William Kentridge, Self-Portrait (Testing the Library), 1998; Charcoal on paper; 26 x 20 in. (66 x 51 cm); Collection of Brenda Potter and Michael Sandler; © 2008 William Kentridge; photo: courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York.

While you probably agree that animation can be a great art form, only a few museums have honored animators and their works in the past, generally limiting the acknowledgments to special screenings and on really rare occasions they have also displaying several cels and drawings in a gallery. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has held wonderful premieres of work by John Canemaker, John and Faith Hubley, Ralph Bakshi, Michael Sporn and several other animators, but the only major gallery exhibits I can recall in well-known museums are shows of art from the Disney studio. Important shows have also been presented by several small galleries, including San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum and at P.S. 1, an exciting art center in New York City.

Now, probably by coincidence, several museums are exhibiting or are about to open important animation shows: NY's Museum of Modern Art will hold a retrospective honoring Tim Burton (Nov. 22 to April 26, 2010), that will include more 700 works: drawings, paintings, storyboards, digital images, puppets, maquettes, props, costumes, ephemera, sketchbooks and severed-head props from Mars Attacks! The museum will also present 14 of his films and a series called "The Lurid Beauty of Monsters," films that influenced, inspired and intrigued Burton.

In Westchester County just North of NYC, animation directors Howard Beckerman and J. J. Sedelmaier curated It All Started Here at the Art Exchange (Jan. 18 - Feb. 28, 2009), a large exhibit (hundreds of pieces) honoring 103 years of animation production in the New York area. It began with a tribute to Winsor McCay, had art and artifacts from the studios that have existed in the area (Bray, Fleischer, Terrtoons, Famous, Blue Sky and many others) and it showed work by independent and commercial animators working today (George Griffin, John Canemaker, Michael Sporn, J.J. Sedelmaier, Jimmy Picker and many others). There were also lectures and numerous film screenings at the Jacob Burns Film Center and at other locations. Hopefully, the exhibit will be presented again in a museum in the city. Photographs of the exhibit can be seen on the internet.

In Canada the Montreal Museum of Fine Art is presenting Frederic Back: One with Nature (June 18 – Sept. 27). Back's name is not well known despite his winning two Oscars for remarkable works, Crac! (1981) and The Man Who Planted Trees (1987).

In England, the National Media Museum in Bradford will exhibit Drawings That Move, the Art of Joanna Quinn, from Oct.16 till the end of February 2010. There will be about 75 drawing displayed along with some of her awards and sketch books in display cases. Clips of her work will also be shown on monitors. Quinn has won dozens of major prizes (seven at Annecy, five at Zagreb, the grand prize at Ottawa in 2006, four BAFTA awards (the British Oscar), an Oscar nomination, two Emmy awards and many others.

As important and exciting as these shows are, there is another one touring the world that I consider one of the most remarkable art exhibits that I've ever seen.

William Kentridge, Invisible Mending (still), from 7 Fragments for Georges Melies, 2003; Collection of the artist, courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery; © 2008 William Kentridge; photo: John Hodgkiss, courtesy the artist.

William Kentridge: Five Themes
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art recently presented an enormous traveling art exhibit, William Kentridge: Five Themes. This was the first stop of a two-year journey across the globe to Jerusalem by way of NYC, Paris and other cities. Although Kentridge, an artist from South Africa, is not well known to most fans of animation, the show surprised almost everyone who saw it. I had no idea I would be seeing remarkable mature works of art that would include complex projected animated sets for major opera productions and memorable multi-image installation pieces. While I had seen two or three his films in the past and I was impressed with his innovative drawing techniques, I had no idea what was in store for me when I walked into the exhibit.

The man is brilliant. I was so impressed that I went back two more times to better understand and enjoy it. I also sent out an e-mail saying it is the most exciting art exhibit that I've seen in many years.

One reason the show is successful is its presentation. It overwhelms us. Several of the works take up entire rooms. One used nine projectors to fill the four walls with moving images, another uses eight, and other setups involve two miniature stages, animatronics and other unusual artistic concepts. I became immersed in his art. In the rooms with eight and nine projectors, if you lose interest in what is happening on one screen, just look to the left or right and watch something else happening. Seeing his work this way really is wonderful.

Think I'm gushing too much? The head of one animation studio and an animation teacher made more return visits to the exhibit than I did and a retired university professor told me, "The exhibition was great; hands down the best I've ever seen. He is such a supreme artist."

Kentridge's multi-image installations challenge the notion that film has to be seen in a conventional theater and that it should have a narrative story. In published interviews the artist says he isn't concerned with developing narratives. Instead he talks about his images having loose rather than specific meanings. He deals with themes rather than specific events. His pieces establish an aesthetic experience that relates to the theme of the work and the emotions he is exploring.

Kentridge's installations are designed so you have to turn around and move about to study them. To watch the hour-long presentation related to Mozart's Magic Flute, the audience stand or sit on boxes in the center of a long room so there is no front or back to them. Two of the audio-visual installations are at opposite ends of the room from each other and the third is against a sidewall of the gallery. The forth part of the piece requires you to stand in the next room to see his amazing projected and reflected illusions on a round tabletop.