Sunday, September 12, 2010

Tim Burton: the Exhibition

Today I finally visited the Tim Burton exhibition - a career retrospective of his works, published and unpublished. I am a big fan of his movies and his style. Tim Burton's works are dark and twisted: macabre, humorous, irreverent, tormented. The perspectives in his artworks are very exaggerated, the outlines of objects are messy and topsy-turvy. There is a little boy with nails stuck in his eyes and blood oozing out, there are two lovers 'enjoying' each other by feasting on their limbs, there is a poem about a girlfriend who's really a statue, and there are graveyards and stitched-up corpses aplenty. You feel small and isolated in a beautiful, curious version of hell.

I liked the rawness of his sketches/paintings. Most of them are roughly drawn; unpolished because they were not meant for public showing. His movies are very good, but they are so well honed that they often lose that unrestrained craziness. In his unpublished work, you see deeper into his mind. I was often surprised that some content was allowed to be displayed, but I'm glad it was (I think today's censorship goes too far and people need to get over themselves).

In many ways, Tim Burton reminds me of Roald Dahl, one of my favourite authors. In some of his younger work, he has a writing style very similar to Roald Dahl. But his adult work is much darker. These are a few of the displays that left a deep impression on me:


I love the colour, the concept. Probably my favourite.

You can tell he likes body "modifications".
Pumpkin-lined walkway leading up to an eerie ghost house. I'd love to stay overnight.
A hell of a room.

Definitely worth going. Give yourself at least two hours.

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