Edward Scissorhands
By Tim Burton
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
PRESENTS MAJOR RETROSPECTIVE ON THE ARTISTRY
OF FILMMAKER TIM BURTON
November 22, 2009 - April 26, 2010
Hundreds of Artworks Never Before Exhibited
Illuminate the Creative Vision Behind The
Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, Batman,
Edward Scissorhands, Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory, and Sweeney Todd, Among Numerous
Other Artistic Projects
The Museum of Modern Art will present a major
exhibition exploring the full scale of renowned
filmmaker Tim Burton’s career, both
as a director and concept artist for live-action
and animated films, and as an artist, illustrator,
photographer, and writer. The exhibition will
be on view from November 22, 2009, through
April 26, 2010. Tracing the current of Burton’s
visual imagination—from his earliest
childhood drawings through his mature work
in film—the exhibition Tim Burton will
bring together over 700 examples of rarely
or never-before-seen drawings, paintings,
storyboards, moving-image works, puppets,
maquettes, costumes, and cinematic ephemera,
and includes an extensive film series spanning
Burton’s 27-year career. The exhibition
explores how Burton has taken inspiration
from sources in pop culture and reinvented
Hollywood genre filmmaking as an expression
of personal vision, garnering him an international
audience of fans and influencing a generation
of young artists working in film, video, and
graphics.
Tim Burton is organized by Ron Magliozzi,
Assistant Curator, and Jenny He, Curatorial
Assistant, Department of Film, with Rajendra
Roy, The Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film,
The Museum of Modern Art.
Mr. Magliozzi states: “There is no
other living filmmaker possessing Tim Burton’s
level of accomplishment and reputation whose
full body of work has been so well hidden
from public view. Seeing so much that was
previously inaccessible in a museum context
should serve to fuel renewed appreciation
and fresh appraisal of this much-admired artist.”
Organized in collaboration with Burton,
the exhibition presents artworks and objects
drawn primarily from the artist’s personal
archive, as well as studio archives and the
private collections of Burton’s collaborators.
Included are little-known drawings, paintings,
and sculptures created in the spirit of contemporary
Pop Surrealism, as well as work generated
during the conception and production of his
films, such as original The Nightmare Before
Christmas and Corpse Bride puppets; Edward
Scissorhands, Batman Returns, and Sleepy Hollow
costumes; and even severed-head props from
Mars Attacks! Also featured are the first
public display of his student art and earliest
nonprofessional films; examples of his work
for the flash animation internet series The
World of Stainboy (2000); a selection of the
artist’s oversized Polaroid prints;
graphic art and texts for non-film projects,
like The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and
Other Stories (1997) and Tim Burton’s
Tragic Toys for Girls and Boys (2003) collectible
figure series; and art from a number of early
unrealized projects. Additionally, a selection
of international posters from Burton’s
films will be on display in the theater lobby
galleries.
The exhibition follows the entire course
of Burton’s career, with childhood ephemera,
juvenilia, and amateur short films from his
youth in Burbank, CA; cartoons and drawings
from his time at California Institute of the
Arts; and examples of his first professional
work at The Walt Disney Studios. Moving on
to his mature work, the exhibition touches
on the creature-based notions of character,
motifs of masking and body modification, ongoing
themes of adolescent and adult interaction,
and elements of sentiment, cynicism, and humor
that inform Burton’s work in a variety
of mediums.
Burton’s entire cinematic oeuvre of
14 feature films—Pee-Wee’s Big
Adventure (1985), Beetlejuice (1988), Batman
(1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman
Returns (1992), The Nightmare Before Christmas
(1993), Ed Wood (1994), Mars Attacks! (1996),
Sleepy Hollow (1999), Planet of the Apes (2001),
Big Fish (2003), Corpse Bride (2005), Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and Sweeney
Todd (2007)—will be screened over the
course of the five-month exhibition in the
Museum’s Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters.
His early short films Vincent (1982) and Frankenweenie
(1984) will also be featured.
In conjunction with Tim Burton, MoMA presents
The Lurid Beauty of Monsters, a series of
films that influenced, inspired, and intrigued
Burton. Taking as its starting point a screening
of horror movies that Burton organized in
Burbank in 1977, the series includes such
films as Jason and the Argonauts (Don Chaffey,
1963), Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931), The
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920),
The Pit and the Pendulum (Roger Corman, 1961),
Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau, 1922), and Earthquake
(Mark Robson, 1974).
An accompanying publication will be released
in conjunction with MoMA’s exhibition,
to be published in November 2009 by The Museum
of Modern Art.
SPONSORSHIP:
Tim Burton is sponsored by Syfy.
ADMISSION:
Entry to Tim Burton is included with Museum
admission. Museum tickets are: $20 adults;
$16 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.;
$12 full-time students with current I.D. Free
for children 16 and under. Free for MoMA members.
Free every Friday from 4:00-8:00 p.m. during
Target Free Friday Nights. Admission to all
film screenings is included with Museum admission.
Film-only admission is $10 adults; $8 seniors,
65 years and over with I.D. $6 full-time students
with current I.D. The price of a film ticket
may be applied toward the price of a Museum
admission ticket when a film ticket stub is
presented at the Lobby Information Desk within
30 days of the date on the stub (does not
apply during Target Free Friday Nights 4:00–8:00
p.m.).
Museum tickets may be purchased in advance
at www.moma.org.
No service charges apply.
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