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Untitled (Barbie #8), from the series "Barbie"


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Image of Untitled (Barbie #8), from the series "Barbie"

Untitled (Barbie #8), from the series "Barbie"
Photograph

1997-1998
24 x 20 in. (60.96 x 50.8 cm)

David Levinthal (San Francisco, California, 1949 - )

Object Type: Photograph
Medium and Support: Vintage Polaroid Polacolor ER Land film on paper
Credit Line: Gift of Mike and Kathy Levinthal
Accession Number: 2001.05.01

Exhibition
Our whole, unruly selves, November 19, 2021 - June 25, 2022, North, South and Central Skylight Galleries, San José Museum of Art.

Local Color,
July 26, 2012 - January 13, 2013, New Wing, Second Floor, Central Skylight and South Metro A Galleries, San José Museum of Art.

Is the Medium the Message?: Contemporary Art from the Permanent Collection, March 2, 2002 - June 2, 2002, New Wing, Metro A, Skylight and South Galleries, Second Floor, San José Museum of Art.

Girlfriend! The Barbie Sessions by David Levinthal, July 25, 1999 - October 10, 1999, Second floor, Historic Wing, San José Museum of Art.

SJMA Label Text


Local Color (2012-2013)

Since 1972, David Levinthal has used toys and miniatures as stage sets to present important social and political issues related to masculinity and war; Nazism and violence; cowboy myths of the American West and idealized images of women during the 1950s; heroism and patriotism in baseball; and pornography and sexual fantasy. Levinthal works primarily in large-format Polaroid photography, which gives his images a physical immediacy and material quality not traditionally found in darkroom or digital photography. By using plastic toys, including the iconic Barbie doll, Levinthal creates “a surrogate reality” and “a fictional world that simultaneously calls into question our sense of truth and credibility.”

Photographed against intensely saturated monochromatic fields, Levinthal’s “Barbie Millicent Roberts” series evokes the early fashion photography of Richard Avedon (1923 – 2004) and Irving Penn (1917 – 2009), while also mimicking the glossy spreads of contemporary fashion magazines. Levinthal’s characteristic narrow depth of field, soft focus, and close-up enlargement gives the dolls a sense of vitality and makes the Barbies into life-like versions of the American housewives they originally aimed to portray.

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Exhibition List
This object was included in the following exhibitions:

Dimensions
  • Image Dimensions: 24 x 20 in. (60.96 x 50.8 cm)

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