| ART DESIGN & BARBIE |
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| ART DESIGN & BARBIE |
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| ART, DESIGN & BARBIE THE EVOLUTION OF A CULTURAL ICON | |
| Introduction taken from ART, DESIGN & BARBIE THE EVOLUTION OF A CULTURAL ICON |
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| INTRODUCTION | |
| Barbie is a potent icon of American popular culture, as immediately recognizable as Elvis or Marilyn. Although all toys, indeed all artifacts, reveal the cultrual beliefs of the society that produced them, Barbie, in particular, has been interpreted in symbolic terms that mirror our times, our fantasies, and our realities. Since she was invented thirty-six years ago, she has become the topic of television talk shows and look-alike contests. She captures our attention in current advertisements. A muse, she inspires artists and designers to enter her miniature world and probe not only her dreams and truths but the contradictions between them. This exhibition and accompanying catalogue have been designed to explore the ways in which an 11- 1/2 inch doll can explicate modern culture. The exhibition is divided into three distinct areas, each articulating a different aspect of Barbie's development as a cultural icon. The first area, "The Ancestry of Barbie," holds a selection of dolls from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, illustrating Barbie's links to prototypes around the globe. It establishes the longstanding role of dolls as agents of magic, as the symbol of a girl's rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, and as a means of teaching the skills and values of a particular culture. Included are a carved image from Africa; a kachina from the Hopi of North America; a Peruvian burial doll; paper dolls from the nineteenth century; dolls from China, Japan and Kuwait; and a Shirley Temple doll. In addition to tracing her lineage, "The Ancestry of Barbie" offers a subtext. This array of historic dolls tells the story of the child's place in scoiety, from a growing awareness in the nineteenth century of children's special needs to an emergence in the twentieth century of the concept of adolescence, flowering in the fifties and sixties. The second exhibition area explores "The History of Barbie" in a diorama environment planned by Valerie Steele. Taking its form from a respected convention of museum display, the diorama features Barbie dolls, accoutrements, and costumes juxtaposed to images of key cultural and world events from the last three decades. For example, the creation of Mattel's first black doll in 1967 coincides with the height of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. Equally impressive is the casting of Barbie as an astronaut in 1965, right between the first man in space in 1961 and the moon landing in 1969, and long before there were women astronauts at NASA. The third area of the exhibition, "Barbie: Fantasies and Realities," is devoted to art, architecture, and industrial design reflecting the range of the Barbie doll's meaning in postmodern times: as a capable and independent woman, female ideal, and container for projections of the American dream. Works for this section were chosen by Suzanne Delehanty from commissions for the German exhibition Kunstler und Designer gestalten fur und um Barbie, for the Spanish exhibition Barbie Creacion y Diseno, and for the book The Art of Barbie (Yoe, 1994). Other works were especially commissioned for Art, Design and Barbie from leading artists and architects in North and South America. This exhibition catalogue has evolved, since its initial conception, to be scholarly yet accessible to the general public. Original essays by Valerie Steele add significantly to the Barbie canon. Select illustrations from the exhibition and other sources enhance her text. The exhibition checklist -- of primary interest to curators, scholars, and collectors -- has been prepared separately. Art, Design and Barbie reveals not only the appealing and amusing aspects but the shadows of the Barbie doll's realm. Artists have used her as a metaphor to express myriad messages. The growing body of Barbie literature and artwork attests to the phenomenal power of this cultural icon throughout the world. Certainly Mattel regards Warhol's Barbie as an uncynical portrayal. Moreover, from what we know about the artist, it is reasonable to conclude that he loved Barbie and was inspired by her. And yet is it not so easy to know what it means that Warhol presented Barbie as Pop Art. Not long before Barbie was commissioned, the artist had done a portrait of the Cabbage Patch Doll which was not well received, and he seems to have been anxious about whether Mattel executives would like their portrait. Warhol recorded in his diary, "The portrait looks so bad. I don't like it. The Mattel president said he couldn't wait to see it and I just cringed." Nevertheless, Warhol's Barbie is featured on the cover of Craig Yoe's book The Art of Barbie. Yoe, who previously did a similar book called The Art of Mickey Mouse, commissioned works by many artists and designers. Jean-Philippe Delhomme (famous for his Barney's advertisements) painted Downtown Barbie and Ken (fig.5), while Hiro Yamagata photographed Barbie and What's His Name Get Married. Chuck Jones merges the doll with the cartoon character Bugs Bunny to produce Bugs Barbie, and Jill Greenberg blew her up to become Barbie New Year (fig.6). Fashion designers like Karl Lagerfeld, Isaac Mizrahi, and Anna Sui were invited to portray the doll as well. The 1994 German exhibition Kunstler und Designer gestalten fur und um Barbie also included works by both artists and designers. Many simply featured new clothes and hairstyles for the doll, but some were more inventive. Frank Lindow, for example, showed Barbie looking "good enough to eat" in glass jars, alongside pickles and other food stuffs. But Caesar von Spreckelsen created perhaps the most striking image of Barbie -- clad in gold body armor like a war goddess or superheroine, but retaining her cute and girlish smile (fig.7). Salon de Barbie, a 1994 exhibition at New York's avant-garde art institution the Kitchen, was curated by Alison Maddex and included more controversial works involving sex and violence, such as David Levinthal's photographic prints The Barbie Series 1972-72 and Maggie Robbin's disturbing sculptures Barbie Fetish and Berlin Barbie. The Barbie doll's immense popular appeal has also attracted artists like Reginald Case (fig.8), who previously focused on Marliyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Madonna. He was not emotionally involved with his subjects, Case explained. Rather, he was fascinated by the fact that so many other people were obsessed with them. | |
 #375 "Barbie On Unicorn" Mixed media assemblage |
  #376 "Barbie Wedding Cake" Mixed media assemblage, 64" x 46" x 36" World Financial Center, NYC |
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