Barbie’s Down

The Altar Barbie came down today. I felt a little odd about it. It’s the first piece I’ve done that is truly ephemeral. Now it exists only in the photographs from the exhibition. And it will be part of a short film made by Susan Stern, the director who made Barbie Nation. But the altar itself is gone.

This feels very different from the relative permanence of photography. It’s more like a gallery exhibition of the photographs, where I hang pictures and text in ways that fit the particular space, and like Altar Barbie, all that remains is the archival photographs of the installation.

I always feel a bit sad when I take things down.

–Laurie