Nancy Van Meter, Barbie Petticoat: Like A Flower Waiting for the Bee, 1999 |

Cyanotype photogram, sheet: 4 1/4 × 4 in. (10.8 × 10.2 cm) |
Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist) |

2018.15.1887 

 

Barbie Petticoat is part of a series that depicts the classic toy’s clothing and accessories. A cyanotype, the work was made by laying a petticoat on photosensitized paper and exposing it to ultraviolet rays of sunlight. This process results in a Prussian blue negative image and resembles an x-ray or the cross-section of a petal or a piece of coral. Nineteenth-century amateur scientist Anna Atkins (1799–1871) popularized the technique to document and disseminate botanical specimens. Van Meter uses the historical process to put Barbie and popular culture “under the microscope.” By defamiliarizing the petticoat, Van Meter helps us see it differently and think about the ways in which children’s toys help construct and promulgate gender identities and norms. Her work thus participates in a broader effort among turn-of-the-century artists to investigate the ways in which objects and images shape identity categories and the perception of them.