Museum of Modern Art – Tim Burton Exhibit

Image by Lauren Beltramo

By, Lauren Beltramo

This past Saturday, I, along with several of my friends came upon a smaller than life-sized glow-in-the-dark carousel. Instead of horses, unicorns, and pleasant things that are usually found on a carousel it was circled by ghouls that seemed to come to life in tune to the just as eerie background music.

This was only the introduction to the madness of the Tim Burton exhibit at New York’s Modern Museum of Art this Saturday. As I walked through the hallway along with fellow Drexel students, I was greeted by neon paintings done on black velvet and then by episodes of “Stain Boy”, one of Burton’s many projects. Stain Boy is a superhero whose unique power is to – shocker  – stain things. To me he represents the feeling of every adolescent at the stage of their lives where they feel as though everything they do is wrong. Throughout all of his adventures, Stain Boy maintains the same melancholy expression, creating a creepy one-dimensional feeling to the sullen character.

The rest of the exhibit then unfolded before me: a maze of walls packed with pictures from my waist to over my head. They ranged from post-it note size to full-scale canvases – formulating a ridiculous variety of work from when the artist was as young as fourteen to the later works of his now infamous film career. I personally had never before seen such a comprehensive exhibit that mapped the progression of an artist in such a way. It was a unique experience to see the full development of an artist: from trying to find his style when just starting to draw to fully developed feature films.

Despite this progression, throughout all of Burton’s work there is a sinister style that is distinctly him – even in the artist’s earliest work. His work is not frightening in a typical blood-and-guts horror way. It is much more dark and subtle, with an underlying criticism of society beneath the twisted humor on the surface. All of his pieces view the world through this cynical lens. My favorite series involved clever literal interpretation of common phrases such as “Holding Hands,” “Enjoying Each Others’ Limbs,” and “Undressing with Your Eyes”.  Respectively they featured a couple holding severed hands; eating each other’s limbs; and demonic eyes with claws undressing a woman.

The exhibit is excellent for any Tim Burton or horror lover. It is also an excellent source of inspiration for artists, and validation that classic art-school figure drawing exercises aren’t completely useless (Burton’s were proudly on display).  The layout of the exhibit, however, was extremely uncomfortable and unsuitable to the audience. There were a lot of sharp turns and corners that did not move people through in a smooth manner. My friends and I felt rushed to view some pieces, yet waited in line to see others. It was a cattle herd slowly plodding through. Once you strayed away from the pack, it was difficult to get back in line to view the pieces up close. Overall, however, it was an enjoyable experience to all of the Drexel students that were a part of it and certainly something interesting to see. I would highly suggest seeing this exhibit and heading straight over to a movie theater to see Burton’s newest masterpiece Alice in Wonderland.