Jules Engel may have invented modern animation. He was a seminal cartoonist during the 1930s whose work animating for Walt Disney Studios and later as a founding member of UPA, constituted new formal and stylistic approaches to animation. He was the first to suggest that fine art aesthetics could infuse abstract animation and enjoyed an illustrious career as a painter and filmmaker before founding the Experimental Animation Program at CalArts. He demonstrated these formal experiments in Disney’s “Fantasia,” particularly in the mushroom dance sequences, where he culled from artists like Kandinsky and Klee, integrating bold contrasts between his figures and their backgrounds. His forms pulsed with rhythm. Geometric shapes bursting with color seemed to create “visual music” within his compositions. Imagine an art gallery screening these images, the ones that made animation history and the man who drew them a legend—and then imagine the dvd player malfunctions.
A disappointing turn to say the least, but such was the destiny for Tobey C. Moss Gallery’s tribute to Jules Engel (Thursday, Aug. 2). Smack in the middle of “Gerald McBoing Boing” and a mere three minutes into the screening, Engel’s famed cartoon about a young boy who can’t speak words but utters onomatopoeia instead, zapped to black. At first I thought it might be Engel’s famous use of dark backgrounds, but poor Gerald disappeared the minute the doctor arrived to try and cure him. The saving grace might have been special guest Amid Amidi, who was signing copies of his $40 book “Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in 1950s Animation,” but when a disgruntled woman from the audience asked if he could give his talk during the intermission (so organizers could acquire another dvd player), he replied, “I didn’t really prepare a speech.”
Oh well. At least there were a few bottles of uncorked wine present to distract guests from the minute-hand rapidly ticking towards “time to go.“Sadly, the press materials misled the public by promising a two-hour screening “presented” by Amid Amidi, whose animation blog Cartoon Brew is one of the most widely read on the web. So why didn’t he have anything to say except, “we’ll be showing some clips from an interview with Engel and selections of some of his works—it’s only about half an hour.” It’s also a half-hour drive home.
Jules Engel’s sketches, drawings and cartoons are on display (and on sale $700-$4800) at Tobey C. Moss Gallery through August 31. 7321 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles. (323) 933-5523. www.tobeycmossgallery.com