Salvador Dalí, Claude Monet, and Andy Warhol are names that are well acquainted with the walls of the Museum of Modern Art, but the museum’s latest retrospective brings a newer face to the crowd—Tim Burton.
While the famous movie director and concept artist for live-action and animated films such as “Beetlejuice,” “Edward Scissorhands,” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas” has had many of his cinematic works screened at the MoMA, the new exhibit features over 600 of his lesser known sketchbooks, drawings, paintings, and photographs. Running through April 26, this is the museum’s biggest-ever exhibition devoted to a filmmaker.
These two-dimensional works are important to Burton’s process as a filmmaker. “That [creation of iconic imagery] comes from something specific,” Burton explained in an interview with Spectator earlier this year. “This is why you carry a little book and just draw sometimes. Rather than writing things down all the time, it’s more helpful to doodle or something—or spark something.”
As one walks through the MoMA’s galleries, etching after etching and sculpture after sculpture show off the one-of-a-kind Burton aesthetic that will be familiar to fans of his films. In the downstairs lobby, visitors can find an array of American and international film posters from Burton’s movies, accompanied by musical compositions chosen for the exhibit by the director’s longtime friend and collaborator Danny Elfman. In the Rockefeller Sculpture Garden lie “Balloon Boy” (a 21-foot-tall balloon with multiple eyes, with no relation to the recent public spectacle) and a deer-shaped topiary—a sculpture born from clipped trees and shrubs—inspired by those made by Johnny Depp as the titular character in “Edward Scissorhands.”
After entering the third floor’s Special Exhibitions Gallery through a giant, three-dimensional monster’s mouth, visitors proceed through a hall decorated floor-to-ceiling with Burton’s signature black-and-white stripes from “Beetlejuice.” Immediately following are three miniature gallery sections that present the artist’s work through the lens of Burbank, California—the city Burton used to call home. “Surviving Burbank” focuses on his film and canvas creations from the ’70s, “Beautifying Burbank” examines his artistic creations while working at the Walt Disney Studios in the early ’80s, and “Beyond Burbank” takes a look at his professional endeavors from the late ’80s until today.
Burton is set apart from the average filmmaker by his imaginative style and his arsenal of modern artistic influences. “This exhibition covers the full range of his creative output, revealing an artist and filmmaker who shares much with his contemporaries in the postmodern generation who have taken their inspiration from pop culture,” Ron Magliozzi, one of MoMA’s assistant curators, said. “He was inspired by newspaper and magazine comics, cartoon animation and children’s literature, toys and television, Japanese monster movies, carnival sideshows and performance art, cinema expressionism and science fiction films alike.”
But the realm of fantasy art isn’t the only place from where Burton’s ideas stem. He has always found the exchange between the imagination and the physical world most fascinating. “That whole question of fantasy versus reality—good fantasy speaks to reality. It speaks to something real in somebody’s life,” Burton said. “That’s why those old stories have been told around the campfire. They have resonance about a human condition or emotion.”
The MoMA presentation includes Burton’s earliest, never before seen works, but the exhibition also displays many of the major influences on his art. The museum’s series, alongside a collection of Burton’s most influential and popular films, is an additional retrospective called “The Lurid Beauty of Monsters.” These films, picked by Burton, not only show the visual influences of his work, but also reflect the themes and sensibilities similar to those in his own cinema.
Roger Corman’s 1961 torture-tale “The Pit and the Pendulum,” Don Chaffey’s 1963 stop-motion “Jason and the Argonauts,” and Jules Bass’ 1967 animated musical “Mad Monster Party” are merely three of over 30 films the series will screen. Some of the best ones to check out, both for their insight into Burton’s work and for their own beauty and entertainment, are the classic horror flicks, which include “Dracula” (1931), “Frankenstein” (1931), “Nosferatu” (1922), and “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (1920).
In its encompassing components, the retrospective breathes fresh air into the MoMA. As Magliozzi said, “All the works in this retrospective further establish Burton’s kinship with a generation of contemporary artists.”
The Tim Burton retrospective runs through April 26 at the Museum of Modern Art, located at 11 W. 53rd St. (between Fifth and Sixth avenues). Admission to the galleries are free with CUID. Admission to the films is $6, to the lectures $3, and to the panels $5, with CUID.
Peter Labuza contributed reporting to this article.
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