What's he thinking of? What are his dreams like?A madhouse and funhouse it was at the MoMA where Tim Burton has an extensive retrospective exploring his career in the arts and movies. A toss among the current exhibitions of Bauhaus and Rough Cut which are of the modernistic type, Tim Burton and The Lurid Beauty of Monsters drew a huge crowd.
One is welcomed at the lobby by the giant Balloon Boy and upstairs at the gallery the entrance canopy is the mouth of a toothy monster. Quirky-themed, creepy and of the famed The Nightmare before Christmas, Batman and a host of decades of his works, Tim Burton's highly stylized work of about 700 pieces filled the walls and halls of the small gallery. Awesome is an understatement. Movies, doodles, sketchbooks, storyboards, some are on canvas, many on spiral notebook paper and quite a few on cocktail napkins. I wasn't as bold as Melissa to have stolen a few shots, so here's a few from the MoMA exhibition brochure.
My favorites were the animal carousel by the entrance, all the puppets from The Nightmare before Christmas, Oogie Boogie, the ghost dog and all the long-legged triangular-faced creatures some with daggers, lancets and swords sticking out of their heads.
Despite the required timed admission, viewers lingered at the gallery and savored every bit of the work of this genius of an artist. No pushing or shoving, it was an orderly crowd of Burton fans. It might have warranted some crowd management of sorts if it wasn't declared as Sold Out at about 6:00 pm. Chong with her guests Agnes and Seth, and myself got in at 5:oo for free, compliments of Target on its Free Fridays sponsorship.
What I saw in Tim Burton was first-rate concept artistry inspired by the painter Edward Munch and the illustrator Dr. Seuss, with lots of imagination of a child. He is prolific. I'll go see it again! I'm glad Seth and Agnes loved it too even if it's style is a world apart from that of their next destination - Morocco.
The Bauhaus exhibition is also a must see. Works of Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy were on display. Marcel Breuer's chairs and several Bauhaus lamps, stackable chairs and nesting tables are reminders of present-day Ikea-type furnishings, which in the 1920's? the Bauhaus artists designed with affordability of household items for mass production in mind. Who would know that they'd be fashionable now. From Bauhaus to your house - how's that!
This is a sampling from the Rough Cut- Design Takes a Sharp Edge exhibition - a collection of bold designs, sometimes rough and ugly, other times just practical. According to the curators, "design is not always pretty - but when it's good it's undeniably powerful, meaningful and beautiful". I'm not sure I can appreciate its artistic value for I'm not an artist. How about you?
