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TOY PUSSY (2006), Viviane Cardell

Artist creates series in which she questions the asexuality of Barbie dolls

“ The year was 2006, when Viviane Cardell, a visual artist who also trained in Anthropology, launched her first series of idealized vulvas. The collection was presented in Madrid, Spain, and later in São Paulo, in 2009. Since then, works from it have been exhibited in private exhibitions and galleries.

The question raised by the Toy Pussy series goes through the hypersensualization of a consumer object [the doll], which at the same time is a mere hanger for accessories. “when all [the accessories] are removed, and the doll is finally naked, the representation of an asexual woman is revealed, without any sign of a vulva between her legs”, points out the artist.

The series also raises awareness of a model of femininity imbued with an overwhelming symbolic charge and supported by the consumer industry, “which has instilled a fable in children's heads”, according to Cardell. “That, to become a woman, it is essential to obtain new clothes, shoes, houses, furniture, properties, other dolls, a whole world, always”, she explains.

Viviane didn't create her works for children, exactly, but they were conceived because of them. With Toy Pussy “I propose a reflection on the sexual roles imposed by a culture that takes away a healthy awareness of one's own sexuality, treated as taboo, at the same time that it hypersexualizes it, making it vulnerable to all forms of abuse”, she details.

When designing the collection of imaginary vulvas for Barbie, “I idealize a symbolic cure for the mutilated doll, and for the romantic girls who grow up kidnapped by a superficial model of femininity”, aims the artist. The work, according to Cardell, presents a counterpoint to the culture of rigid beauty standards, “especially for women to become 'obedient bodies', an expression coined by Naomi Wolff in her book 'The Myth of Beauty'”, discusses the artist .

Cardell points out that “the news about the exponential growth of cosmetic surgeries on the female genital organ is alarming, with vaginoplasties, labiaplasties and nymphoplasties, with the aim of acquiring a vagina 'delicate like a Barbie', that doll that doesn't have a vagina” .

When presented, the expography reproduces a toy showcase, where the colorful vulvas are inside transparent acrylic boxes with labels, like on toy packaging. The same inspiration involves other details, such as phrases that integrate the boxes and explain the toys. In the case of “Toy Pussies”, subtitles and comical catchphrases with double meanings are translated into several languages.

Using humor, albeit acidic, but also joy, fun, playfulness, the collection points to pleasure as a way of rescuing bodies, whose symbolic castration occurs through a mercantile and patriarchal logic that converts them into objects, susceptible to physical, sexual, aesthetic and emotional violence.

The collection exhibited in 2009, in São Paulo, introduced the thematic series Pussies of the World, which mentioned the genital mutilation practiced in some parts of the world, equating it with the symbolic mutilation of the doll. In addition, it presented the special series Bardot Pussies, created in honor of the actress Brigitte Bardot, a contemporary of Barbie, but an authentic symbol of female sexual liberation.

More than 10 years after the exhibition in São Paulo and after the “#TheDollEvolves” campaign, launched by Mattel (doll manufacturer) in 2016, one would think that Toy Pussy was outdated. However, this campaign, using the concepts of diversity and inclusion, was nothing more than an advertising ploy to stop the drop in sales and expand its market. Through discreet adjustments to the doll's facial features, hair and body shape, the “evolved” Barbie won over new young consumers of all colors, bodies and hair types.

And the original contradictions of this icon persist: the need for accessories, now different and more expensive, and the void between the legs. By understanding the manufacturer's marketing move, Viviane has been working on the new Toy Pussy Evolution collection, in which the artist focuses on issues of plurality. She reiterates the initial concept of the project and explores different shapes, colors, textures and sizes for vulvas, and also addresses the inclusion of LGBT+ people and people with disabilities.

The complaint, in this new series, discusses the authenticity of these flights by the brand for democratic reasons, “restricted to those who can pay for the expensive boarding ticket and which is based on the contemporary cliché of meritocracy with the motto: #YouCanBeAnythingYouWant, which takes into account unbridled consumption, essential to the Barbie doll, and the eternal selling of more of the same.”, accuses the artist. ”

[arte-com-sentido]

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