Tim Burton’s Crazy Spills Out @ the MoMA

…and we love it.

Tuesday morning the MoMA unveiled to an eager international press its highly anticipated Tim Burton exhibition.

Years in the making, MoMA staff were given essentially free rein into Tim Burton’s home (Burton is a dedicated archivist of his own work), in order to compile pieces for the show. They were also given broad access to the Disney archives. The Walt Disney Company, as we know, has been largely involved in Burton’s work from the start.

The exhibit houses well over 700 individual pieces, comprised of Polaroids, sketches, paintings, video, and sculpture. While the most recognizable are images related to his 14 feature films, there are also works on display from his two years at the California Institute of the Arts (also founded by Disney) and his years as an animator for Disney. If that weren’t enough, Burton was also commissioned to create seven new sculpture/installation pieces specifically for the exhibit.

Whatever you may think of Tim Burton’s films, the works on display are truly remarkable. Very few living artists are willing to exposure the inner workings of both their professional and private lives. Arranged loosely in chronological order, it is fascinating to see the hatchlings of what have become the film-maker’s central themes and style. In the 1980 sketch Untitled (Trick or Treat), depicting a man with garden shears for hands and the caption “The Gardener: Replaces Missing Hand with Various Garden Utensils”, we find what is most likely the birth of “Edward Scissorhands.” Sketches of toys that harbor hidden weapons spawn what will eventually be the demented toys from a “Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas.” From the earliest doodlings to his most recent creations, the images are purely Burtonesque.

The exhibit also serves as a walk down memory lane for those who follow Burton’s cinematic progress–from “Beetlejuice” to “Sweeney Todd.” Viewers can see side-by-side sketches of costumes from “Batman Returns” — including Catwoman and the Penguin — only to realize that what was put on paper was recreated perfectly in the physical. Set sketches for “Planet of the Apes” make one wonder why a film that was commercially successful received such critical reproach.

The most exciting part of the day by far was the appearance of the man himself. While the audience may have hoped Mr. Burton would lecture on his awesomeness, the artists remarks were disappointingly brief. A well-known eccentric–Burton himself admits that interacting with others is hard for him– stayed true to form. After he expressed a series of stuttering but heartfelt “thank yous” he quickly retreated to his seat. To do otherwise would perhaps ruin the myth.

Sponsored primarily by the newly revamped SyFy Channel and organized by MoMA Assistant Film Curator, Ron Magliozzi, the exhibit is a must see event for every cinema lover. The exhibit runs until April, with a rotating retrospective of all 14 of Burton’s feature films including “The Lurid Beauty of Monsters” — a film series of little-known and rarely-screened works which have entertained and inspired Burton since childhood.

While it is certain that there will be many more Tim Burton films and plenty of exhibits dedicated to the man and his art, this is definitely one of the first and most comprehensive. Not every visionary can transform a movie into art. In this exhibit Burton restores our faith that modern art is not dead, but alive and thriving in the ever-evolving medium of motion pictures.

http://moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/313

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