Tim Burton and packs of wandering kids

Posted by Larry Goode on December 27, 2009 | No Comments

Hello all you art lovers! While I was in NYC last week I visited MOMA and there were two exhibits that interested me. The Bauhaus exhibit and the Tim Burton exhibit. Since last time I had been to the museum the building had been renovated and the museum was even more impressive than before, with an endless series of galleries of Picasso’s, Miro’s, Chagall’s and on and on. After a quick look at these uber famous pieces we made our way to the Bauhaus exhibit. I was particularly intrigued by this exhibit because I just finished a paper on the 2nd director of the Bauhaus for a modernist art history class (I am working on my MFA) and it was fresh in my mind. I found the exhibit excellent with loads of work, photos and letters. I’m not sure how many people realize the effect on our modern world that the Bauhaus had. From the clean modern building to functional furniture and kitchenware. After taking this in we went to the Tim Burton exhibit. My god what a madhouse of screaming children and angst-ridden parents pushing throngs of strollers. Luckily we had corporate passes procured from a friendly ex-coworker which enabled us to skip past the line of small snot-noses depositing us into a number of galleries filled with Burton work. Everything from movie props, to sketches, to letters to actors. It was extremely interesting but the crowds were such that I had to get out rather sooner than I would have liked. This was made more urgent when a kid lost his lunch in the middle of the gallery and the guards circled the offensive puddle unsure what to do. It was ironically very theatrical. After I gathered my senses it seemed that charging extra to see the exhibit along with the $60 for a thin catalog made the whole event smack of hyper consumerism that I found distasteful. In any event, if you can get to see the exhibit—sans the packs of kids then it is well worth it, otherwise stay away. On the scale of coolness I give both exhibits giant thumbs ups, but I give the museum a thumbs down for for the circus surrounding the event.

Cheers!

Oskar Schlemmer. Bauhaus Stairway. 1932.

Still from Tim Burton MoMA Spot, 2009