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Animation Art Exhibitions Features Movies

LAIKA presents
Wildwood
The Exhibition

LAIKA presents Wildwood The Exhibition

at the Design Museum, Kensington, London, to tie in with the release of their new film Wildwood

Like previous Laika offerings, latest production Wildwood (Travis Knight, 2026) is highly innovative, inventive and imaginative, pushing the boundaries of the cinematic and stop-frame mediums into places audiences haven’t seen them go before. It sounds an unlikely proposition, but if you were to remove the magical spectacle of stop-frame animation from Wildwood – or for that matter from any of Laika’s films – you would potentially have an incredible exhibition of small scale sets, puppets and models.

Photo © Jeremy Clarke

You could augment this using a series of explanatory videos talking about the various processes involved In the filmmaking. In terms of stop-frame, you could show animators at work, bringing puppets into life.

The legendary stop-frame animation company have done exactly that. have done exactly that. Following in the footsteps of the LAIKA Frame x Frame exhibition covering Laika’s first five films at BFI Southbank in 2024, the company have now partnered with Kensington’s Design Museum to put together a fascinating exhibition about the film.

Photo © Jeremy Clarke

I should declare at this point that I was lucky enough to see the exhibition having viewed the film a few days previously.… Read the rest

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Art Exhibitions Features Live Action Movies

Exhibition on Screen
James McNeill Whistler

Exhibition on Screen: James McNeill Whistler

Director – David Bickerstaff – 2026 – UK – Cert. U – 90m

*****

A look at the work of 19th Century painter Whistler, seen through the lens of the 2026 Tate Britain exhibition – out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, 15th September

Before watching this latest Exhibition on Screen feature, I was able to visit Tate Britain’s stunning James McNeill Whistler show, which sits very much at the film’s core. The film had the effect of making me want to go back for further visits.

Exhibition on Screen’s film opens with shots of a Victorian concert hall interior where the unseen Whistler (voice: Bret Jones) is addressing the room with his spoken lecture on art, something the film will return to towards its close. After a montage of brushes, painting surfaces and palettes, establishing shots of Tate Britain take us straight into the current Whistler show. “People sometimes think of Whistler as being based in French art, and sometimes as being based in British art,” explains Carol Jacobi, Curator of British Art 1850-1915, Tate Britain, “whereas…he was very much an independent…and very much leading the avant-garde in both those countries.”

Susan Grace Galassi, Curator Emeritas, The Frick Collection, New York, who considers Whistler one of the greatest American artists, notes that he didn’t distinguish between fine or applied art, that he was as great a painter as he was a printmaker.… Read the rest