I don't want to sound preachy, but you damn well better go see and experience the Pixar: 25 Years of Animation exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California during its run from July 31st to January 9, 2011. I don't tend to be a skeptical person, but this morning I wasn't quite sure what to expect from an exhibition around animation. I felt like, you see the movies, and that is the art, case closed. I was very wrong with my presumptions.

Here was my impression about 3 minutes into the press previews at the Oakland Musem this morning, where myself and Juxtapoz New Media editor, Alex Tarrant attended, took notes, talked to Pixar artists, and Oakland Museum staffers: Pixar is not the type of animation studio where in one meeting, a "talking rat who cooks better than the top Parisian chefs is our next movie, get to it" is the motto. Years and years of drawings, paintings, and sculptures are built, modified, revisited, thrown out, redesigned until the characters begin to take a life of their own and the story lines are created.  That had Alex and I leaving more satisfied than expected... the time, precision, and research and use of technology as well as very simple art techniques to build the films from pencil to IMAX was evident in each corner of the exhibition.

Everything begins with the initial artwork. Acrylic, gouache, watercolors, sculpture, pencil, and pens all come before anything to do with animation is thought out. That is where this exhibition stands out... handmade art before the animation. Of course, within that is the amazing Zoetrope room and the state-of-the-art storyboard video screen that basically occupies an entire afternoon.

Okay, you get it, I liked this show, I'm gushing...  And I took a thousand photos, so if you live in Kansas City, you will get what I'm talking about.

Rene de Guzman starts the ceremony... 

As Alex and I were thinking... Pixar, spray paint, Ratatouille... priceless.

You have to see this thing to fully get it.... Alex has a nice interview he captured with Warren from Pixar in the Zoetrope room...

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