Gazing into the deranged world of Tim Burton

Emma Allain
Contributor
Taking The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) out of New York is never easy, but the TIFF Bell Lightbox took up the challenge, showcasing their Tim Burton exhibition and retrospective in Toronto this season. Running until April 17, the show is a documentation of Burton’s creative life and influences.
The show is separated into two sections: the main exhibition displays plans, sketches, props and other artifacts from his life as a director, arranged chronologically by film. Meanwhile, the retrospective, seen near the end of a walk-through of the exhibit, focuses on Burton’s early life and creative development.

The retrospective – held in a small out-of-the-way room brimming with doodles and musings from a young Burton – was a definite favourite. The look into his youthful mind included creations from a “Crush Litter” sign he made for a contest (which, yes, he won) in his hometown of Burbank, California to an oversized illustrated book made from construction and draft papers about monsters that looked like they jumped right out of the funny pages.
Imagining how the young Burton’s mind developed on the way to creating worlds such as Halloween Town is fascinating. Likewise, the retrospective made me consider the roots of my own creative mind in a different light.
Unfortunately, what this exhibit left behind in its travel from the Museum of Modern Art was clearly integral to its success; the Lightbox’s interpretation was starved for space, as the pieces on the walls fought for individual recognition. With little breathing room and strict rules to leave winter coats on, it was hard to enjoy the tiny watercolours and pastel-on-black illustrations for which Burton is so well known.
The pieces for each separate movie (of which I, to my own surprise, had seen all of save the most recent, Alice in Wonderland) provided an informative look at the props and costumes; however, it did little for my understanding of the great creative vision the exhibition promised to explore.

A confession from Burton himself – that he doesn’t consider himself an artist in any way, but a director – resonated louder as the exhibition continued. While it considered the planning and sketches of his mind during the process of directing, the exhibit lacked the conceptual interest displayed in shows such as the AGO’s recently closed display of Julian Schnabel’s paintings.
Schnabel is also a director, but one who embraces his crossover between creative mediums. The Burton exhibit tried to show visitors a common, possibly even overused theme of “outcasted boy imagining a dark twisted world while living in suburbia” – inspired, of course, by Burton’s own childhood.
The exhibit was enjoyable as a whole, but lacked in its own confidence and excitement, and left me in very much the same state I was in coming into it. I must add that I went into the exhibit having seen most of the sketches and artifacts presented, but that very few stayed with my memory after leaving. Is it not viewers such as myself, who spent pre-adolescence drawing Jack Skellington in school notebooks and dressing up as Lydia Deetz for Halloween, who should benefit and be interested in an exhibit about Tim Burton?
Considering my great respect for what I can only imagine MoMA showcased, it’s entirely possible that my hopes for this exhibition were just too high.
The Tim Burton exhibition runs until April 17 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Regular tickets sell for $22.75.