From Felix the Cat to MTV: MoMA explores a century of animation

“It’s very short, but it essentially talks about going beyond pigs and bunnies,” Magliozzi told me, “basically leaving behind that first generation and doing the kind of animation that can do much more.”

Invigorated by the creative demands of the second world war – and buoyed by his work creating an animated film to promote Franklin Roosevelt in the 1944 election – Hubley aspired to animation that was driven by independent-minded creators who could engage deeply with important social issues and profound artistic questions.

Although It’s Alive! engages both parts of animation’s history, with a black-and-white gallery offering such prewar characters as Gertie the Dinosaur, Felix the Cat (in a film where he plays “Romeeow”), and Raggedy Ann & Andy, where the show really ignites is in its postwar, in-color gallery, documenting some of the strangest and most fascinating animations you’ll ever see.

While Magliozzi noted the inherent challenges to introducing a range of widely unknown and decidedly ambitious animations, he had early signs that he was hitting the mark when one particular constituency gave him glowing feedback.

“Most of the art is going to be unfamiliar to most people,” he explained, “but I know it’s exciting stuff because we’ve gotten very good feedback from the installation so far. When the guards stop by to see what you’re doing, you know you’re on the right track.”

Take, for instance, the American artist and Oscar–winning film-maker Jerome Hill, whose The Sand Castle is a Jungian fantasia that begins as a black-and-white film about a boy’s trip to the beach and ends as a remarkable stop-motion animation into a dreamlike version of the titular castle. The animated section comes complete with a bizarre dining room sequence and a ballroom fantasia – according to an interview with Hill conducted by Jonas Mekas, Jung himself inspired all of this creativity when the great psychologist told Hill: “Don’t put me in the film; let my ideas be shown in a film.”

In another bit of gorgeous whimsy, Magliozzi has chosen to exhibit the legendary Sesame Street animator Jane Aaron. The show has many of the hundreds of amazing letters of the alphabet that she created for the show, as well as her visuals of famous artists and art works, among them Vincent Van Gogh and Picasso’s Girl Before a Mirror – in Aaron’s animation, these figures are taking note of their own nose, eyes and mouth, making for striking visuals to accompany the Sesame Street standard Right in the Middle of My Face. “Jane is one of the primary animators from Sesame Street,” Magliozzi said. “Audiences might know of her work but not necessarily know who she was. So it’s a special thing to be able to showcase her here.”

MoMA has dedicated holdings of 13 different forms of animation – among them stop-motion, cel, rotoscope, pinscreen and pixilation – giving Magliozzi a true treasure trove to draw from. Having worked at MoMA for nearly 50 years, Magliozzi was able to participate in acquiring many of these collections, and he was excited to have another opportunity to exhibit them. “We have such a wealth of animation here, so that really was the inspiration for this show.”

In an effort to make the artistry behind these films more accessible to audiences, It’s Alive! will screen 20 films within the gallery space, offering viewers a chance to get a closeup view of these striking sights. Making an innovative move, Magliozzi has chosen to screen these films without sound, granting viewers space to pay full attention to the remarkable visuals.

“The sound is distracting, and so without sound people really focus differently,” Magliozzi explained. “There will be an app that folks can have on their phone to listen to the sound. So it’s possible to not miss out on that if you want it, but I think most people will experience them without sound, which is the way I want them to experience it.”

If there’s one animated short in It’s Alive! that audiences will be likely to know, it’s MTV’s I Want My MTV! ad campaign from the channel’s rise to prominence in the early 1980s. Featuring animated versions of era superstars like Cyndi Lauper, Billy Idol, Paul McCartney and Pat Benatar, the ad helped etch MTV into the stratosphere of 80s pop culture, while burning the catchphrase into the minds of a generation.

A film accompanying the MTV portion of the show offers outtakes of the filming sessions where some of the 80s’ most famous rock stars endlessly utter “I want my MTV!”, trying to get the catchphrase just right. “It’s people like Cyndi Lauper, the Police, Peter Wolf just saying it over and over again. I want people to hear ‘I want my MTV!’ over and over again in the gallery!” Magliozzi laughed.

It’s Alive! ends with the advent of digital, which Magliozzi sees as a fundamental shift of the medium, comparing it to streaming music versus listening to it on vinyl. “A film print is a mechanical object, when it goes into a projector it’s alive, viewers can feel it,” he said. “With many of the films we’re screening for the show, we had a choice between digital print or a 35mm print, and in most cases we’re going with the 35 because people can just sense it, it’s a physical thing.”

Beyond being a buffet of a century’s worth of incredible animation, Magliozzi hopes that It’s Alive! will be a way of bringing generations together. Whether you watched Sesame Street in the 1970s or the 2010s, you can come to MoMA’s galleries and be dazzled by something that’s probably quite new and thrilling, hopefully connecting with others outside of your age group. “It’s a very cross-generational thing,” Magliozzi. “Children love it, adults love it. It’s a bonding experience, so it’s really fun to do for that reason.”

It’s Alive! A Century of Animation from the Collection is on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from 1 August