MoMA's Tim Burton Exhibit

Because Misanthropy Central has some mad connections, I managed to gain entry into the Tim Burton exhibit before MoMA opened to the public on Wednesday morn.

This was excellent because the exhibit's about to close. And I managed to see it without having to deal with a roomful of sweaty, mouth-breathing hoople-heads. The exhibit was empty except for me, David M. Cohen and a scattering of other random VIPs (including Tea Leoni and Robert Rodriguez).

Full disclosure, I'm not the most rabid Tim Burton fanatic. (My favorite movie of his remains ED WOOD.) He doesn't have the strongest ability (or interest?) in weaving a narrative, IMHO, but I am still very fond of his signature visual aesthetic.

But that's neither here nor there. Let's look at some crappy pictures I took with my crappy cell phone camera...

I'd say about a third of the exhibit was dedicated to Tim Burton's movies. The rest included his sketches, sculptures based upon his sketches, paintings, poetry, archival movies he made when he was younger. An anti-littering poster that he won a prize for in the 9th grade. Some really cool shit. And all I'm covering here is the movie shit!

Nightmare Before Christmas reindeer.

This scaled-down house was one of my favorite pieces. You walk up to it and peek into the window:


The horizontal legs sticking out of the doorway. The blood(?) spatter on the walls. This is Burton at his coolest.

And then there was this series of balls:

What could they possible be from? For some reason, I thought of HEATHERS and croquet balls. But Tim Burton had nothing to do with that movie. Something from ALICE IN WONDERLAND, then...?

Oh no.

These prizes were no croquet balls.

They were eyeballs. Not just any set of random eyeballs, though. These eyeballs belonged to Large Marge. From my second favorite Tim Burton movie, the brilliant PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE.

"Tell them Large Marge sent you!"

An extremely fun exhibit and I felt positively spoiled getting to enjoy it for a good hour, apart from the unwashed masses.

Although I admit that I was distracted. I was getting more anxious as the time wore on... because we were at MoMA after all... and I'd just written a blog entry about the Marina Abramović exhibit... and I had to do it... if we could get in line before the public rush, I needed to participate in the exhibit... to sit opposite her and stare into her cold eyes... not because I wanted the public attention, but so I could experience it... and then write about it for a little public attention...

TO BE CONTINUED...