Minneapolis Institute of Art has a whopper of a show on the way. Guillermo Del Toro: At Home With Monsters, will be on view from March 5 to May 17, 2017. Del Toro’ imaginative cinematic vision inspires endless fascination and wonder; access to the inner workings of his creativity, and a window into Bleak House (Del Toro’s home in suburban Los Angeles), should be considered an un-missable event.
Says Mia:
“This exhibition is the latest in a series at Mia exploring process and inspiration as the cornerstones of human creativity,” said Gabriel Ritter, Mia’s curator of Contemporary Art and site curator of the exhibition. “Del Toro’s insatiable curiosity drives his creative process. His work is informed by his remarkable knowledge of art, literature, and his sensitivity to the inherently flawed nature of humankind. At the same time, he finds inspiration, nourishment, and wonder in objects of all kinds, seeing no divide between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture.”
Said del Toro: “To find beauty in the profane. To elevate the banal. To be moved by genre. These things are vital for my storytelling. This exhibition presents a small fraction of the things that have moved me, inspired me, and consoled me as I transit through life. It’s a devotional sampling of the enormous love that is required to create, maintain, and love the monsters in our lives.”
Exhibition Themes and Highlights
The exhibition is organized into eight thematic sections:
• Childhood and Innocence, exploring the central role children play in many of del Toro’s films;
• Victoriana, which loosely references the Romantic, Victorian, and Edwardian ages, as well as latter-day interpretations of the Victorian era;
• Rain Room, a recreation of a favorite spot in Bleak House, the suburban Los Angeles home that houses del Toro’s personal collection, featuring a false window and special effects to simulate a perpetual thunderstorm—the best atmosphere for del Toro’s creative process;
• Magic, Alchemy, and the Occult, exploring the many puzzles, talismans, secret keys, and quests for forbidden knowledge that appear in del Toro’s films; • Movies, Comics, and Pop Culture, delving into the scope of del Toro’s obsession with comic books and cinema, from B-movies and horror films to works by directors Alfred Hitchcock and Luis Buñuel;
• Frankenstein and Horror, revealing del Toro’s lifelong love affair with the tale of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster;
• Freaks and Monsters, considering del Toro’s fascination with monsters of all types, from those found in horror movies to those in nature, literature, myth, and art; and • Death and the Afterlife, which speaks to the disturbing confrontations with death that del Toro experienced as a child, and the use of fantasy in his work to explore spirituality.
God. It’s going to be good.
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