Tim Burton to Goth Up the MoMA
New York's Museum of Modern Art (a.k.a. MoMA) just told us of its plans for a Tim Burton exhibition/film retrospective, on view to the paying public from November 22, 2009 -- roughly coinciding with the hoiday release of his Alice in Wonderland -- to April 26, 2010. The exhibit will span Burton's career, and showcase his work "both as a director and concept artist for live-action and animated films, and as an artist, illustrator, photographer, and writer."
MoMA claims the exhibition will also "bring together over 700 examples of rarely or never-before-seen drawings, paintings, storyboards, moving-image works, puppets, maquettes, costumes, and cinematic ephemera, and includes an extensive film series spanning Burton's 27-year career."
I've no doubt it'll be an impressive display. Though I can't help but wonder if this is partly, perhaps even largely, due to the museum, like many institutions, suffering big time in the current economic climate, and realizing its recent Pixar exhibit drew in a whopping number of attendees; attendees who ordinarily wouldn't be caught dead in an art museum. And wasn't Burton once something of a rebellious, counter-culture icon, who rejected and -- in films like Beetlejuice and Batman -- outright mocked the pretense he found in art school and modern art circles? Eh, whatever. One of our own is getting his due, and exposing a lot of newbies to the beauty of the weird. Cheers for that, MoMA.
