LOS ANGELES — Since its first publication 140 years ago, The Adventures of Pinocchio became an international bestseller, captivating generations of children and adults around the world. The whimsical story of a wooden puppet who dreams of becoming a real boy has been translated into 260 languages, making it the most translated book after the Bible and that of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry The little Prince (1943). Written by Italian author Carlo Collodi, it was originally published as a weekly serial titled The story of a puppet (The story of a burattino) in a children’s magazine. Since 2019, no less than four film versions have been released, including that of Disney preventable 2022 remake and Guillermo del Toro critically acclaimed adaptation.
Now, an LA museum dedicated to Italian-American culture is taking another chance with Pinocchio. A Real Boy: The Many Lives of Pinocchio at the Italian American Museum of Los Angeles (IAMLA) examines the character’s legacy and enduring appeal – from its origins as an Italian children’s fairy tale to its growth into a global cultural phenomenon – through toys, books, costumes, drawings and, of course, puppets.
For many, the show is an introduction to the relatively unknown museum, a hidden gem in downtown Los Angeles. According to a representative, tens of thousands of people visited a real boy since its opening last November.
“This exhibition was our most popular to date. We brought in people who had never heard of the museum before,” said executive director and co-founder Marianna Gatto. Hyperallergic. “This exhibition opened the floodgates.”
IAMLA opened in 2016 with a mission to showcase the history and culture of Italian Americans and Italians in the western United States, and specifically in Los Angeles. Through its collection of 6,000 objects – including material culture from early Italian-American life, Lady Gaga’s Versace dress, a Jacuzzi water pump, and Tommy Lasorda’s swimsuit – the museum’s permanent exhibit showcases the journey of Italian Americans from the first waves of explorers and immigrants to notable figures who left their mark on American culture.
LA is not the first American city that comes to mind when talking about Italian immigrants, eclipsed by New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. But the LA metro area is home to half a million Italian Americans, the fifth-largest such community in the country. The city’s cultural history is filled with notable figures of Italian descent, including author John Fante; artist Simon Rodia, who created the iconic Watts Towers; and Sister Karen Boccalero, a nun who co-founded the longtime community arts space Self-Help Graphics in 1970 — not to mention prominent Italian-Americans in Hollywood.
Gatto, a native of Angelena and a descendant of Italian immigrants, noticed this lack of visibility early on. “Growing up in LA, there’s a great story here, but there weren’t a lot of resources that talked about it,” she said.
As a student, Gatto first encountered the historic building that now houses the museum, the former Italian Hall, a community space built in 1908 in what was Los Angeles’ Little Italy.
“It struck a chord with me. I wanted to see it as a museum,” she recalls. The push to found IAMLA began in 1988 with fundraising for the restoration of the building, which had fallen into disrepair and There was also backlash from groups who felt that the creation of an Italian-American museum would have a negative impact on El Pueblo de Los Ángeles, the historic center of the original Spanish city of Los Angeles, which includes several structures with historical significance to the city’s Spanish and Mexican past.Currently, there is little evidence of this conflict – apart from an exhibit as part of the museum permanent exhibition — while the Italian American Museum fits seamlessly into the larger El Pueblo, layered palimpsests of the city’s intertwined histories. Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros painted his 1932 mural “tropical americaon the exterior wall of the Italian American Hall, where it still stands, visible from an observation deck across El Pueblo.
a real boy, on view through June, begins with the original Collodi story – a much darker and more gruesome fable than Disney’s 1940 animated film, through which many Americans were introduced to the tale. In this version, closer to a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Pinocchio is tortured and abused throughout, his feet are burned, and he is hanged from a tree by a malevolent fox and cat in a moral parable with biblical overtones. , of the Prodigal Son of Jonah and the Whale.
The exhibit branches out to explore how the story has since evolved. The show’s biggest lender was naturally the Collodi Foundation in Florence; however, several objects reveal ties to Los Angeles. The two first-edition copies of Pinocchio on display – in English and Italian – were from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Special Collections, while a nearby Pinocchio puppet was made for Disney by beloved Los Angeles puppeteer and puppet maker Bob Baker in 2000. Animated cels from the original Disney film are also on view.
In January, the museum hosted a puppeteer show from the Bob Baker Marionette Theater in conjunction with the exhibit. “We were thrilled to see 200 kids, a generation that grew up with devices, fixated on this age-old art form,” Gatto said.
The third and final room explores Pinocchio’s legacy in the broader spheres of art and culture, from art and design to music and film. Along with artifacts and artwork from France, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union, this gallery features Oscar-nominated costumes designed by Massimo Cantini Parrini of Film Pinocchio in Italian by Matteo Garrone in 2019which “tried to capture the extreme poverty of the original story,” Gatto says.
“Why do people around the world, generations later, still find such relevance in history?” Catto thinks. “Pinocchio is a story of redemption, of our evolution and growth as humans, as we try to become more moral beings.”
