As a young boy Todd Schorr came across the movie King Kong which had a profound effect on him. He has recently been creating paintings with themes of Apes in them. In this video Schorr talks about seeing King Kong and also discusses a work of his titled The Anguish of Carl Akeley.

Todd Schorr: American Surreal is the first mid-career retrospective of the Los Angeles-based artist. Schorr is a leading figure in Southern California's cartoon-based movement, dubbed Pop Surrealism, which embraces low-brow culture and a ribald graphic style indebted to pop sources such as Mad magazine. Schorrs astonishing, highly polished realism, (inspired by Bosch, Brueghel and Dali), sets him apart from his best-known peers such as Camille Rose Garcia, Gary Baseman, and Mark Ryden. The exhibition, curated by SJMAs Senior Scholar and Curator of Collections Susan Landauer, is accompanied by a book published by Last Gasp, San Francisco.

Exhibition runs June 20 through September 16, 2009 at the San Jose Museum of Art