The exhibition sold 32,000 tickets before it opened.
Curators Ron Magliosi and Jenny He originally organised the exhibition for MoMA in 2009. Since then, the exhibition has been presented in 14 cities in 11 countries. The exhibition in London will be the last. It includes more than 600 pieces and pre-sales have totalled more than 32,000 tickets – the largest ever for the museum.
The exhibition emphasises Tim Burton’s particular approach to storytelling: as soon as he comes up with an idea, he writes it down on whatever happens to be at hand, such as a napkin from the Ritz Hotel in Paris or an ad page from the Los Angeles Times. As the exhibition curator Maria McLinock points out, cinema is directly related to design, and the exhibition proves it.
Image: Tim Burton / Design Museum
“Tim Burton’s World” is divided into six spaces. The exhibition begins with a monochrome chronology of his life and then moves into a colourful ‘neighbourhood’ exhibit that shows his life in Burbank, California, where Tim Burton was born in 1958. Then on display are souvenirs and sketches he made when he worked at Disney early in his career. There, Tim Burton was responsible for drawing the intermediate frames that create movement in animation.
The “Building Worlds” section features costumes with their original sketches: a black and white striped dress by Christina Ricci from Sleepy Hollow, and a leather suit by Johnny Depp special effects artist Stan Winston from Edward Scissorhands made from belts. A more recent addition is Jenna Ortega’s Rave’N dance dress from Wansday, displayed alongside the heroine’s grey and black school uniform (the former is an Alaïa design, it was bought on Bond Street).
Image: Tim Burton / Design Museum
Also on display are photographs by Tim Walker, a music video by The Killers and an invitation by the late Alexander McQueen, sketched by the director for the designer’s autumn-winter 2002/03 fashion show entitled Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.