I just got back from New York City where I had my first gallery show as part of a group called WHICH WAY DID THEY GO? It was artwork from former School of Visual Arts Alumni like John Dilworth (Courage the Cowardly Dog), Yvette Kaplan ( Beavis & Butthead do America, Ice Age), Chris Prynowski (The owntowners), Alex Kuperschmidt ( Muhlan, Lilo & Stitch) and me. The show is at the School of Visual Arts Museum 209 East 23rd St until Jan 21st.

While I was there I hopped the D train uptown to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and saw the huge show PIXAR: 20 YEARS OF ANIMATION. This comprehensive show displays a dazzling array of preproduction art from John Lassiters WALLY -B through the hits TOY STORY, BUGS LIFE, THE INCREDIBLES, FINDING NEMO, to the upcoming CARS. I must say I was so proud to see the work of animation buddies like Ralph Eggleston, Ronnie Del Carmen, Scott Caple, Tony Fucile, Ted Newton and more hanging on walls once reserved for Jasper Johns and Jackson Pollock. It was especially poignant to see a lot of work by the late, great Joe Ranft there.

There some wild story reels of the chase scenes in the Incredibles by Mark Andrews. Although I missed it there is supposed to be a large zoetrope of the Pixar characters of the kind done by Studio Ghibli in Tokyo.

Chuck Jones always fought for the respect and acknowledgement of the fine art world towards serious recognition of the medium of animation and it's place in American popular culture. He would be, as all of us are, proud of this wonderful show.

You don't need a special ticket like King Tut or anything. It's in the general admission. They are also running many Pixar films in the theater and there is a cool poster by Lou Romano. I hear it will travel afterwards to Europe and eventuallty wind up in San Francisco in a year. If you are anywhere East of the Mississippi between now and Feb 6th I urge you to drop everything and go see this show. And uhh.... while you're in town you can go see my show too...

-Tom Sito

¶ 2:55 PM