del Toro's Pinocchio at MOMA NY
/In February while I was attending the College Arts Association’s national convention in midtown NY, I was able to catch Guillermo del Toro Crafting Pinocchio, MOMA’s stunning display of puppets, sets, and other production materials from del Toro’s stop-motion film. After a short intro, the exhibit began with a room of character models, video clips, and concept art. It continued with several galleries containing the actual stop-motion sets used in the film with videos of the sets in use, and other production materials. On a lower floor, there was a gallery dedicated to film scoring and some key models. The exhibit concluded with a screening room featuring posters and art from all of del Toro’s films and film clips organized around themes that reoccur in his work.
My photos don’t really do justice to the scale and detail of this exhibit, but here’s a taste. The copy that follows is a description from MOMA’s website: “No art form has influenced my life and my work more than animation and no single character in history has had as deep of a personal connection to me as Pinocchio,” the acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro has said. Guillermo del Toro: Crafting Pinocchio, an exhibition uniquely organized during the production of a feature film, focuses on Del Toro’s first stop-motion animated feature—an innovative reinterpretation of Carlo Collodi’s 1883 children’s novel, now set in Fascist-era Italy. In this exhibition, which coincides with the film’s premiere, visitors will experience being on a movie set and see first-hand how an international team of designers, craftspeople, and animation artists in Portland, Oregon, Guadalajara, Mexico, and Altrincham, England worked collaboratively to realize Del Toro’s vision.
Opening with classic and contemporary editions and interpretations of Pinocchio from around the world, the exhibition also includes production art, props, and a look at the various phases of puppet-making. Working film sets from Del Toro’s movie, motion tests, and time-lapse video installations document the complex stop-motion process that brings the story’s characters to life. The exhibition concludes with an immersive installation that brings together newly commissioned video and posters from Del Toro’s filmography, including works such as The Devil’s Backbone (2001), Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Pacific Rim (2013), The Shape of Water (2017), and Nightmare Alley (2021).”
