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This series of cast, assembled, and painted plastic Pinocchio sculptures playfully examines how boyhood toys intersect with definitions of art and commodity. The half Pinocchio forms merge with action figures, model airplanes, and a cup-and-ball game to comprise an uncanny whole, one that is simultaneously familiar and strange. The combination of dissimilar parts appears to “complete” the Pinocchio figure, a doll that is carved out of wood but dreams of becoming “real.” These works, however, subvert the Pinocchio narrative by introducing secondary parts that seem to stall Pinocchio’s transformation into a “real boy.” By casting the sculptures in plastic, yet retaining the Old-World characteristics of Pinocchio’s wooden joints, the work challenges the viewers’ assumptions of and associations with particular media. Pinocchio’s pine body changes into flesh; similarly, the “high art” tradition of sculpture also employs wood, bronze, or marble to become the human figure. The use of plastic challenges these artistic conventions and invites comparisons between unique works of art with commonplace, commercial, and mass-reproduced objects. At once, these works asks what is mature or childlike, odd or ordinary, real or illusory, fine art or merely a toy.
Update - 07/12/11
Poet Ross Donlon sent me the following poem. I met Ross while attending an artist residency program in Ålvik, Norway in the summer of 2011.
You can find out more about Ross Donlon at www.rossdonlon.com
Sculpture Dream
After the sculpture, Model Plane, by Anthony Cervino
A man with white hair is standing with a younger man.
They are police officers at a place in the woods
where, years before, a black man was killed by a police officer.
The young policeman tells his superior,
who stands head down hands in pale suit pockets,
how he has received reports that this was murder.
The black man was somehow breaking the law
along side this tree lined path - a minor infringement -
but an argument ensued, during which he was shot and killed.
The young officer is uneasy. He keeps looking up
to see how this information sits with his colleague
who continues to look at the ground, shoulders hunched.
You feel the older man is near retirement, or maybe something else,
and doesn’t wish to know about the mess that’s likely to follow.
The scene moves to afternoon in a department store.
The two are about to go home early from work
taking the rest of the day off, rather than returning to the office.
The older man smiles a teasing smile as they separate.
See, he seems to be saying, we all break the law when we can.
We are all unethical and immoral now and then.
Then he turns and walks towards the revolving door,
his profile showing only half of his head
which has a jet liner stuck fast in it.
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