Introduction

The title of the show Pinocchio Pipenose Householddilemma refers to a group of different elements:

– a performance

– a video

– a set of Pinocchio masks and costumes used by the artist in the performance

The same masks and costumes will be at the disposal of the visitors of the show who will have to wear them to watch the video. 

Since the beginning of his career in the seventies, Paul McCarthy has used in his performances a wide range of objects and images connected to the world of childhood: dolls, cartoon characters, dismembered puppets and toys.

Paul McCarthy employs the sterile aesthetic of cartoon by deeply altering its meaning. In "Pinocchio..." the artist wears the mask and plays the role of the puppet to reveal with his altered behaviour the traumas imposed by cultural conditioning in a capitalist society, the repression of the instincts and the violence manifested through male authority.

Paul McCarthy was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1943. He lives and works in Los Angeles.