Pixar's 30-Year Animation Journey Explored in Rome Exhibition

A major exhibition tracing Pixar's 30-year history opens at Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome on October 9, 2018. The show, curated by Maria Grazia Mattei (president of MEET | Fondazione Cariplo) and Elyse Klaidman, debuted at MoMA in New York in 2005 and has since toured globally, including a stop at PAC in Milan in 2011. Featuring over 400 works, the exhibition is divided into three sections—Character, Story, and World—designed by Fabio Fornasari. It showcases the studio's creative process through hand-drawn sketches, acrylic paintings, watercolors, digital sketches, casts, and models. Pixar, originally a Lucasfilm division founded by George Lucas and owned by Walt Disney since 2006, produced its first fully computer-animated feature, Toy Story, in 1995, followed by hits like Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., Inside Out, and Coco. The exhibition includes immersive installations Artscape and Zoetrope to animate the works. Mattei describes Pixar as a 'digital Renaissance workshop' where hand drawing, sculpture, and computing harmonize.