25 years of Pixar studios
CaixaForum presents an exhibition to the creative universe of the pioneering digital animation company that created the likes of Toy Story, Cars and Up
We are not often aware of the sheer number of artists, creators and professionals behind today's works of popular culture that are consumed and admired by mass audiences all over the world. Nor of all the many ideas and techniques, tried and rejected, before the end product finally gets through to the public.
Revealing the long creative process is the aim of the exhibition, Pixar: 25 anys d'animació (Pixar: 25 years of animation), which can bee seen at CaixaForum in Barcelona until May 3. Given the wide popularity of animated films and the range of audiences it addresses, the exhibition promises to be one of the most visited shows of the year in Barcelona.
Created from scratch
The exhibition provides an overview of the 25-year trajectory of the Pixar studios, the well-known US studio responsible for many modern animated classics, such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Cars, Ratatouille, Monsters, INC, Wall-E, Up, Brave, InsideOut and The Incredibles.
Maren A. Jones, director of Pixar's exhibitions programme, who was in Barcelona for the opening of the exhibition in February, explains: “People often think that in digital animation you press a button and that's it. But in fact everything you see is created out of nothing, from scratch, starting from the creases on clothes to the last leaf of a tree. Many artists contribute to making this possible, and the marvellous works of art behind it remain unknown.“
In order to pay homage to this creative achievement, CaixaForum' exhibition Pixar: 25 years of animation includes a large number of sketches and drawings made with various techniques, as well as storyboards, scripts, models, templates, videos and installations. A total of 402 works are on display. The works allow the visitor to see the development of various characters before reaching their final form, from their initial 3-D representations to the colourful moving depictions we are so familiar with.
“In these films,” says Jones, “there are no actors, so artists can be totally creative and free. In Pixar we preserve all the artistic works that are created in the process; the show is a celebration of the fact that, despite their technological complexity, all films start with the tradition of paper and pencil, says Jones.”
The show also includes two particularly suggestive and evocative installations : Artscape, conceived as an audiovisual experience which literally emerges the visitor in Pixar's creative process, and Zoòtrop, which evokes the machine patented in the US in 1867, which laid down the basic principles of animation before cinema was even invented, and which was used for the characters from the Toy Story saga.
“The show was first commissioned by the MoMA in New York in 2005. Now it includes an overview of the 12 films made during the studio's first 25 years,” says Jones.
Historic moments
Elisa Duran, deputy general manager of the Obra Social La Caixa says: “In the exhibitions we dedicate to the world of cinema, we like to reflect the challenges that we find important in the creative process. It's what we've done with the shows dedicated to Charles Chaplin, Federico Fellini and Georges Méliès. In the case of the Pixar exhibition, we are presented with a “historic moment“ in animation which is already widely-known by audiences, particularly children.
Duran also highlights the fact that Pixar: 25 years of animation is above all an art exhibition that deals, first of all, with how technology has entered the artistic world. It also traces the three main pillars that are vital for the people working under John Lasseter – creative director of Pixar: great characters, the world in which they develop and the stories they live through.