Emotions at Play with Pixar's Inside Out exhibit review

by Bruce Guthrie

A new interactive exhibit -- "Emotions at Play with Pixar's Inside Out" -- opened last weekend at the National Children's Museum in downtown DC.

In case you're not familiar with the museum, it's had a somewhat nomadic life.  The museum first opened in 1979 on H Street NW.  In 2004-2009, it was a "museum without walls."  In 2009-2015, it operated at National Harbor, Maryland.  It opened at its current location in the Ronald Reagan Building on February 24, 2020 just before COVID hit, after which it was forced to close for 18 months.  It's been reopened to the public since September 2, 2021.  

I had never been to the museum in any of its locations before.  My only interaction had been way back in 1988 when animation god Chuck Jones was going to be there for a gala event.  I was 31 then and had no idea what a gala was.  I called their office to ask about tickets and the person said "This is a black tie event."  I said, "That's okay.  I can buy a black tie."  She responded with, "I don't think you know what a black tie event is..."  She was right.  I wrote to Chuck saying I had wanted to see him but couldn't afford a black tie.  Unsolicited, he sent me a sketch -- "For Bruce -- Bugs Bunny in black tie -- which you may borrow for future events."

When the opportunity to see this new exhibit came up, I was happy to check it out.  

The "Emotions at Play with Pixar's Inside Out" exhibit was developed by Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh in collaboration with Pixar Animation Studios.   It features a diverse number of parts oriented around the Pixar film, "Inside Out."

In case you somehow missed the 2015 film, it focuses on the "little voices inside your head" as the central character, Riley, tries to adjust to the cacophony of emotions that result from her family being relocated.  In Riley's case, there are five emotions -- Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust -- trying to navigate Riley's long term memories and bring her back to functioning.  

The film was the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2015 and won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature.  A sequel, "Inside Out 2," is scheduled to be released in 2024.

The exhibit features a number of independent components.  Emotions, and the characters and its color palette -- yellow=joy, blue=sadness, red=anger, purple=fear, green=disgust -- tie all of them together.

From my experience, it seemed like the crowd favorite was "Emotions in Motion."  You turn a dial to select your current emotion, put a large white ball into a hole whose color now reflects your chosen emotion, and turn the crank which advances the ball.  The ball retains that color, separate from the other 100-ish balls in the system, until it makes it all the way through the serpentine circuit.

As a computer nerd, I loved that exhibit plus several other techie exhibits.
 * "Memory Sphere":  You write down a memory on a colored sheet of paper (five colors of course).  When you put that sheet into a slot, the sensors recognize the color and change a glowing ball into that color.  I never wrote anything down but was impressed at how the paper-reader-ball interacted.
 * "Range of Emotions": You sit in a chair and look at a mirror.  As you change your facial expression, a hidden camera reads your face and guesses what emotion(s) it's showing.  Five differently-colored tubes below the mirror indicate what emotional mix it's detecting.

I also enjoyed "Imagination Land" which has spinners where you watch various bits spin around in their patterns.  It wasn't at all high-tech, but I found the sights and sounds of it mesmerizing.

As an animation geek, I enjoyed "Designing the Mind World" which had reproductions of some of the 20,000+ drawings and paintings created during the visual development of "Inside Out."

I wasn't personally excited by the other areas but that's just personal taste -- kids and adults were playing at all of them:
 * "Control Panel" -- A sound console where you're asked to create sounds that reflect emotions.  This one was quite popular.
 * "Dream Productions" -- A mini-stage area to create and act out skits with stick characters and stick props
 * "Emotion Mirrors" -- Five mirrors which change as you come near them.
 * "Train of Thought" -- You maneuver your ball (train) down a slat, trying to keep the ball from falling off.
 * "Managing Our Emotions Maze" -- a console maze where people are encouraged to work together to get their ball in the desired emotional basket.
 * "Emotion Blocks" -- A section with emotion-shaped blocks where you try to balance them on a crescent-shaped rocking piece.  

In most cases, working with someone improves the experience so teamwork and parent-child cooperation is a plus.  People can also do them solo if desired.

All signage was in both English and Spanish and in most cases the languages were given equal billing.  Typically, one side of a sign was in English, the other Spanish.  

The exhibit is really well built and battle tested.  It debuted at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh (Fall 2021) then moved to the Museum of Science in Boston (Spring 2022), DiscoveryCube in Los Angeles (Summer 2022), and it's here in DC until January 8, 2023. 

The exhibit is included with the regular National Children's Museum entry fee.  Their website is https://nationalchildrensmuseum.org/ More photographs can be seen here.

 

 

Moomin Exhibit at National Children’s Museum

 by Mike Rhode

Moomin Animations – Thrills and Cuddles, Minna Honkasalo, curator. Washington D.C.: National Children’s Museum on September 3, 2021-January 9, 2022. https://nationalchildrensmuseum.org/

In 1945, Finnish writer and illustrator Tove Jansson created her Mumintrolls for a children's book. The Moomins look like hippos crossed with the Pillsbury doughboy, but have proved popular enough to make her the Scandinavian equivalent of Walt Disney. She eventually wrote or drew 9 books about them. In 1947 she started a comic strip with the characters, which started appearing in English in 1954. Her brother Lars Jannson joined her on the strip from 1959-1961 and then he took the strip over until 1975 when it ended. Reprints have been published by Canada's Drawn & Quarterly. There have been multiple animated versions of her characters, and that is what this exhibit focused on.

The NCM has had some rough years, closing off and on while searching for new locations. In 2020, it finally wound up just off Pennsylvania Ave, NW in a plaza behind the Reagan building. They had to shut again almost immediately due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but reopened in September 2021 with the Moomin exhibit among others, and are aiming for an attendance of a half million people per year. Note that you have to visit with a child; unaccompanied visitors need to make an appointment, and throughout my tour of the exhibit, I was accompanied by a staff member. The museum is actually largely underground; one enters at ground level and then moves downward through an unfinished concrete warren. The guide is probably necessary for more than the main reason.

The Embassy of Finland has brought over a version of Honkasalo's original exhibit from the Moomin Museum that is completely composed of reproductions. It has several sections - a wall on Jansson's life, stills from various animations, 4 screens showing cartoons, and several activity areas for children. An average American viewer might have no knowledge about the Moomins, in spite of the fact that there have been so many adaptations. This exhibit focuses on animated versions and includes episodes from 1959 (West Germany), 1969 (Japan), 1977 (Poland), 1990 (Japan). Obviously, none of these would be particularly easy for an Anglophone to find, but the 1969 one in particular was surpressed by Jansson, as noted in the exhibit catalog - "She felt that Momin was too far removed from her stories' world and atmosphere. Elements foreign to Moominvalley had been inserted into the tales, including cars, money and weapons. For example, a few episodes show Snork driving around in a car, Moomintroll makes money by busking, and weapons feature in several episodes." "She did not want them to reach international distribution, so they have never been broadcast outside Japan. Today, they are hard to find even in Japan, on account of complicated copyright issues connected with the [1900s series]." The exhibit catalog is unfortunately not available, except for a few copies lying in the exhibit, but I recommend it highly if you can find it.

Jansson has been the focus of recent attention including a documentary, two biographies, and an edition of her letters. The wall on her life is written for children, but includes the basics necessary to have an idea about her as a person and as a creator. To the exhibit's credit, the segment on her life does not shy away from her love of another woman, even though it was socially unacceptable at the time. "A soul mate. Amid the hustle and buslte, Tove meets Tuulikki, the woman who will become her life partner for the rest of her life..." reads part of the panel.

The wall of stills would probably have been of more interest in the original exhibit, as it apparently included some actual artwork by her. Here, understandably, it's all reproductions and screen captures. A fan of the characters might be interested in seeing how they evolved in different animations. There are also some areas for children to draw, hang things on a tree, or take a picture with cardboard standups. There is also a small selection of gifts in the giftshop.

Also of interest from a cartoon perspective are a STEAM-centric exhibits about creating animations featuring SpongeBob and his cast, and another on Paw Patrol. Lastly, I'd like to apologize to the public affairs staff at the Museum for being so delayed in posting this review. They were true professionals who got me into the exhibit days after I wrote to them, and I just didn't get around to writing it for 6 weeks.

All the images, except for "Exhibition space 4" and "Tove Jansson," are courtesy of the Embassy of Finland in Washington, D.C. The two are courtesy of the NCM. The exhibit catalog cover is taken from the copy the staff gave to me. My photographs can be seen here. A version of this review will also appear in the International Journal of Comic Art and on its blog.

Bruce Guthrie on UVA's Oliphant exhibit

by Bruce Guthrie

I went down to Charlottesville this weekend to see the new Oliphant exhibit there.  While there, I met with Molly Schwartzburg who was co-curator of the exhibit that I had been sending emails to regarding photo policies and such.  We had a good chat!

This is the official exhibit description:

Oliphant: Unpacking the Archive
September 23, 2019 – May 30, 2020
Celebrating the recent acquisition of editorial cartoonist Patrick Oliphant’s voluminous archive

In 2018, Patrick and Susan Oliphant donated almost 7,000 drawings, watercolors, prints, sculptures, and sketchbooks to the UVA Library. Complementing the art is a wealth of archival material: correspondence, photographs, professional papers, scrapbooks, and recordings. This, the first exhibition to juxtapose the archive with Oliphant’s artwork, shows how and why Oliphant became the most widely syndicated, most influential political cartoonist in America, shaping the political consciousness of generations.

What happens when a great artist takes up the profession of political cartooning and deploys all the weapons in his considerable arsenal to send a message? Endowed with a skepticism of the status quo, a love of drawing, and little formal training, Oliphant began his career at eighteen as a copy boy in Adelaide, Australia. When he joined the Denver Post in 1964 he introduced a linear fluency and wit—a studied awareness of adversary traditions from Hogarth, Goya, and Daumier to David Low—as well as an expansive imagination and conceptual reach as yet unknown to American newspaper audiences.

Oliphant’s swift rise to prominence, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1967, was followed by five decades of sustained, uncompromising work. From Watergate to Bridgegate, from Duoshade to digital delivery, and from the ephemeral newspaper cartoon to the lasting medium of bronze, Oliphant’s work both embraces its immediate context and transcends the particulars of time, place, and medium to reify universal traits of human character.

Today is a moment of great change for political commentary and visual satire. As newspapers continue to fold or merge, and the number of staff editorial cartoonists drops from hundreds to dozens nationally, Oliphant’s archive will be essential for understanding the place of political cartoons in newsprint’s last decades of dominance, and inspiring paths forward in an era of turbulent uncertainty.

It's a wonderful exhibit, filled with bunches of his daily strips, his sculptures, etc. 

For me, the major disappointment was that most of the artwork were reproductions.  Apparently, the originals were hung for the first couple of months when it opened in September, but were then rotated out.  The signage was not changed to reflect this so I'm not entirely sure what was original and what wasn't.  That's not the way it's supposed to be in a research library.

But ignoring that, there is a lot to love about the exhibit:

• The sketchbooks -- so many sketchbooks! -- are wonderful.  There's even one (clearly a reproduction) that you can pick up and look through.  Pat drew everything! 
• There's a huge doodle picture on an easel that's just amazing.  Between classic drawings are phone numbers, addresses, and appointment reminders.
• The sculptures -- two of which are downstairs -- are great.  The National Portrait Gallery has copies of most of them too, but they all went off display when the presidential gallery was reorganized.
• There's a free poster and a fairly modest brochure.  Both feature a self-portrait that he did for San Diego Comic-Con back in 2009. That was the one that I sat next to his wife Susan during his talk while he drew obscene things on his writing tablet (Susan kept covering her eyes during the demo).
• The history lesson about growing up in Australia and coming here on assignment were interesting.  I always wondered why he was here.
• There was a display about Punk, the penguin character that visits most of his strips.  Punk has been around.... well, hell, almost forever.  It's his signature like Ralph Steadman's splatter.  And like at Steadman's Katzen exhibit, you'll find Punk on the walls in something like ten places throughout the building including on floor landings and in the elevator.  (Some Katzen folk got splatters added to their business cards.  I'm not sure that happened with Punk.)

They did a really nice job and it's well worth the trip.  Plus that library also has an interesting exhibit about the Declaration of Independence and offset printing. 

I of course did my normal photo obsessive thing -- so many photos! -- and they're up on http://www.bguthriephotos.com/graphlib.nsf/keys/2020_02_20B2_UVAL_Oliphant

Exhibit Review: The Comic Art of Lynn Johnston

by Mike Rhode


The Comic Art of Lynn Johnston. Kate Grumbacher. Washington, DC: Embassy of Canada Art Gallery, September 13, 2019-January 31, 2020.

The Canadian Embassy on Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, between the White House and Congress is a striking setting for this small exhibit on For Better or For Worse, the long-running and popular comic strip. From 1979- 2008, the strip followed the lives of the Patterson family, a wife and husband (a dentist) and their three kids and dogs as they grew up in Canada. The strip is still running in reprints. The exhibit was originally shown in a gallery in Canada and modified by Grumbacher for exhibit in Washington. Johnston was in town for the exhibit opening, and also spoke at the Library of Congress the following day. She noted that she can no longer draw the strip due to tremors, but she’s being creative in other ways. On the back of the introductory plinth is fabric that she’s designed and goofy paintings of dogs and cats, but the exhibit largely concentrates on the comic strip.

 

 

 

As you walk into the exhibit, a large panel depicts a collage of her characters over the life of the strip, and has the title of the exhibit in French and English. The exhibit is bilingual throughout. In French, for the record the title is L’Art de la Bande Dessineé selon Lynn Johnston. Turning left from the title plinth, Johnston’s desk is featured along with some early drawings framed above it. The desk looks barely used compared to some other cartoonists’. The ‘office area’ is bounded by a small wall, and on the other side of that is a small interactive section where a visitor could color a sheet with characters from the strip, or create their own four-panel strip in a blank sheet of squares. A large set of labels explains the process of creating a comic strip. Next to that is a small enclosed exhibit case with family photos, toy cars and other materials she used as references to draw the strip. Next to the exhibit case is a group of several original Sunday strips matched with color prints to show how they 

 actually appeared in the newspaper. 

 

 

 

The main characters of the strip are introduced, and then large panels with purple headers explains the high points of the strip over the years. These included “Michael & Deanna” (the oldest son and his wife), “April’s Birth” (the third child), “Infidelity,” “Lawrence Comes Out” (when the character was revealed to be gay, it was a major controversy), “Mtigwaki” (the eldest daughter Elizabeth goes to work in a First Nations community), “Shannon Lake” (an autistic character introduced in a school setting), “Elizabeth’s Sexual Assault,” “Elizabeth’s Wedding,” “Death & Illness,” and “Farley’s Death” (also controversial when the family dog died saving April from a stream).

 

The exhibit concludes with a short film, a quilt of the characters (hanging up very high), and in a nod to our locality, reproductions from the Washington Post of a page of comic strips, and Michael Cavna’s article about the end of the strip. 

This is a celebratory exhibit. There is no deep analysis of the social or historical implications of the strip, beyond the purple panels’ basic claims, and that is fine. The exhibit is both a celebration of a Canadian artist and an enjoyable hour-long stop for Washington’s tourists, in a venue they would not normally see. More photographs of the exhibit are at https://flic.kr/s/aHsmGVy4FY and Johnston’s Library of Congress talk at https://flic.kr/s/aHsmGVvahH

 

(This review was written for the International Journal of Comic Art 22:1, but this version appears on both the IJOCA and ComicsDC websites on January 8 2020, while the exhibit is still open for viewing.)

   

 

(This review was written for the International Journal of Comic Art 22:1, but this version appears on both the IJOCA and ComicsDC websites on January 8 2020, while the exhibit is still open for viewing.)