On Dec. 14, 2005, Pixars first full-scale retrospective opened at New Yorks Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). A year in the making, this major look behind the scenes brings scores of the studios concept and storyboard art, maquettes and sculptures out into the light of day.
A press preview the day before was attended by Pixar co-founders John Lasseter and Dr. Ed Catmull, along with a bevy of their star animators, directors and designers.
While the well-known Lasseter extolled Pixars marriage of creativity and technology to one reporter after the next, a bemused Catmull watched from a distance. When asked, he recounted his personal, pioneering history, from his University of Utah doctorate (where the foundations of computer animation were laid), to heading up George Lucas computer division and hiring Lasseter, through the divisions purchase by Steve Jobs and its rechristening as Pixar (Pix from pixel and ar from art, as Lasseter explained to his interviewers).
The exhibition, set to run through Feb. 6, includes screenings of Pixars features and shorts, including its rarely seen first effort, THE ADVENTURES OF ANDRÉ AND WALLY B. and its most recent, ONE MAN BAND, due to accompany CARS (the final contracted Disney-distributed Pixar movie) into theaters next June. (To commemorate the event, Disney is donating 35mm prints of Pixars six features to the museums film collection and Pixar will do likewise with its shorts.)
Seminars, conversations with Pixar artists and special events for teens and youngsters accompany the exhibition, as do two intriguing gallery installations. First, a multi-projector, worlds fair-style "Artscape" that repurposes the studios concept and inspirational art into a multiplane mystery tour. Alongside it stands a giant-sized, three-dimensional TOY STORY zoetrope, inspired by a similar, TOTORO-themed one at Hayao Miyazakis Ghibli Museum.
This is so cool, Lasseter enthused at the preview. Its an eight-foot disc that spins one revolution a second. On it are 3D sculptures that were digitally created straight out of our computers of the TOY STORY characters in motion. You cant believe it when you see it, its amazing.
Precisely what people have been saying about Pixars work for 20 years.
Written by Joe Strike
