Writer, director, visual artist and vigilante visionary Tim Burton has an entire retrospective exhibition and film series of his works on display at the MOMA. The exhibit began November 22, 2009 and runs until April 26 2010. The exhibit occupies two theaters that display his work on screen, the lobby area where stop motion animation can be viewed and the most extensive section of the exhibit is on the 3rd floor of the museum’s Special Exhibition section. It is here where the intimacies of Burton’s visions are apparent the most. The artist’s thoughts as an adolescent and as a young and seasoned adult are channeled into drawings, paintings, storyboards, puppets and more. Some of the pieces date as far back as 1971.

The most common reaction to the displays of Burton’s dark emotion by the museum’s patrons is laughter. Not pleasant light-hearted laughter but rather the uncomfortable laughter that looms over conversation after the elephant in a room has been spotted. His work shines a light on the American nightmare: lonely, incommunicado outcast characters that are surrounded by well-adjusted individuals situated in suburban success content with consuming warm apple pie while watching television.

Burton was a scholarship student in the Disney Animation program at CalArts in Valencia, CA in 1976. Upon completion of the program he entered into a four-year apprenticeship with the Disney studio. In an interview with MOMA, Burton confesses that he spent a bunch of time at Disney not doing what he was assigned to do. Instead he says he did work that helped “keep me sane.” It is not surprising that, none of the hundreds of his non-conformist drawings made The Black Cauldron, a Disney movie that premiered in 1985. Although not shown in major Disney productions, it is a relief that his outlandish illustrations are on display for this exhibit.

The simple doodles that align the walls in a schizophrenic order are not avant-garde fine art, but they are honest. Burton’s stream of consciousness waters your imagination with concepts of truth, trauma, beauty, the unsightly, rebellion and discontent. -Janine

MOMA Exhibit info