National Museum's Barbie - The Icon - Special Exhibition

My Museum Buddy and I: National Museum's Barbie Exhibition

The exhibition has ended! The National Museum's pink venture, the major Barbie - The Icon - special exhibition, is on display for a few more weeks until 26.8.2018. My museum buddy and I stopped by to escape the heat and marvel at Barbie's wonderful world.

[caption id=“attachment_5457” align=“aligncenter” width=“853”] The Barbie - The Icon - special exhibition at the National Museum is full of glitter, glamour, and plenty of pink.[/caption]

We often visit the National Museum and especially its Attic with children. The July heat encouraged us to visit the museum even more frequently, and my five-year-old museum buddy spotted a pink advertisement from the museum’s tower: Barbies! And so we dove into the exhibition. There was one surprise, though: the Barbie special exhibition requires an additional fee even with a Museum Card, but children under 18 visit the first floor exhibition for free, as they do throughout the National Museum.

[caption id=“attachment_5455” align=“aligncenter” width=“1024”] The Barbie - The Icon - special exhibition at the National Museum showcases Barbie’s history from the 1950s to today.[/caption]

Another, albeit positive, surprise awaited us at the museum’s ticket desk: you could borrow a Barbie doll to play with during the exhibition. With Barbie in hand, we stepped into the glittering exhibition to marvel at dolls from different decades. And there were plenty of them, hundreds! Barbies in different themes, special dolls, Barbies from our own childhoods, lots of pink and sparkle.

[caption id=“attachment_5448” align=“aligncenter” width=“785”] You can borrow an exhibition buddy at the museum’s ticket desk.[/caption]

The exhibition presents Barbie’s history and development extensively from the 1950s to today, but with my museum buddy, I couldn’t fully concentrate on this. The exhibition is more rewarding for adults who played with Barbies in their own childhood, though our little visitor was certainly thrilled by at least the exhibition space’s color scheme. According to my museum buddy, the most interesting part of the exhibition was, besides the pink dream, the corner where you could play with a Barbie house. The play area was crowded, as you might expect, so there could have been more play stations like this in the exhibition.

[caption id=“attachment_5454” align=“aligncenter” width=“904”] At the Barbie special exhibition at the National Museum.[/caption]

[caption id=“attachment_5458” align=“aligncenter” width=“768”] According to my museum buddy, the best part of the exhibition was the Barbie house where you could play.[/caption]

Collector dolls, Barbies and Kens in different professions, large Barbie houses that were only a dream in childhood, and celebrity Barbies stuck in my mind from the exhibition visit. The exhibition was nice, but didn’t necessarily offer any major wow moments, especially since I couldn’t familiarize myself with the texts and every corner of the exhibition at my own pace. Of course, it’s a nice addition to a regular museum visit, especially if Barbie dolls once played an important role in your own play, but from my museum buddy’s perspective, the National Museum’s Attic took the crown again.

[caption id=“attachment_5447” align=“aligncenter” width=“1024”] Barbies in different professions. National Museum’s Barbie - The Icon - exhibition.[/caption]

[caption id=“attachment_5456” align=“aligncenter” width=“1024”] Barbie - The Icon - special exhibition at the National Museum.[/caption]

About the Barbie exhibition, it should be noted that it was contradictory: a wonderful whole and lots of things you haven’t seen before, but at the same time I wondered why the dolls were brought to the National Museum? In any case, the Barbie - The Icon - special exhibition is on display for a few more weeks until 26.8.2018.

Oh yes, visiting the National Museum’s museum shop for Barbie exhibition merchandise was the biggest challenge of the trip with my museum buddy ;)