The World of Tim Burton

The show The World of Tim Burton presents rare items such as drawings, sketches, paintings, photos, storyboards, and puppets that are part of the filmmaker’s filmography, as well as unrealized personal projects. MIS will be the first institution in Latin America to host this exhibition.

Between February and May 2016, MIS—a São Paulo State Secretary of Culture Institution—will be taken over by one of the most anticipated shows: O mundo de Tim Burton [The World of Tim Burton]. The exhibition explored the full scope of Tim Burton’s creative work and presents from childhood drawings to his celebrated career as film director. The exhibition O mundo de Tim Burton was organized by Museu da Imagem e do Som and by Jenny He independent curatorship, in collaboration with Tim Burton Productions.

Originally put together at MoMA in 2009 and later exhibited in only three other places, the show was terminated by the filmmaker. In 2014, he decided to allow the show to be presented once again, but only in cities and museums he was willing to visit. Since then, it has traveled to locations such as Prague, Tokyo, and Brühl, in Germany, where it is on display until January 2016. MIS will be the first Institution in Latin America to host this exhibition. The show comprises around five hundred items including rarely or never-before-seen drawings, sketches, paintings, photos, storyboards, and puppets from his vast filmography, including Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman, Mars Attacks!, Ed Wood, Beetlejuice, and unrealized, little-known personal projects revealing his talent as an artist, illustrator, photographer, and writer.

Among these items there are storyboards for the TV movie Hansel and Gretel; his first shorts, realized in the early 1970s and never released; drawings made by Tim Burton on napkins and framed on two different sets of forty-five drawings each; sketches of Edward, Johnny Depp’s character in Edward Scissorhands, and puppets of characters Victor, Edgar, and Elsa Van Helsing from the Frankenweenie animation. Visitors will also find cast & crew books, publicity materials for his features, where they will be able to interactively check the backstage of some of his movies: Big Fish, Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dark Shadows, and Frankenweenie. MIS’s visitors are up for many a surprise. Among the exclusive features of this exhibition are a unique setting created by MIS’s team in partnership with Caselúdico, and a new division of the original sections. “Differently from the shows previously put together, we presented Tim Burton’s team with a new concept in which visitors will literally get into the filmmaker’s world. Thus, we created a new division in the objects’ placement,” says André Sturm, MIS’s executive director and general curator. “At MIS, we have gathered the items in thematic rooms: they are divided by feelings such as fear, humor, happiness, and melancholy, elements that are present in Tim Burton’s work.” Sturm adds, “Exhibitions at MIS are always different from the other ones put together in other parts of the world; our intention is to offer a new, immersive experience.”

Furthermore, O mundo de Tim Burton has a brand new room revealing the inspirations influencing the filmmaker in his work. The space was conceived according to a list put together by Tim Burton. Among the items, there are promotional posters for the movies King Kong (1976) and Frankenstein (1931), a reproduction of Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night, and a picture of Edgar Allan Poe. Another item visitors will only find at MIS is a sculpture inspired by the movie Edward Scissorhands located outside the museum. The show also includes a room dedicated to unrealized projects and another, to his filmography.