TIM BURTON EXHIBITION AT MOMA
TAKING INSPIRATION FROM SOURCES IN POP CULTURE, TIM BURTON HAS REINVENTED HOLLYWOOD GENRE FILMMAKING AS A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE, INFLUENCING A GENERATION OF YOUNG ARTISTS WORKING IN FILM, VIDEO AND GRAPHICS.
America’s premier modern art gallery, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, is hosting an exhibition of 700 drawings, paintings and sculptures and other paraphernalia – with pieces dating back to early childhood drawings- all by Burton. Following the current of his visual imagination right through to his latest work, the exhibition presents artwork generated during the conception and production of his films, his earliest non-professional films and student art.
In addition Burton’s entire cinematic oeuvre of 14 feature films will screen over the course of the five-month exhibition in the Museum’s Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters: Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Ed Wood (1994), Mars Attacks! (1996), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Planet of the Apes (2001), Big Fish (2003), Corpse Bride (2005), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and Sweeney Todd (2007). His early short films Vincent (1982) and Frankenweenie (1984) will also be screened.
The exhibition will be at MoMA, New York from November 22, 2009 – April 26, 2010.
Burton is an acclaimed filmmaker, attending the California Institute of the Art. He was quickly drafted in to join the Disney animation ranks. But Burton was not suited to animation; they made him a conceptual artist. His concept drawings didn’t go down well as they were far too dark and twisted for the standard Disney fare. However, he soon set tow rok on his own projects. His early films were all mildly successful, but it was 1989’s Batman that made industry insiders sit up and take note.
Edward Scissorhands (1990) was the first time Burton had full creative control over a feature film; having written the story and also produced the movie. The film was a hit with filmgoers and critics alike, and, significantly, marked the beginning of Burton being taken seriously as an artist. His darkly surreal vision had returned audiences back to their own childhood vulnerability and in the process, created a modern fairy tale.
He has continued this tradition with stop-motion films The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Corpse Bride (2005), none of which did anything to dispel the image of Burton as a slightly macabre figure. Having once said, “I’ve always been misrepresented. You know, I could dress in a clown costume and laugh with the happy people but they’d still say I’m a dark personality,” he is further than ever from shaking off his ghoulish image, if the title sequence of 2007’s winter blockbuster, Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, is anything to go by.
Burton has also dabbled in poetry. His first ever film, Vincent, was in fact was based on a poem Burton had written himself. The short film tells the sad tale of Vincent Malloy, a suburban child who wants to be just like his idol, Vincent Price. Burton’s illustrated collection of poetry The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories (1997), gave birth to a wide variety of loveably macabre characters, such as ‘Oyster Boy’, a baby born as an oyster because his parents ate one too many of the salty dish and ‘Stain Boy’ whose superpower is to leave behind a filthy stain.
These intriguing characters are sure to be an indication of what to expect from Burton’s artworks, with curators already hailing him ‘the next Warhol.’ Deserved praise? We think so.
Words Almaz Ohene
