Helen CHADWICK British, 1953-1996
Birth of Barbie, 1993
Cibachrome photograph
58.5 x 49.5 cm
Two known copies, each unique in size
'Birth of Barbie' (1993) shows a bright red, blond-aired Barbie emerging from a lump of raw meat, shaped to look like a vulva. Barbie’s white teeth, peroxide hair and blue...
'Birth of Barbie' (1993) shows a bright red, blond-aired Barbie emerging from a lump of raw meat, shaped to look like a vulva. Barbie’s white teeth, peroxide hair and blue eyes glow against a crimson background, her smile and stare one reminiscent of the Stepford Wives. With this work, Chadwick makes an explicit connection between the images Western society project as the feminine ideal and the bodily reality of the reproductive process.
Exhibitions
Bristle and Hair, Hegynomy, Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, Ireland, 2017
Helen Chadwick: Works from the Estate, Richard Saltoun Gallery, London, UK, 2013
Presence, Gimpel Fils, London, UK, 2005
Literature
Royal Academy of Arts Magazine, No. 166, Spring 2025. Illustrated page 19
Amber Husain, Meat Love: An ideology of the flesh. Published by MACK, 2023. Illustrated, page 80
Leonie O'Dwyer, Helen Chadwick: a critical catalogue raisonné, Leeds 2012 (illustrated, page 158). Griselda Pollock (ed.),The Sacred & the Feminine: Imagination & Sexual Difference (New Encounters: Arts, Cultures, Concepts), London 2007 (p. ix).
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