Guillermo del Toro; At Home with Monsters

From Frankenstein to comics and pop culture, The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) has partnered up with Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Minneapolis Institute of Art to grace us with the anticipated exhibition Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters. Renowned filmmaker Guillermo del Toro gives us a real glimpse of his extraordinary imagination with collections of sculptures, prints, paintings, books, films all brought from Bleak House, del Toro’s haven in Los Angeles. 

The exhibition explores del Toro’s influences from the Medieval era to contemporary culture, horror, fantasy, Victorian Era, death and the afterlife, magic, comics, horror, movies and pop culture- with a total of approximately 500 objects that reflects the scope of del Toro’s inspiration.

The exhibit breaks down into small collections starting with childhood & innocence. Del Toro points out that the children in his films are usually smarter and and more perceptive than the adults. But that does not stop them from being fear, harm or even death. It shows them as being vulnerable.

The Victoriana collection was quite interesting, as del Toro laid out his pieces from his film Crimson Peak, his first period piece set in the Victorian Era. In between there was a Rain Room, with a massive library and a figure of Edgar Allan Poe, with incredible sound and video installation of a rainstorm.

My favourite part was the life size wax figure of The Faun from Pan’s Labryinth. It’s no wonder this film won three oscars, the creativity and the details that went into this film was probably his best yet.

One of the most interesting display was “Stretch #1”by Evan Penny. Penny wanted to understand what it felt like to see the effects of ordinary digital manipulation in real life. Del Toro being a huge fan of Penny’s work felt this would complement his Bleak House Collection perfectly.