| Tim Burton at Museum of Modern Art
Review by GAIL S. MYHRE
March 4, 2010
| Tim Burton (American, b. 1958). Blue Girl with Wine (ca. 1997). Oil on canvas. 71.1 x 55.9 cm (28 x 22 in.). Private Collection. © 2009 Tim Burton. | 
| | Tim Burton (American, b. 1958). Carousel (2009). Epoxy, polyester resin, plasma ball, muslin, fiberglass, electric motor, rigid foam, styrofoam, fluorescent paint and plastic filagree. 182.9 x 121.9 x 121.9 cm (72 x 48 x 48). Private collection. © 2009 Tim Burton. Photograph by Tom Mikawa. | 
| | Tim Burton (American, b. 1958). Untitled (The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories) (1982-84). Pen and ink, marker, and colored pencil on paper. 25.4 x 22.9 cm (10 x 9 in.). Private Collection. © 2009 Tim Burton. | 
| Tim Burton (American, b. 1958). Untitled (Christmas Photo) (1997). Polaroid. 83.8 x 55.9 cm (33 x 22 in.). Private collection. © 2009 Tim Burton. |
A chubby little boy splattered in red stands in a room bare but for a tinsel Christmas tree; we glimpse a pair of feet protruding from the hallway behind him. A brightly colored clown with a shark-toothed smile holds a bottle emblazoned with skull and crossbones. A woman with long red hair and a willowy neck sits at a table before a glass of wine; her décolletage is seductively low, her skin is blue and criss-crossed with stitches, her eyes are featureless black buttons. Welcome to the artistic vision of Tim Burton. It’s a self-contained, internally consistent universe where love always hurts, nothing is what it presents itself to be and even the cactus has eyes.
Tim Burton, the one-artist exhibition currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art, parades the densely populated cast of the filmmaker's universe before us all at one confetti-strewn and somewhat messy go. Many of the characters will be familiar to the viewer from Mr. Burton’s famous and popular films, while others can be clearly seen to be preliminary stages in their evolution. Primordial Scissorhands and pre-Nightmare Sallys are captured halfway through the process of becoming the images eventually seen onscreen. Still others are new to us and startlingly original. All the characters, cinematic or otherwise, simply hypnotize.
Mr. Burton tells us in his Author’s Statement at the beginning of the catalogue that accompanies this exhibition that he had no early exposure to fine art as such. Instead he tended throughout his artistic development to take his inspiration from the popular art form to which he was most regularly exposed: the movies, and monster movies in particular. Indeed this strongly melodramatic and highly kinetic influence can be seen in most of his work. Even the simplest sketchbook studies appear to have been rendered with some degree of depth and motion in mind, as though Mr. Burton thought in storyboards. This comes as no surprise considering his great success with the medium in which he finds his fame.
It is perhaps because of this cinematic influence that Burton accepts so few restrictions on what his characters can or cannot be, or be capable of. His art embraces such familiar monster-movie themes as the transmogrification of human into animal (or monster) and adds an almost cartoonish sensibility. Not only may a man become a monster, but a monster may disguise himself (or not) and go trick-or-treating. Saw-toothed bulbous creatures are drawn with little child puppets at the ends of their tentacles, as in Untitled (True Love) (1981-83), apparently to lure in their natural prey like man-eating anglerfish. Issues of body identity show themselves not only in transformation but in separation. A leg ceases, somewhat, to be a leg when it is depicted in multiples, quite deliberately, as spare parts in Untitled (Sally Parts) (1993).
This plasticity and duplicity of form, body and identity shows itself everywhere in Tim Burton’s work, and does not limit itself only to people and monsters but extends to the mechanical and vegetable worlds as well. The sculpture Robot Boy (2009) can seem more animated and sympathetic than a drawing of a family. The aforementioned cactus, a piecemeal plastic work created as a stage prop for a photograph, really does stare back at the viewer with glass eyes that are disconcertingly human, as in Untitled (Cactus with Eyes) (ca. 1992-99). In piece after piece, distortion of the body renders monsters and mechanicals human, and humans something entirely other. Costume may become skin or skin costume; neither are necessarily reflections of the essential emotion of the character wearing them. Indeed, when the viewer sees the angora sweater worn by Johnny Depp in Ed Wood (1994) lit softly with a pink spot among the black rubber and leather straps of costumes from Batman (1989) and Edward Scissorhands (1990), one cannot help be reminded of how easily, with a simple change of clothing, one may be transformed into something else.
Considering the marvelously varied nature of Mr. Burton’s oeuvre, it’s unfortunate that MOMA has done the exhibition itself so few favors, curatorially speaking. Pieces with which the viewer is already familiar, such as costumes and models from the films Batman, Mars Attacks (1996) and Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), are given pride of place in display, while page after page of absolutely fascinating sketchbook work is grouped together by theme, such that their cumulative effect tends to overshadow the variety of the individual pieces. Presented with that wall of pages, most viewers do not stop, but drift glancingly by, and tend therefore to take in only the similarities.
Structural difficulties abound in spite of apparent efforts to conform the space to the exhibition. A black-lit room containing the mobile Carousel (2009) plays an eerie looped carnival soundtrack to excellent effect. The entrance to the exhibition itself is a monstrous Burtonesque mouth into which the visitor must walk. However, some of the collection has been placed away from the main body of work, with most of the objects shown in the third-floor special exhibition galleries, but a few extremely worthwhile pieces relegated to the far less visited basement lobby of the Titus Theater. A group of screens showing episodes from Burton’s cartoon The World of Stainboy (2000) are situated in a hallway gallery; this placement almost guarantees that very few people stop for a fuller appreciation. The gallery spaces are a trifle claustrophobic and contain switchbacks and narrow areas which disrupt any natural flow of foot traffic. I’d like to think this was deliberate, as with the monster mouth entrance; but it feels otherwise.
Truly, however, these criticisms are small as against the show itself. The opportunity to see the inside of the mind of Tim Burton, as it were, is not to be missed. Studies for his films in drawings and models will delight the viewer with insight into the cinematic process. This glimpse into the development of Mr. Burton’s personal artistic style and vision through drawings and art which, in some cases, was never intended to be seen, provides a wonderful and almost conspiratorial enjoyment. Burton’s monsters delight him, and for this one grand show, he shares that delight with us directly – outside of the darkened theater.
A catalogue of the exhibition is available. While it does not contain a full image collection of the entire exhibition, it is nevertheless worth the purchase, containing 64 color reproductions of objects from the show. Additionally, some small models are available at the museum shop, eminently giftable for those with the right sensibilities.
"Tim Burton" is on view at the Museum of Modern Art from November 22, 2009 to April 26, 2010. Visitors are required to obtain timed tickets to the exhibition on weekends and holidays; these are free with admission. The show will then travel to the Australian Center for the Moving Image in Melbourne, Australia, where it will be on view from June 24 to October 10, 2010, followed by The Bell Lightbox in Toronto, Canada from November 22, 2010 to April 17, 2011.
Source
Magliozzi, Ron and Jenny He. Tim Burton (exh. cat.). New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2009.
| | | |