See the Highly Detailed Props, Costumes, and Sets From Wes Anderson’s ‘Asteroid City,’ Now on View at a Pop-Up Show in London

Visitors can dine at a replica of the film's 1950s luncheonette.

Luncheonette interior at "Asteroid City Exhibition." Photo courtesy 180 Studios, London.

Wes Anderson is a nostalgia merchant. Sometimes, his films seem like elaborate exercises in joining idiosyncratic characters in gazing backwards. Anderson has visited the golden age of print journalism, stayed in the lost grandeur of Europe’s sanatoriums, steered a train through old-world India, and now travelled to 1950s Americana with Asteroid City, which debuted at Cannes and is released on June 23.

The film’s title is something of a misnomer: Asteroid City has a population of 87 and is named after a meteor that landed in 3007 B.C.E. The film orbits around a convention commemorating this event (cue nostalgia). Though it perfectly replicates a southwestern desert town complete with a one-pump gas station and a cozy luncheonette, Asteroid City was built and shot beneath the Spanish sun in Chinchón, an hour south of Madrid.

Fans can explore the characteristically detailed props, costumes, and sets comprising Anderson’s latest world in “Asteroid City Exhibition,” a London pop-up staged by 180 Studios and Universal Studios, which runs through July 8.

Vending Machines, Asteroid City Exhibition, 180 Studios, London

Vending Machines from “Asteroid City Exhibition.” Photo courtesy 180 Studios, London.

The film aesthetically captures the particularities of America in the 1950s, locating the trappings of its technological advancement within the context of its timeless arid plains. It was, as the film’s press release notes, “an era of heightened political anxiety dovetailed with fears about falling missiles, and the pop-culture explosion of fascination of aliens and other interplanetary visitors.”

In this way, the installation exhibition feels both future-retro and old-timey. It casts audiences back to an era when Levi made garments for hard scrabbling manual laborers, a hamburger cost 35¢, and Pluto was still a planet. But it also stages a neon-green spaceship and a bank of vending machines comprising an automat, a location that the director had originally planned to stage the entire film within.

Wes Anderson billboard

Billboard from the set of the film at “Asteroid City Exhibition.” Photo courtesy 180 Studios, London.

For a sense of setting, there’s the billboard announcing the meteor site for which the town is famous and the miniaturized model freight train that cuts through the desert. For costumes, there’s the full khaki getup of Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman), the all-white uniform of junior stargazer Clifford Kellogg (Aristou Meehan), and the summer dress of precocious teenage scientist Dinah Campbell (Grace Edwards).

Those wishing to take a piece of Anderson’s desert dream home can stop by the gift shop or get a bite to eat inside the linoleum-floored luncheonette, where the prices are, of course, far from retro.

See more images from the exhibition below.

Asteroid City Sign, Asteroid City Exhibition, 180 Studios, London

Asteroid City Sign. Photo: courtesy 180 Studios, London.

Asteroid Day, Asteroid City Exhibition, 180 Studios, London

Asteroid Day attire and props. Photo courtesy 180 Studios, London.

Augie Steenbeck Costume, Asteroid City Exhibition, 180 Studios, London

Augie Steenbeck costume. Photo courtesy 180 Studios, London.

Classroom, Asteroid City Exhibition, 180 Studios, London

A classroom from the film. Photo courtesy 180 Studios, London.

Cowboys, Asteroid City Exhibition, 180 Studios, London

Cowboy costumes from the film. Photo courtesy 180 Studios, London.

Dinah Invention, Asteroid City Exhibition, 180 Studios, London

The costume and invention of Dinah Campbell. Photo courtesy 180 Studios.

Observatory, Asteroid City Exhibition, 180 Studios, London

The observatory from the film. Photo courtesy 180 Studios, London.

Spaceship, Asteroid City Exhibition, 180 Studios, London

The model spaceship from the film. Photo courtesy 180 Studios, London.

Train and Alien Target Practice, Asteroid City Exhibition, 180 Studios, London

Train and Alien Target Practice. Photo courtesy 180 Studios, London.

Asteroid City Exhibition” is on view at 180 The Strand, London, through July 8.

 

More Trending Stories:  

A Bejeweled Prayer Book in a Cambridge Library Has Been Identified as Belonging to Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s Chief Minister 

The Brooklyn Museum’s Much-Criticized ‘It’s Pablo-matic’ Show Is Actually Weirdly at War With Itself Over Hannah Gadsby’s Art History 

Rubens Painting Lost For 300 Years and Misidentified When Last Sold at Auction Will Star At Upcoming Sotheby’s Sale in London 

In Her Cinema-Inspired Paintings, Eunnam Hong Captures the Uneasiness of the Alternative Identities We All Put On 

London’s National Portrait Gallery Responds to Rumors That Kate Middleton Pressured It to Remove a Portrait of Princes William and Harry 

French Archaeologists Decry the Loss of 7,000-Year-Old Standing Stones on a Site That Was ‘Destroyed’ to Make Way for a DIY Store 

Excavations at an Ancient Roman Fort in Spain Have Turned Up a 2,000-Year-Old Rock Carved With a Human Face and Phallus 


Follow Artnet News on Facebook:


Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward.