Tim Burton Brings His Crazy to MoMA

The theatrical trailer for Tim Burton’s current project “Alice in Wonderland” serve as a handy reminder that, visually speaking, there is no-one creating fantastical worlds onscreen like him, and needless to say, it makes us pant for the film’s March 6, 2010 release. How much would we pay to crawl inside the singularly creative brain of and see how it all works? Plenty.

Failing that, we’ll settle for being immersed in his particular brand of goth genius via MoMA’s retrospective Tim Burton, kicking off November 22 and comprising a collection of 700 art pieces produced by the dark sage over the past three decades. In accompaniment, you can get your hands on “The Art of Tim Burton” (Steel Publishing), a 434-page volume of his doodles, sketches, ideas and other work curated from (as the preface notes) “40 years of notebooks, scraps of paper, napkins, etc.”, some of which dates to his Cali-boy teenhood, and almost all of which – as the director is first to point out – was never intended to be seen by anyone.

The perma-bedheaded director will be on hand to sign the book at MoMA today, available from the museum Design and Book Store, as well as copies the Tim Burton exhibition catalogue. The book is available in limited-edition lithograph ($300) and hardcover ($70) versions.

Details
Tim Burton signs “The Art of Tim Burton”, edited by Derek Frey, Leah Gallo, and Holly Kempf
Wednesday November 18, 2:30-4PM
MoMA, 11 West 53 Street, second floor, 212-708-9400
$20 suggested museum donation
More details at MoMA.org