Artist duo Drift have deconstructed Barbie, melted her down and reassembled her into a new, small-scale work, just ahead of the release of the highly anticipated Greta Gerwig. Barbie movie, which hits theaters on July 21.
Drift, found by Ralph Nauta and Lonneke Gordijn, shared pictures on Instagram of the creative process behind the work, titled Materialism Barbie.
The video begins with Barbie’s disembodied head in a plastic bag, harshly labeled “composed of vinyl,” before artists sever her legs with a knife to Dua Lipa’s “Dance The Night” from the film’s soundtrack. coming.
The artists are seen putting Barbie’s body parts on a scale to weigh them and then laying out the materials, molded into rectangular blocks, on a white surface to fit them into a shadow box frame.
“The Barbie craze has taken the world by storm over the past 12 months, with anticipation for the new movie that revives this cultural icon,” Drift co-founder and artist Ralph Nauta said in remarks emailed. email to Artnet News.
“One element of our ‘Materialism’ series experiments with themes surrounding nostalgia. And who hasn’t grown up playing, aspiring to be one or even ripping the heads off their Barbie dolls? This work explores the toy phenomenon that marked a generation.
With the Instagram post, the duo cheekily said, “As part of our ‘Materialism’ artwork series, we’ve deconstructed the iconic toy and can confirm it: life in plastic is still fantastic.”
Drift listed the artwork materials as “PPE, ABS, Saran (PVDC), PP, LDPE, Nylon Vinyl, PVC, Polyester, LDPE, Epoxy and Solvent Based Paints” in order from the largest to the smallest quantity of raw materials.
Derivative, Materialism Barbie2023. Courtesy of the artists.
The duo produced an edition of five works with two artist’s proofs, each measuring 400 by 400 by 75mm, a noticeably reduced dimension for Drift. The Dutch collective is generally known for their large-scale choreographed sculptures and kinetic installations, such as using drones to “reconstruct” the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.
But, the duo recently turned to what they called a “ongoing research project” on materialism which explores how people interact with the everyday man-made objects around them.
“The work calls for thinking about how we deal with the raw materials at our disposal,” Louise Snouck Hurgronje, a representative for the artists, said in an emailed statement.
“Everyday products such as cars, pencils or watches have been reduced to the exact amount of the specific raw materials from which they are made, presented in the form of rectangular blocks.”
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