkey ears all add up to the real sum of his parts. In the end it is his great heart that holds me. I have carried him on my back like landscape since I was six years old. 64 years is a long time to get to know someone yet his depth and secrets are endless. This book is for the Boy.” Jim Dine
Pinocchio, the energetic wooden puppet in lederhosen and a pointed hat will no doubt be a character familiar to all. But this is not Disney’s Pinocchio, it is Jim Dine’s. Behind the mask of his wooden boy emerges a figure that is more real, and whose story is more complex than the sentimental fairy tale of the animated film. Pinocchio is a bad boy, a puppet who rebels against his apprenticeship in human life, and although Dine’s Pinocchio may resemble the American cartoon, the same richness and subtlety of character is visible that we encounter in the Italian original.
Recreated by Jim Dine in the form of huge woodcuts and a series of varied lithographs, Pinocchio relives his adventures in a world of color and apparitions, at times dark in mood and at others vibrant with humor. What world could better match Pinocchio’s countless transformations and the allegorical wit of his adventures?
Painter, sculptor, printmaker, performance artist, poet, and photographer, American artist Jim Dine began his artistic career in New York in 1959-1960, when he staged his first “happenings”. Throughout his long career, Dine has used diverse means of expression. Since the 1960s, he has used printmaking, in particular, with unequalled inventiveness and skill. Dine, known for his obsessive repetition of the same subjects, finds that printmaking allows constant reinvention and numerous possible combinations of techniques and formats. Over the last three years, in the Paris atelier of Michael Woolworth, Dine has been working on his latest series of prints, all dedicated to Pinocchio. This album of lithographs and monumental prints makes up one of the most remarkable series of his career, one that brilliantly reflects his legendary virtuosity.