Petersen Museum Hosts the Art of Cars

I snuck out of work this afternoon for a peek at the Petersen Automotive Museum's new Pixar exhibit, which opens here in Los Angeles tomorrow (March 29). To be honest, I'm not that hot on cars (in general) or Cars (the 2006 Pixar film), but this show really is a perfect marriage: The museum cleared out most of its upstairs Hollywood Room (where the Batmobile, Herbie and the Mach 5 are normally parked) to display the paintings, sketches and maquettes created for the movie Cars.

It's a rare treat for animation fans. Apart from the Museum of Modern Art's big 20th anniversary tribute to the studio (this was back in 2006), much of this art hasn't been displayed off-campus. And as Elyse Klaidman, dean of art and film for Pixar U., explained, those "Art of ..." promo books Pixar releases for each film are compiled and printed too early to include the full spectrum of great work that goes into all these designs.

Elyse further explained that preparation breaks down into three stages — story, characters and environments — and the Petersen arranges them accordingly (it would be fair to add "marketing," the stage that explains the attractions most likely to interest the kids: "life-size" fiberglass replicas of Lightning McQueen and Mater).

Seeing the work divided up this way explains a lot about my reaction to the film: The story felt rather uninspired (a Doc Hollywood redux), the character designs leave the most fun to minor characters, but those Route 66 landscapes, with their hood-ornament-shaped outcroppings and retro Americana flair, totally steal the show.

Watching Cars, you can't help but be distracted by all that gorgeous, high-concept scenery, and an installation like this allows you to take all the time you want exploring the world John Lasseter and company created (maybe a "24-Hour Cars" screening, like the Hirshhorn Psycho exhibit). But there's a tremendous amount of thought that goes into every stage, as we uncovered when Variety first speculated about moving the eyes from the headlights (a la Herbie) to the windshield.

For the MoMA show, Lasseter and Ed Catmull wrote:

Many people don't realize that we have almost as many artists at Pixar working in traditional media — hand drawing, painting, pastels, sculpture — as we do in digital media. Most of their work takes place during the development of a project, when we're working out the story and look of the film. The wealth of beautiful art created for each movie is rarely seen outside the studio, but the finished film we send around the world would never be possible without it.

And now Angelenos have a chance to see some of that great work firsthand.

(Peter Debruge)