Pete Moye’
Arts Button
Creepy, haunting and full of imagination are definitely three ways to describe the Tim Burton Exhibit that has been featured at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art since May 29 and it will end Oct. 31.
Before even walking in, you see this large black and white creature with its razor sharp teeth and crazy hair, as if you’re entering its mouth.
As soon as you walk inside there are a couple of black and white, odd looking creature sculptures. The left wall has all of Burton’s movies that he has ever worked on, including the studios and year that they were produced.
The right side of the wall has something that I think is one of the most incredible parts of the entire exhibit. There is a wall full of scrap papers, newspaper, and even restaurant napkins all of Tim Burton’s drawings.
Of what you may ask? They were all the aspects that made up the movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
To see several versions of Jack Skellington’s head drawn on McDonalds napkins and then see the final product, it’s just so unreal.
In the next room, there is nothing but Burton’s earliest as well as private work from both high school and college.
There are several videos that he directed of him and his former high school friends and classmates, as well as essays he wrote.
There were two things in that room that really stand out to me. One was a piece of a Burbank garbage truck in which Burton won an art contest for to promote the elimination of litter.
The second was pictures and a story of a book that Burton wrote for young children as a college student.
He also decided to have his rejection letter displayed from the publication in which he wanted his book to be published at, showing that even Tim Burton was rejected.
The next room is the biggest room, full of Tim Burton’s private and personal collections. There are walls full from top to bottom of all of his paintings, drawings, and even a few sculptures like the cookie cutter man from “Edward Scissorhands.”
The use of color was so great that even the most grotesque looking monster was beautiful.
He even gave his own twist to common known things such as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Burton’s version of Romeo is a fuzzy caterpillar looking monster and Juliet is some type of fish.
He also makes fun of commonly used phrases. For example, he has a drawing of a couple shot by cupid’s arrow where cupid is aimed at the couple who are both screaming in pain as the arrow literally goes through the man’s head and into the woman’s.
The fourth room is completely glow in the dark with sculptures all over, including a sculpture of Oogie Boogie from “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, and a giant glow in the dark monster carousel rotating as creepy carnival music plays in the background.
In the next room, there is all of Burton’s costume and story ideas for both “Batman” and “Batman Returns” as well as for “Edward Scissorhands.”
Warner Bros. was even kind enough to display Michelle Pheiffer’s Catwoman costume as well as both of the Batman masks and gloves and the full Edward Scissorhands costume, scissorhands and all.
The last room has all the rest of the movies that Tim Burton has ever worked on from “Creepy Hallow” to “Corpse Bride”. There were parts of the Planet of the Apes costumes displayed as well as mini sculptures of the characters from Burton’s upcoming film, “Frakenwiener”.
This exhibit is not to be missed and for the price of 20 dollars per person 18 years and older, it’s definitely worth seeing. It is so great that I left wanting to see more from this gifted artist.
