Tim Burton: The Exhibition – Closing Weekend Festivities 7-10 October 2010

The Australian Centre for the Moving Image’s (ACMI) blockbuster Melbourne Winter Masterpieces show Tim Burton: The Exhibition will present three special late-night events leading up to the closing of the exhibition on Sunday 10 October, 2010.

The late night events will see Thursday, Friday and Saturday editions of the popular weekly Burton Club from 6pm until midnight to coincide with the extended opening hours of the exhibition, also open until midnight for those three days. These events, from Thursday 7 October, are designed to allow visitors a final chance to see this extraordinary show or re-live the experience one last time.

The Burton Club is a free-entry live entertainment event allowing visitors to relax with fellow exhibition-goers in an environment decked out in Burton-inspired décor while enjoying a drink and live performance. Entertainment includes bands, circus acts and roving performers, all original acts but with a Burtonesque sensibility.

To open the celebration of the closing weekend, Thursday’s live entertainment will include the kings of Russian criminal sound VulgarGrad and the sonic experience that is quartet Voodoo Economic. The evening will be littered with the amazing juggling skills of Mr Tails and the sensational hoola-hooping of Sammy Hoopstar and Melbourne’s first lady of Go-Go, The Girl Bomb, DJ Emma Peel throughout the night.

Friday night features Ensemble Las Medusas who will perform everything from Haitian Voodoo, Flamenco Bulerías to 1920s Mooching Swing with a significant amount of harmonic singing. They will be joined by Vardos, the latest Balkan and Baltic hits, legends, village wedding tunes and burning laments. DJ Emma Peel is back, along with our intrepid roving performers.

Saturday night closes out the late night parties with The Tiger and Me, renowned for their cabaret, 1940’s- inspired sounds and circus-themed live performances, performing their unique brand of European, folk inspired, indie pop. They will be joined by multi-instrumental monster The Woohoo Review, with their punchy folk jazz, gypsy swing and manic tango, as well as DJ Simon Winkler and jaw dropping circus feats from Mr Tails and Sammy Hoopstar.

The exhibition will close after 109 days at 6pm on Sunday 10 October before being deconstructed and transported to Canada where it will be staged in Toronto’s new Bell Lightbox centre from November 2010.

Tim Burton: The Exhibition is the largest temporary exhibition ever to be staged at ACMI, with more than 700 objects. Tracing Burton’s visual imagination from his earliest childhood drawings through his mature work in film, the exhibition brings together examples of rarely or never-before-seen drawings, paintings, photographs, storyboards, moving image works, puppets, maquettes, costumes and cinematic ephemera and includes an extensive film series spanning his 28-year career.

The exhibition which opened on 24 June has seen record crowds flock to the centre since opening week when Mr Burton himself visited ACMI to present a series of sold-out events. Over the four month show ACMI has experienced crowds like never before; attendances surpassing their previous Melbourne Winter Masterpieces record-holding show Pixar: 20 Years of Animation (2007). Tim Burton: The Exhibition is now the highest ever attended exhibition staged at ACMI.

ACMI’s next major exhibition is Dreams Come True: The Art of Disney’s Classic Fairy Tales opening on 18 November with tickets going on sale on Monday 11 October.

The closing weekend festivities for Tim Burton: The Exhibition kick off on Thursday 7 October when ACMI presents the Burton Club from 6pm until midnight Thursday to Saturday. The exhibition, exclusive to the southern hemisphere, must close at 6pm on Sunday 10 October.

Visit The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) for full details.

Check out the fantastic photos that our Naomi Rahim took at the opening night of Tim Burton: The Exhibition @ ACMI, Melbourne [Photo Gallery]

[Photos: Naomi R]