PIXAR: 25 YEARS OF ANIMATION TO OPEN JULY 31, 2010

Over 500 Artifacts-Including Drawings, Paintings, and Sculpture from Ratatouille, WALL•E, Up, and Pixar’s Latest Film, Toy Story 3

OAKLAND, CA, April 21, 2010-The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) will present PIXAR: 25 Years of Animation, a major exhibition of over 500 works by the artists at Pixar Animation Studios, including drawings, paintings, and sculptures that illustrate the creative process and craftsmanship behind Pixar’s wildly successful computer-animated films. This will be a significantly enhanced presentation of the exhibition, which is returning home to Oakland after a successful worldwide tour that began at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2005. A number of significant works will be on public display for the first time, including art from Ratatouille, WALL•E, Up, and Pixar’s latest feature film, Toy Story 3. PIXAR will also include an updated, awe-inspiring version of the Pixar Artscape, a widescreen media installation. On view from July 31, 2010 through January 9, 2011, the exhibition will be accompanied by screenings of Pixar’s feature and short films; a special program of lectures, talks and workshops with Pixar artists; and a new and expanded exhibition catalogue.

"The Bay Area, has emerged as the global center for animation today, making OMCA an ideal venue for this comprehensive exhibition of Pixar’s achievements," said Lori Fogarty, Executive Director of the Oakland Museum of California. "This Museum’s mission is to connect communities to the natural and cultural heritage of California, and we believe that Pixar is in many ways a quintessential California enterprise. Not only does Pixar carry on the extraordinary legacy of animation in California-and particularly the pioneering creativity of the Walt Disney Studios-but it represents the dynamic marriage of art and technology that is a hallmark of California innovation."

"We’re thrilled to see this greatly enhanced version of the exhibition come to the newly reopened Oakland Museum of California, our hometown museum and practically a neighbor," adds John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer, Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. "Most people don’t realize that many Pixar artists work in traditional media-drawing, painting, pastels, and sculpture-as well as in digital media. This artwork plays a particularly important role in the process of concept design, story, and character development. OMCA celebrates the breadth of California creativity through its collections and it is wonderful to revisit the craftsmanship of Pixar artists in this context."

About the Exhibition

At the heart of PIXAR are the concept drawings, sketches, paintings, and maquettes created by Pixar artists over the past 25 years to bring to life the compelling characters and stories that have enchanted moviegoers of all ages around the world. Drawing on work from Pixar’s eleven feature films and many of its short films, the exhibition spans some of the studio’s first short films created in the 1980s; its first feature-length film, Toy Story, the first fully computer-animated feature film ever produced; Pixar’s recent Academy Award-winning feature Up; and its latest film, Toy Story 3, to be released this summer. PIXAR will showcase more than 500 artifacts, including many of the pencil drawings; paintings in acrylic, gouache, and watercolor; and sculptures that form the backbone of the computer-generated images (CGIs) for which Pixar has become internationally recognized. The exhibition also includes video interviews with artists and behind-the-scenes footage of Pixar’s creative process.

Walt Disney’s arrival in Los Angeles in the 1920s established California as a magnet and training ground for future generations of animation artists. Home to a number of leading studios, the San Francisco Bay Area has today emerged as a creative hub and global center for computer-animated film. PIXAR provides an unprecedented look at the artistry, creative process, and technical advances pioneered by the renowned Emeryville-based studio, located just a few miles from the Oakland Museum of California.

From its founding in 1986, Pixar has been at the forefront of a revolution in animation by creating films that have pushed the limits of traditional animation artistry and groundbreaking computer applications. PIXAR invites visitors to trace different stages in animation production, from early concept design and character, scene, and story development to finished film sequences that transport the viewer into the world of the imagination.

A highlight of the exhibition will be two special media installations-Artscape, an immersive, wide-screen projection of digitally processed images that gives the viewer the sensation of entering into and exploring the exquisite details of the original artworks; and the Pixar Zoetrope, a three-dimensional device that displays a rapid succession of images, creating the illusion of motion.

PIXAR will feature storyboards, a tool to guide scene-by-scene narrative progression, from several of the studio’s short films. The exhibition will also showcase colorscripts created during the making of many Pixar feature films. Colorscripts are used to express the production designer’s vision of the story through color and emotion.

They can be produced in a variety of mediums, from marker to pastel to paint and collage.

PIXAR will be installed in approximately 11,000 square feet of temporary exhibition galleries and expand into common spaces such as hallways and the museum store. Mural size graphics and video projections will be used throughout OMCA’s newly renovated landmark facility-linking the exhibition to the Museum’s collections and encouraging visitors to explore the work of Pixar artists as part of a continuum of creativity and innovation in California.

"One of our goals is to connect PIXAR to the legacy of California’s pioneering role in imaging technology, including early photography by artists such as Eadweard Muybridge, who was instrumental in developing the moving picture," says René de Guzman, senior curator of art at OMCA. "We also have amazing collections of daguerreotypes, albumen stereographs, nineteenth-century photographic panoramas, and new media that illustrate how California has been at the frontier of how images are created."

Public Programs

Working closely with Pixar Animation Studios, OMCA will host a series of dynamic public programs for families, youth, schools, and adults of all ages. Programs will not only highlight the Pixar exhibition itself, but link the concepts of creating worlds, characters and stories with exhibits in the newly reinstalled Art and History Galleries. Visitors will enjoy hands-on activities, demonstrations, and tours by Pixar artists throughout the run of the exhibition. In addition, OMCA will draw on the wealth of Pixar feature and short films to develop a special film series to coincide with the exhibition. Details on public programs will be announced soon.

Publication

A publication entitled Pixar: 25 Years of Animation, published by Chronicle Books for OMCA, will accompany the exhibition. The book greatly enhances and updates the original exhibition catalogue, featuring an additional 32 pages including art from Ratatouille, WALL•E, Up, and Pixar’s latest film, Toy Story 3. Also included in the book is a conversation between Rene de Guzman, senior curator of art at the Oakland Museum of California, and Elyse Klaidman, director of the Pixar University and Archives, focusing on the creative process behind Pixar’s computer-animated films and the making of this exhibition. The book will be released on June 18. It will be available for purchase exclusively at the new OMCA Store and through the Museum’s website.

About Pixar Animation Studios

Pixar Animation Studios, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is an Academy Award®-winning film studio with world-renowned technical, creative and production capabilities in the art of computer animation. It is the creator of some of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time, including Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, WALL

·E, and most recently, Up. The Northern California studio has won 22 Academy Awards® and its ten films have grossed more than $5 billion at the worldwide box office to date. The next film release from Disney•Pixar is Toy Story 3 (June 18, 2010).

Inaugural Year at Transformed OMCA

PIXAR is part of the inaugural year celebration of the transformed Oakland Museum of California. The Museum reopens Saturday, May 1 with a dramatically different presentation of its collections, inviting visitors to discover the many stories of California and to explore their own contributions to the state’s social, artistic, and environmental heritage. OMCA’s transformation is enhanced by the renovation and expansion of its landmark Kevin Roche building.

During its inaugural year, the new OMCA will complement the presentation of its collections of California Art and History with several major exhibitions that pay tribute to the many facets of California culture and creativity. In addition to PIXAR, the Museum will present The Marvelous Museum: A Project by Mark Dion (September 11, 2010-March 6, 2011); Days of the Dead (October 6-December 5, 2010); The Arts of the Missions of Northern New Spain: 1600-1821 (February 12-May 15, 2011); and Michael McMillen: A Retrospective Survey (Spring 2011). For information on OMCA’s activities, please visit www.museumca.org.