The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada will host "It's Alive! Classic Horror And Sci-Fi Art From The Kirk Hammett Collection" from July 13, 2019 to January 5, 2020. Kirk Hammett, best known as the lead guitarist of METALLICA, is also an avid collector of classic horror and sci-fi movie posters. This exhibition features 90 works that provide insight into the evolution of horror and sci-fi films and how they have played upon contemporary societal fears. Hammett acknowledges his poster collection as a source of inspiration for his own musical creativity. The exhibition features film posters as well as collectible electric guitars, monster masks and sculptures. Hammett told Exclaim!: "Toronto is horror city central. It's the great Northeastern horror capital, and I mean that. There's a big market for horror in Toronto, and I think Toronto realizes that too." Hammett has been a collector of scary movie items since he was around five or six years old and the items span the entire history of horror films from early 20th Century films like "Frankenstein" to '70s and '80s slasher movies. His collection is considered to be one of the world's most prominent archives of the movie genre's history. "The pieces that are picked are the pieces that have the most relevance," he said. "Also I have a tendency to lean toward pieces that are more illustrative and have a certain amount of visual appeal. A movie like 'Nosferatu' is really important because it's the very first vampire movie and there's hardly any material that has survived from the '20s." Hammett released a coffee table book in 2012 called "Too Much Horror Business" that featured photos of his extensive collection of monster and horror memorabilia. He displayed a portion of his collection in the "Kirk's Crypt" exhibition during the 2012 and 2013 Orion Music + More festivals. The METALLICA guitarist is also known as the Fear FestEvil horror convention organizer.
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