‘Wednesday’ © 2022 MGM Television Entertainment Inc – All Rights Reserved – Courtesy of MGM Media Licensing
The enthusiasm for The World of Tim Burton exhibition, which opened today at London’s Design Museum, has already exceeded expectations by generating the most advance ticket sales (over 32,000 and counting) in the museum’s 35-year history.
The exhibition, which is in partnership with Harvey Nichols, is the final stop in a decade long international tour of Tim Burton’s personal archive that has visited 14 cities in 11 countries. Around 600 intriguing items from the filmmaker’s 50 years of creative output are on display, but over 90 of these have been added specifically for this iteration, which focuses on Burton’s design-led approach. A major new aspect is highlighting his collaborations with production, set and costume designers, puppet makers and stop-motion animators.
Tim Burton and curator Maria McLintock. Photography | Matt Crossick/PA Media Assignments
Visitors can get a close look at highlights such as Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman suit, the striped dress from Sleepy Hollow, worn by Christina Ricci, and Jonny Depp’s Edward Scissorhands costume, complete with razor-sharp gloves. The tiny, detailed puppets made for movies such as Mars Attacks! and Corpse Bridge are truly fascinating, but just as compelling are hundreds of Burton’s sketches, drawings and paintings, which he has produced prolifically since childhood and continue to form the first step in his creative process.
Untitled (Creature Series). 1994. Private Collection. © Tim Burton
There is even a display of drawings on hotel and restaurant napkins, as it seems that Burton is compelled to doodle wherever and whenever. “Drawing is very emotional and very personal,” the filmmaker tells us. “Because I am from an animation background, I do see things in picture form, in some cases, but with that, it has to have an emotional core to start with.”
The exhibition’s narrative has also been reimagined, commencing with Suburban Beginnings and Burton’s childhood in Burbank, California, a place that he says he still has “very fond, disturbed feelings about… Even though I was happy to move out of it, those things shape your life and make you part of who you are. As much as I think about the horrors of suburbia, there were also beautiful things that spark your creativity and make you think. Burbank made me want to watch monster movies for some reason!”
From Burton’s artistic efforts at school and university and his time spent as an apprentice animator at Disney, we move on to Crafting Imagination, which explores his stop-motion films and some of the influences behind them, from festive holidays to the ‘Carnivalesque’. The next section, Building Worlds, celebrates 13 of Burton’s live action films and the TV series Wednesday. Drawing Narratives displays his prolific output as an artist, and Beyond Film presents projects he’s worked on and the influence he’s had outside of cinema, such as fantastical fashion shoots with photographer Tim Walker, music videos for The Killers and the Burton-inspired Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious collection by Alexander McQueen. The exhibition closes with a specially created cinema experience in an art-deco inspired space reminiscent of the theatres Burton would frequent as a child.
‘Wednesday’ © 2022 MGM Television Entertainment Inc – All Rights Reserved – Courtesy of MGM Media Licensing
On Wednesday, Burton inaugurated the exhibition, commenting, “It’s a strange thing, to put 50 years of art and your life on view for everyone to see, especially when that was not the original purpose. In the past, I have resisted having the exhibition in London. However, collaborating with the Design Museum for this final stop was the right choice. They understand the art, and with the opportunity to adapt the show and highlight the way design interacts with the works, I’ve been able to view it all through an exciting new lens.”
When asked why the initial reluctance to display the archive in his adopted hometown, Burton explains, “I live here… When this first happened in 2006 with MoMA, the curators spent two years looking through stuff and I didn’t even know anything about it, so when I saw what they did there, it really sort of shocked me. You know, sitting in a room just drawing something or whatever, you don’t expect something like that… I [had] a thinner skin than I thought. I didn’t really feel like going through [those] feelings.”
Tim Burton. Photography | Matt Crossick/PA Media Assignments
However, he was impressed by the enthusiasm of the Design Museum team and is delighted with the result, commenting to curator Maria McLintock and Director and CEO Tim Marlow, “It was like walking around a weird, beautiful funhouse, which I love, but you made this place really beautiful and inviting. Even though it’s weird for me to see all this stuff on the walls, the way you did it with the lighting and feng shui or whatever [laughs], the flow of it, it’s very beautiful. It makes me feel actually much more calm looking at it.”
Well, the exhibition seems to have Tim Burton’s stamp of approval, and it certainly has ours. In fact, we’d say it’s a must-see for anyone who has an appreciation of Burton’s weird but wonderful world.
The World of Tim Burton is at Design Museum until 21st April 2025. Find out more here.
Words. Huma Humayun
