He studied painting at the National School of Fine Arts (1975-1977). He then traveled through South America and worked as a merchant sailor. In 1994, while living in Italy, he created the PPPP Project: “Productos Peruanos Para Pensar” (‘Peruvian Projects made to Think’), an art company where different aspects of the artist’s personality converge. PPPP is formed by the extensive performative work of Alberto Casari and his alter egos: Alfredo Covarrubias (poet and conceptual artist), Aquiles Córdova Inciso a.k.a. “El Místico” and Arturo Kobayashi (both painters), and finally Patrick van Host, a Dutch historian and scholarly critic of PPPP’s work.
Using heteronyms, he questions the obsession with the signature as the artist’s hallmark and the fetishism centered on it. He has shown in more than 40 exhibitions in Latin America and Europe, including the Venice Biennale (2011), the Sao Paulo Biennial (2012), and the Lima Ibero-American Biennial (1997).