Aardman: Art That Takes Shape : Exhibition,Art Ludique – Le Musée,Paris,21 March–30 August 2015

Fans of Aardman, and stop-motion animation in general, were in for a treat this summer if they headed down to the Aardman: Art That Takes Shape exhibition at the Art Ludique Museum in Paris. This futuristic green building on the Seine’s Left Bank, near Gare d’Austerlitz, paid homage to the work of the prolific British animation studio. While the building itself might at first seem impenetrable, the exhibition was accessible and comprehensive with something for both die-hard fans and casual attendees. The curators made the most of this blank slate space to showcase Aardman’s work in the form of clips, drawings, sets and characters from their nearly 40 years of shorts, features, commercials and television work.

The exhibition’s many rooms were organised at first chronologically, and then according to either theme or process. The first rooms set the scene, with charming ‘family photos’ from the studio’s history which give a visual snapshot of how the company, arguably the most significant and prolific producer of British animation, has grown from humble beginnings. We are reminded that Aardman was born when two 12-year-old boys from Walton-on-Thames, David Sproxton and Peter Lord, started experimenting with animation on a kitchen table using the most basic of set-ups. These were the days when pre-teen boys could legitimately get a meeting at the BBC (via Sproxton’s father, who worked in the broadcaster’s religious programming department), and their third film, featuring a goofy character they called Aardman, was picked up for £15 by the producer of Vision On. Thus began an illustrious career, one that has garnered the studio multiple awards and much box office success.

After the introductory rooms, the exhibition had spaces dedicated first to drawing and then to sculpture. The former contained dozens and dozens of character drawings and concept art from programmes and films including Shaun the Sheep (2015) and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) as well as some lovely Morph sketches and storyboards for Wat’s Pig (1996) and Pib and Pog (1995). Much of this material gives the visitor insight into the Aardman creative process and how characters evolved. For example, we see that Lady Tottington, the aristocratic country toff voiced by Helena Bonham-Carter in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, was originally conceived as a kind of hippyish embodiment of the fading aristocracy, decked out in scruffy mismatched clothes. It was also a real delight to get to see the early drawings from A Grand Day Out (1989), exhibited for the first time here since they were rediscovered in 2014. These first drawings of Wallace and Gromit show that while some of the details changed before their onscreen debut, much of the essence of their character was in place from their first conception. The drawings in this room, as in many of the rooms that follow it, were displayed on matt black walls, on which Aardman’s characters had been drawn in a large scale in bright chalk. This added some vibrancy to what could otherwise have been a monochrome space, and a sense of scale to the otherwise diminutive images shown on the wall.

In the rooms focusing on Aardman’s sculpture practice, we are told that the studio uses their own secret mix to make their modelling clay (known as ‘Aard-Mix’) and a typical model-makers table and mood board was on display. These little insights into the production practice of the studio were well displayed and added a dimension to the exhibition, giving the visitor the sense of gaining a privileged, ‘behind-the-scenes’ peek at how the films get made. These insights were a nice complement to the many finished products on display, such as the sets of Lady Tottington’s mansion and Wallace and Gromit’s basement.

The rooms dedicated to ’Nature’, ‘Machines and Inventions’ and ‘Houses and Architecture’ took a more thematic approach to Aardman’s work, and even drew comparisons with a much broader cultural context. For example, the on-wall text introducing ‘Nature’ places Aardman in the cultural lineage of Constable and Turner, with their interest in the bucolic and their representation of the British countryside, whereas ‘Machines and Inventions’ drew comparison to Leonardo da Vinci. The exhibition made these connections across their feature films and other work. For example, the screen in ‘Nature’ featured clips from The Curse of the Were Rabbit along with examples of their advertising work. There were some real delights in the ‘Houses and Architecture’ section, which emphasised the architectural approach Aardman takes to their work. Sets included Fowler’s hut from Chicken Run (2000) and the carousel from The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. These, along with a case of tiny props, including miniature tankards, garden tools and eggs, from various films, really emphasised the attention to detail and intricate artistry involved in Aardman’s set and art design and production.

While the exhibition’s emphasis was on Aardman’s best known and most successful films, attention was also paid to their other outputs. Each room included at least one screen showing clips from a range of their work. These clips were short in length and not always of the greatest quality; however, they paid service to the variety of animation styles and techniques employed by the studio over the years and remind us that there is more to Aardman than claymation. And while their CGI films featured less heavily than their stop-motion work, the exhibition did display technical drawings and concept art from Arthur Christmas (2011) and Flushed Away (2006).

With Aardman’s claymation technique so familiar now to audiences, it is good to be reminded that the studio has continuously taken an innovative and experimental approach to its work. This was well demonstrated by a section in the ‘Sculpture’ area showing the production of the smallest and largest stop motion animations ever made. Dot is a one and a half minute short film made in collaboration with the University of Bristol in 2010, in part to promote the new Nokia N8 phone’s camera, to which they attached a portable microscope. The film blends art and science and required the studio to use the replacement technique of stop-motion, creating a new minuscule puppet, only 9 mm high, for each frame shot. The following year, Aardman made Gulp, which animates large areas of sand on a beach in South Wales, once again using the Nokia N8’s camera. The exhibition featured stills from both productions and some examples of Dot puppets, as well as each finished film.

The exhibition’s real showpiece, however, was saved for the end. The next-to-last room spectacularly displayed the pirates’ galleon from The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists (2012). The model is breathtaking not least for its size (it’s nearly 5 m in length), but also because it was atmospherically lit and created a real ‘wow’ moment upon entering the room. The final room emphasised the importance, and challenge, of lighting Aardman’s work with a display of the arches set from the Shaun the Sheep film, complete with the actual lighting rig from the production. The final ‘exclusive’ montage film at the end of the exhibition reinforced the celebratory tone of the whole event.

The exhibition was accompanied by a free audio-guide, the English version enthusiastically narrated in a heavy French accent. While this did not provide much more information than that written at the entrance to each room, there were some fun facts worth listening out for, such as how filmmakers had to cut through the studio’s door frame when transporting the large galleon from Pirates! from one set to another. Also free was a fun fold-out cartoon strip history of the studio. The coffee table book accompanying the exhibition (€30) includes the same written material seen in the exhibition and plenty of glossy colour and high-resolution images of the exhibits.

Art Ludique has done a very good job of giving a sense of the breadth of Aardman’s productions and there were plenty of opportunities for visitors to focus on the details of the drawings, sets and models from their work. Some pleasing and unexpected insights meant that the exhibition had something to offer even the most seasoned Aardman fan, whilst its accessibility meant that those less familiar with their work can be transported, for an hour or two, into the world of Wallace, Gromit, Shaun and their many friends from the nearly 40 years of Aardman’s work.