Who is the Argentine couple who, with their virgin Barbies, reached Madonna and triumphed in Miami?

Barbie is the most famous doll in the history of humanity and was part of the childhood of millions of girls and boys around the world. For many years she showed us the thousand and one professions and facets that she went through: doctor, teacher, astronaut, veterinarian, mother, princess, stereotypical… in short, Barbie was everything that Mattel wanted her to be.

However, the doll was never ever the Virgin Mary, nor that of Guadalupe, nor the crucified Jesus Christ, much less the Virgin of Luján. No… until a few years ago.

Read also: The biggest Barbie collector went viral with the success of the movie: she has 18,000 dolls

Barbie plastic religion advertising. (Video: courtesy of Pool and Marianela)

Marianela is a fashion designer and graduate in Fine Arts. Pool is a painter. One day they crossed paths at a recital in Rosario, where they are from, and since then they decided to merge their love, but also their passion for art, and together they created a unique work in the world: Barbie plastic religion.

The Virgin of Luján, the Desatanudos, Jesús, Gauchito Gil, San Expedito, Krishna and Moisés… are just some of the many religious figures, as diverse as they are innovative, that these two artists created over almost ten years. and that revolutionized the world of the most famous doll.

The Barbie the Plastic Religion collection. (Photo: Instagram @poolymarianela)

They were harshly criticized and even suffered threats from all over the world, coming from ultra-religious people, until a gift to Pope Francis changed everything and since then their works shine in the great museums of the United States and even in Paris.

Their Barbies were so popular that even the undisputed queen of Pop, Madonna, bought them one.

A trip, the trigger of inspiration

“In 2013 we traveled to Mexico for the Day of the Dead and there we saw a lot of the mixture of paganism. We work a lot on religion, always within our art, but after that trip we arrived here and it blew my mind. I always liked Barbie, so I told Pool that she wanted to try making virgin Barbies. We Googled it and no one had done it,” Marianela told TN.

This is how the first piece of this work came to light: the Difunta Correa Barbie. “It was also the one we had the most problems with because we couldn’t use the name since it was registered. Every image we reproduce is privatized and you have to pay. It was very difficult to make them understand that it was a work of art,” she explained.

Plastic religion’s Luz de Jesus Gallery exhibition in Los Angeles. (Photo: courtesy of Pool and Marianela)

“From there came the shake-up a bit and we started to create more. It was a mix of two things that fascinate us, two popular icons: Barbie, which you can love or hate; and religion, that even if you are an atheist, it touches you from somewhere,” Marianela added.

Why Barbie?

Although we know how the inspiration for this collection arose, there is something else behind it: why use the most famous doll in the world to combine it with religion?

“The artists of each era portrayed the virgin according to the canon of beauty of the moment, that is why we make her today based on the most beautiful woman of today, who is Barbie,” Pool explained. “Barbie smiles, but you never see a saint who is not suffering. That change was nice. Today you enter a church and go back 300 years. On the other hand, if you go in and see Barbie, you see something adapted to the era, without a look of suffering,” she clarified.

Barbie plastic religion next to the famous portrait of Billy Boy, by Andy Warhol. (Photo: courtesy of Pool and Marianela)

Furthermore, he remarked: “Religion and art in the West always went hand in hand until at one point the Avant-garde appeared and the north for humanity was another. Religion no longer has so much weight, so we returned to that a little, we began to see from the eyes of children and Barbie emerged as a canon of current beauty, as the Virgin Mary has been throughout history,” added the artist.

A leap into the void that led them to victory

When Pool and Marianela met in 2009, she was a fashion designer, graduated in Fine Arts and had her clothing brand. He, for his part, dedicated himself to painting. However, the love and potential they had led them to grow, but this time together.

From selling clothing, to painting flags for different fans. They went through several stages until their coronation arrived and today they managed to make a living from art. “I never thought it was possible,” Pool said.

Barbie Virgen de Luján, Barbie Jesús and Barbie Kali. (Photo: Instagram @poolymarianela)

“We started traveling to Buenos Aires because we believed that we would have better luck there. We started to believe in this, to invest and Milo Lockett was one of our first clients. There we saw that we could make a living from art and we had an important press movement that led us to grow,” he added.

However, he insisted that although their works were very successful, they remain “extremely independent” and that they have a kind of “disability with bureaucracy” that often excluded them from exhibitions. “The guy who has a museum grabs award-winning artists and we’re not interested in that because we don’t like it,” Pool said.

“The day we exhibited with Jesúscake we arrived at the fair and at the door we said ‘we want to exhibit this.’ That’s the way we handle ourselves,” he explained.

Jesúscake in Hollywood with other great artists. (Photo: courtesy of Pool and Marianela)

This aforementioned work is a Red Velvet cake that was presented at the Argentine Contemporary Art Fair (FACA) in the shape of the body of Jesus, life-size, and that clearly raised controversy. So much so that the exhibition reached Hollywood, where even Andy Muschietti, the director of the film IT, was present.

“There are people who continue to see Barbie or the work of Jesus as aggressive and it is quite the opposite, but in the country we could not make exhibitions because of the way things are, because of bureaucracies that we do not pursue,” he explained.

Given this, he claimed the “lack of character” to face works that generate concerns. “I believe that one of the most terrifying diseases that a human being can have is having money and not having character. If you do not offer possibilities due to fear, trepidation or not following trends, you are being what you fight. If you don’t have the generosity to make mistakes, you are being a repressor within the art world,” Pool said.

The Ken San Cayetano, Gauchito Gil and San Expedito. (Photo: Instagram @poolymarianela)

“We have left power to guys who are not going to risk anything because they live in a world like that. We live in a place that feeds on controversies and if we are not controversial it makes no sense. Maradona was willing to make mistakes and Christ did too,” he highlighted and added: “If art does not break or move something in your head, it is of no use, it becomes a decoration. Today breaking up is not allowed and before it was the only thing I did.”

This is why the couple delved into the distance they have from “trends.” “If there is something that we hate and that bothers us, it is people who run after fashion. We believe that if one person says what to do and everyone goes to do it out of nowhere, they end up obeying orders and today the only thing you have as capital is the choice. This is an evil so great that it is reflected in the arts. Very rich people who are guided by trends and when there is this, there is no own decision and without own decision there is no freedom,” they highlighted.

The gift to Pope Francis

When the barbies were released in an exhibition at Popa Galería and the images began to go viral, the couple began to receive threats from all over the world from extreme religionists. “We had to suspend it and we returned a year later, but in the middle we traveled to show the work at the Louvre Decorative Museum in Paris and we reached Pope Francis. We gave him a virgin from Luján that he loved and that remained in the Vatican. From there the threats stopped and our work began to become known, but in a different way,” explained Marianela, although she pointed out that from time to time they receive threats again.

The artists with Pope Francis. (Photo: courtesy of Pool and Marianela)

“90% of people don’t understand the work. Although we are selling a lot, they don’t understand it and it is helpless for the artists. Everyone understands what they want because once the work comes to light it stops being yours, but a whole confusion arises when they pigeonhole us with two interpretations that they make and neither is the one we pursue: either we are Barbie fans and that is why we do the doll or we attack religion from irony. None of them are true,” she clarified.

The creation process

Barbies and Kens are unique works of art and even their boxes are entirely manually designed. These are free and different versions, despite the fact that their characters are repeated.

From virgins to popular Argentine saints and Hindu religious figures, the couple did not refrain from “barbieficating” anything. “We use the doll as a base with which we work with cardboard, acetates, and putty. I do sculpture, dresses, fabrics, and Pool does the painting,” Marianela highlighted.

Moses, Krishna, the Virgin Untying Knots and the Miraculous Medal. (Photo: Instagram @poolymarianela)

The Barbies are for sale and special orders can be made, but always understanding that they are works of art and not simple products that can be found in toy stores.

Upcoming samples

In December the couple will travel again to Miami to present “a store” of Barbie at the Scope Art Show museum and at the same time they will be exhibiting the Christ Superman exhibition, another great innovative work, individually.

Although her works are all the rage in the United States and even reached the Louvre Decorative Museum in Paris, they still dream of being able to exhibit Barbie in the country. “Next year we want to do something more because Barbie plastic religion marks ten years, but we want to celebrate it here, in Argentina,” they insisted.