Amanda Slack-Smith: Curating the Marvel Cinematic Universe

By Travis Johnson

Encompassing more than 300 objects, including Thor’s hammer (!), Iron Man’s suit (!!), and Captain America’s shield (!!!), Marvel: Creating the Cinematic Universe will tell the whole story of the MCU’s birth: how over seven decades of four-colour pop art fed into the making of the most successful film franchise of the 21st century, bringing superhero mythology to the forefront of popular culture and making fairly obscure characters such as Doctor Strange and Rocket Raccoon household names. It’s a staggering exhibition whose very existence is the result of not only deeply held nerditry, but painstaking logistical planning – many of the items on display are still in use by Marvel Studios in their ongoing productions. We went to curator Amanda Slack-Smith to find out how it all came together.

What was the genesis of the exhibition?

Well, it’s come about in a couple of different ways. The filming of Thor: Ragnarok on the Gold Coast was obviously a big impetus for this. The premier ( Annastacia Palaszczuk) and Tracy Vieira from Screen Queensland were in LA, talking to the Marvel people about the opportunity of filming on the Gold Coast and it was brought up that we had the gallery, along with  the cinematheque, where we look at film like we would at any other art medium. We do so because we’re the only cinematheque that’s within an art museum, so we get to have these conversations across both cinema space and physical gallery space, and that was one of the things that really intrigued Marvel. So we put together a proposal of what we’d like to do, and having a real focus on the Cinematic Universe was really exciting for them. They were super keen to go ahead, and here we are.

I understand this is the first exhibition of its kind in the world?

It’s definitely the largest that’s ever been done in an art museum, and obviously the specific focus being on the Cinematic Universe rather than being comic book focused, or comic book art focused, is unique at this site. It’s huge. It’s the whole ground floor of GOMA, which includes the cinemas. I don’t think there’s many places that are able to undertake that breadth of study of an area like this.

We also haven’t necessarily had cause to. Nobody has done franchise filmmaking on this scale before – the Marvel Cinematic Universe is unique in pop culture right now. 

Yeah, it’s a precedent, and it’s because they are drawing from the one universe. To have 75-plus years of history of interrelated narrative is interesting even from a comic book point of view; it’s something that Marvel has done that their competitors really haven’t. But then to translate those stories, to distill a cogent and cohesive narrative across what will be 17 films by Thor: Ragnarok is so fascinating. And the fact that these intertwine and layer on each other, and you can watch a film and then three or four films later go, “Oh, you foreshadowed that! I get what you’ve done there!” – that’s fascinating.

As you know, a lot of films tend to be serialised, and they may have characters that turn up again, but they are very much a linear narrative structure, where this is folding in on itself constantly, and I think that’s really interesting. And we’re at kind of a zeitgeist moment just as we’re going into Phase Three, to see where it’s all going to pan out.

Do you include elements from the television series that exist in the MCU, such as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Netflix stuff?

Marvel are a huge transmedia entity: there’s the TV, there’s the online, the podcasts, the tie-ins with the comics – it’s a huge thing that they’re doing. At one stage we were wanting to look at TV, but in all honesty at some point you have to look at what you can tell in a cohesive and contained way. As soon as you start bringing in TV… I mean, you could do an entire show just on the TV that’s come out, all those series and now with The Defenders coming out – in itself it’s its own exhibition. So we kind of pulled it back and really homed in on the films themselves. But we have nods to the tie-in comics and we have the One Shot films, and that sort of thing is part of the show, but it really is about those films from Iron Man in 2008 to Doctor Strange in 2016, and then some really exciting set elements from Thor: Ragnarok.

Can you expand on your exact role here a little?

I’m the curator on the exhibition, so I’ve had the pleasure of going to LA and speaking to the team at Marvel and looking through the archives and pulling together elements that we could tell stories with.

Can you give us a taste of what we’re going to see?

The show is divided into three thematic areas. One is the “Cinematic Assemble” in our largest gallery space, which begins with a nod to the comics. That narrative is really about breaking down the demarcations between the films, so we look at the narrative of four of the films: the two Avengers films, Winter Soldier, and Civil War, and then we look at Captain America as an entity, and then we move into an alternate dimensions area, which brings together the Infinity Stones, which are the key MacGuffin to the whole universe. Also in this space we have a look at Guardians of the Galaxy, we have Doctor Strange, with the Mirror Dimension and the Astral Plane, and Ant-Man, who although he might be the most earthbound of the lot, he has his quantum realm adventures. And then we cross the threshold into the Asgardian Throne Room. And that’s just one gallery space! We have two others as well!

Marvel: Creating the Cinematic Universe runs at Brisbane’s Galley of Modern Art from May 27 – September 3, 2017. For info and tickets, head to the official site.