With Christmas upon us, people everywhere are settling in to watch their favourite seasonal movies. For some this might mean a night of popcorn and Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. Well, Burton fans now have an exhibition to look forward to in 2019. For the first time in over a decade, Burton will be exhibiting in the US at Las Vegas’ Neon Museum according to Las Vegas Weekly.
Expected to run between October 2019 and February 2020, the exhibition will include and extensive selection of artworks by the acclaimed director and producer. The show will include returning favourites as well as new installations and works from his movies. It remains unknown, though, if works from his 2016 Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children or his adaptation of Dumbo debuting in 2019 will make the exhibition.
The Neon Museum and Vegas have a history with the artist and director. Portions of Burton’s 1996 Mars Attacks! were filmed around the city and neon signs used in the movie are now a part of the museum’s collection. Some of Burton’s works have also become part of the museum’s Neon Boneyard space. Titled ‘Tim Burton @ the Neon Museum,’ the exhibition will span between the Boneyard and the museum’s North Gallery taking advantage of their indoor and outdoor spaces. The site-specific show will give Burton a platform to ‘reflect on his creative legacy while showing his love for the Neon Boneyard, which he popularized.’
In an emailed statement, Neon Museum president and CEO Rob McCoy said: ‘To say we’re flattered that Mr. Burton has chosen our museum for this exhibition would be an understatement. But when you think about it, Tim is one of the few artists who can match the great imagination of Las Vegas.’ McCoy’s sentiments are well justified, too. In a 2009 exhibition of Burton’s works at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, 800,000 visitors flocked to the institution making the show one of the MoMA’s most popular exhibitions.
The Neon Museum hopes that their space will make for an exciting environment for the exhibition. Founded in 1996, the non-profit museum has worked to preserve, study, and collect iconic Vega signs for educational, historical, arts, and cultural purposes. In addition to offering an eccentric and unusual museum experience, the Neon Museum has tracked the trends and changes of sign design and technology through their collection containing works dating from the 1930s to present. The upcoming large-scale exhibition will join the ranks of shows that have taken place in Hong Kong, Melbourne, LA, Paris, Prague, Tokyo, and Mexico City in recent years.
