BMA presents Barbie, a history of portraits, some historic silhouettes

People enjoy looking at paintings and photographs of other people, it seems. Granted, landscapes are plentiful, and abstract art has its own enduring popularity, but we seem to love looking at the faces of others staring back at us through the realm of art.

We scan those faces for tantalizing clues about the personality of the subject and, perhaps, we learn to have a greater appreciation for other types of people, be they rendered in paint or marble or with a camera.

The Birmingham Museum of Art gives viewers chances to explore the human form and to ponder issues such as gender, race and class, in two ongoing exhibits.

The BMA presents “Ways of Seeing: Portraits,” a look at the history of portraiture; and “Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now,” which tells the story of silhouettes, a low-cost alternative to painting that allowed all classes of people in the early 1800s to make likenesses of themselves.

Also on view is “Barbie: Dreaming of a Female Future,” a critical look at the iconic, influential Barbie doll that has influenced several generations of young women on the occasion of her 60th anniversary.

All three exhibits will remain on view through the holidays and into 2020.

LOOKING AT BARBIE

In “Barbie: Dreaming of a Female Future,” viewers will see artworks inspired by the iconic doll. They can also explore their relationship with Barbie through an immersive experience in a reimagined dream house created by female artists and designers.

Barbie’s careers and independence have inspired young women around the world, but her appearance has helped to propagate unattainable body ideals, according to organizers.

“This exhibition is intended to celebrate imagination and ambition while acknowledging Barbie’s role in perpetuating unrealistic and limited perceptions of beauty,” said Hallie Ringle, the BMA’s contemporary art curator.

For example, photographer Sheila Pree Bright examines standards of beauty, and video by Lauren Kelley shows Barbie exploring racial identity.

The dream house itself is created by female artists and interior designers from Studio BOCA.

“As a design team of two sisters, our collective memory of Barbie as an unstoppable advocate for female imagination guided our vision for this modern-day dream house,” said Kate Taylor Boehm of Studio BOCA.

The act of visiting Barbie at home in her female-created dream house people of all types to imagine a female future, according to the BMA.

The exhibition, which opened in August, will be up until Jan. 26, 2020, in the Arrington Gallery.

PORTRAITS EVERYWHERE

Portraits have been around for centuries and remain very popular, said Robert Schindler, curator of European art at the BMA.

“We encounter portraits everywhere — in places of worship, on billboards, in books and in newspapers,” Schindler said in a news release.

In a new exhibition, “Ways of Seeing: Portraits,” the BMA celebrates this tradition with works from four continents dating as far back as the 1500s.

The exhibition is the newest iteration of its the BMA’s Ways of Seeing series, which draws primarily from its permanent collection.

Works include an Andy Warhol screenprint of Jackie Kennedy, Eve Arnold’s photograph of Malcolm X and Annie Leibovitz’s portrait of artist Christo.

The show opened in August and will be up until March 8, 2020, in the Bohorfoush Gallery.

THE HISTORY OF SILHOUETTES

In the early 1800s, before the invention or widespread use of photography, the silhouette — a profile portrait made from cut paper — made portraitures accessible to hundreds of thousands of Americans in all walks of life who could not afford a portrait painting.

The BMA takes a look at this democratizing art form in the exhibition, “Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now,” which includes approximately 45 objects going back as far as 1796.

Organized by the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institute, “Black Out” is billed as the first major museum exhibition to explore the history and continued relevance of silhouettes.

Visitors can see historical silhouettes from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery and other institutions. There are also large installations by contemporary artists Kara Walker, Camille Utterback and Kumi Yamashita. The installations explore such issues as slavery, gender, alienation and technology.

Black Out displays works by Auguste Edouart and William Bache, two of the bestknown silhouette artists of the early 1800s.

There is a portrait of Sylvia Drake and Charity Bryant, the earliest-known likeness of a same-sex couple, and a life-size silhouette of Flora, an enslaved woman.

The exhibition “expands the narrative of historically underrepresented individuals, helping us gain a more whole understanding of one another and ourselves,” said Graham Boettcher, director of the BMA, in the news release.

"In early America, silhouettes were more accessible than any other medium, leading to works that offer a lens onto the ideals of freedom, the trauma of slavery, and Americans’ political selves,” said Kate Crawford, Curator of American Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

The exhibit, which opened Sept. 28, will be on display through Jan. 12, 2020.

The Birmingham Museum of Art is located at 2000 Rev. Abraham Woods Jr. Blvd. Admission is free. For details, call 205-254-2565 or go to artsbma.org.