Sylvia Raz
Her Eye on the World
There are exhibits that really stick with you. For me, seeing the Gates of Ishtar at the Pergamon in Berlin, the 1972 Francis Bacon retrospective in Paris, and anything and everything in the First Nations exhibits at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver all just blew my head off (figuratively, of course).
But there was also an exhibit at the Santa Paula Museum a few years back that stuck with me. Coming into the entry hall, dozens of well-dressed Barbie dolls were lined up against the wall, snaking around the corner into the main hall, then into a side room where the line finally ended at a Barbie-sized door with “Ladies” written above it. Nearby, a short line of Ken dolls waited at a door marked “Gents.” Quintessential Sylvia Raz.
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