The Wolfsonian-FIU Museum is more than just a venue to view art exhibitions. It also hosts free book discussions, art classes, and guided tours.
Here’s what’s coming up in the next few weeks:
Friday, June 2 | 7pm
Book Club: The Garden of the Evening Mists Cozy up with this elegant and haunting novel by Malaysia’s star contemporary author, Tan Twan Eng. The story will leave you with plenty to discuss over a glass of wine with your Book Club friends.
Free for members and first-time participants // Join or RSVP by emailing bookclub@thewolf.fiu.edu.
Saturday, June 3 | 12–3pm
Discovering Design Free Family Day: Sea Curiosities Let the summer swimming begin! Discover the mysterious animals of the ocean floor by creating your own sea creature from a treasure chest of materials, and find inspiration from Giles Andreae’s sea-themed poems, Commotion in the Ocean (1998).
Free for children and accompanying adults // RSVP here.
Friday, June 9 | all day (10am–9pm)
Open House: North and South Hop in the car and head over to the beach for The Wolfsonian’s newest shows, North and South: Berenice Abbott’s U.S. Route 1 and its contemporary complement The Long Road to Now! The day includes free admission, happy hour specials in the café after 4pm, and tours (beginning at 2pm and 6pm) led by assistant curator Whitney Richardson. Free and open to the public.
Sunday, June 25 | 6pm
Backseat Cinema Film Series: It Happened One Night Pack your bags for the first trip in our series of road movies with the Miami Beach Cinematheque! In the 1934 hit It Happened One Night, Claudette Colbert plays a spoiled heiress on the run from her controlling family while Clark Gable, as an out-of-work reporter, tags along in search of a story. Whet your appetite for the road trip through a guided tour of North and South: Berenice Abbott’s U.S. Route 1 at The Wolfsonian at 5pm, then hop across the street to the Cinematheque for the screening at 6pm.
$11, $9* students and seniors, purchase at mbcinema.com // FREE for MBC and Wolfsonian members.
*Optional tour of North and South at The Wolfsonian is included in the film admission price.
Friday, June 30 | 7pm
Sketching in the Galleries De-stress and flex your creative muscles by taking time to draw! We provide materials and professional instruction to budding artists of all ages and skill levels in this free monthly program. Instruction offered in English and Spanish.
Free and open to the public // Materials provided on a first-come, first-served basis.
Weekly on Fridays, 6–6:45pm
Free Friday Evening Guided Tours Learn more about The Wolfsonian’s collection and related art and design themes during a 45-minute, free guided tour of the permanent collection or temporary exhibitions.
Free and open to the public.
Openings in June
Opening June 9
North and South: Berenice Abbott’s U.S. Route 1 In 1954, photographer Berenice Abbott journeyed along the length of U.S. Route 1, capturing the road, its towns, and inhabitants. From Florida motels made from buses to Maine potato farmers, Abbott memorialized communities up and down the East Coast. During the trip, Abbott shot more than four hundred 8×10-inch photographs, and over two thousand smaller images using her Rolleiflex camera, representing her largest portfolio of photographs devoted to a single subject. North and South will bring together a selection of 50 works from this series to present a singular visual summary of American life during the mid-1950s. The exhibition is organized by the Syracuse University Art Collection and presented in tandem with The Long Road to Now: Digital Photos Inspired by Berenice Abbott’s Road Trip, an installation of contemporary photography developed in partnership with Instagram forum #JJ Community. #route1photos
Opening June 9
The Long Road to Now: Digital Photos Inspired by Berenice Abbott’s Road Trip Taking their cues from the powerful images of North and South: Berenice Abbott’s U.S. Route 1, thousands of today’s photographers have responded to the call from Instagram forum #JJ Community with a contemporary spin on Abbott’s work. The Long Road to Now: Digital Photos Inspired by Berenice Abbott’s Road Trip presents the top 15 submissions from The Wolfsonian and #JJ’s global social media contest, photographs that represent the best in imagination and capture the sense of adventure hinted at in Abbott’s mid-century series. Divided into three themes—Signage, Classic, and Road Trip—the collection reflects the keen eye for composition, style, and artfulness of creative minds who find their muse in the world around them. From New York to Lisbon to Yekaterinburg and beyond, these professional and amateur photographers are focusing the lens on the next chapter of Abbott’s legacy of exploration. The Long Road to Now is organized in partnership with #JJ Community and supported by the Washington Park Hotel. #JJatTheWolfsonian
LAST CHANCE – CLOSING IN JUNE
Closing June 11
During the period 1890–1940, the Netherlands built a reputation—which it still holds today—as a center for innovative design. Modern Dutch Design draws from The Wolfsonian’s extensive collection of Dutch furniture, decorative arts, design drawings, posters and bookbindings, in order to examine the evolution of design in the Netherlands during these decades. The exhibition focuses on how Dutch designers, architects, and artists responded to radical shifts in social and political life, worked to promote international travel and trade, and found inspiration in the cultures of the country’s overseas colonies, as they developed a succession of unique styles. The exhibition is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts; the Dutch Culture USA program by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York; the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Miami; the Florida Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs; and the Netherland-America Foundation. #ModernDutchDesign
Closing June 11
More Is More: An Installation by Christie Van der Haak
In wrapping The Wolfsonian’s iconic facade and lobby with her signature tapestry and batik-inspired patterns, The Hague-based contemporary artist Christie van der Haak creates a striking encounter with contemporary Dutch design. Her extraordinary, intricate art bridges the historic focus of our major exhibition Modern Dutch Design with the present day, and mirrors the coexistence of different styles and movements by changing patterns throughout the installation. Paired with nightly projections, van der Haak’s project brings the legacy of Dutch design pioneers into full public view for Miami Art Week 2016 and beyond. More Is More is made possible by Dr. David and Linda Frankel, the Mondriaan Fund, Creative Industries Fund NL, Stroom Den Haag, and AAA Flag & Banner. #MoreIsMore #ChristievanderHaak
ONGOING EXHIBITIONS + INSTALLATIONS
Through July 9
In the Shadows: American Pulp Cover Art
Investigating gender, crime, and other social issues in the United States, this installation explores pulp magazine and paperback cover art of the 1920s–1950s. Designed to appeal to male readers, the glossy cover illustrations of pulp featured stereotypical, often lurid, images of stereotypical gun-wielding gangsters, tough detectives, seductive or vulnerable women, and foreign enemies.
Ongoing
Material and Meaning: Earthenware, Stoneware, and Porcelain
Ceramics can be held in our hands, decorate our homes, or be incorporated into the built environment around us. They are objects of both utility and ornament, articles of industry and commerce, and even vehicles of political persuasion. To achieve these aesthetic and practical goals, designers and artists have to adapt the inherent material qualities of different kinds of clay. This array of ceramics created in the first half of the twentieth century encompasses the expressive and functional potential of earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain, and illustrates the varied design and production processes employed to make finished works. Material and Meaning is curated by Tori Arpad-Cotta, associate professor, Department of Art and Art History, Florida International University.
Ongoing
Americans All: Race Relations in Depression-Era Murals
During the 1930s, American artists covered the walls of public buildings all across the country with murals meant to showcase the nation’s ideals and lift the country out of the Great Depression. Here at The Wolfsonian, preparatory painting, drawings, and mosaics for these murals (some ultimately realized, others never executed) reveal how artists reckoned with the nature of the United States as a racially diverse nation, reflecting the contentious and unsettled state of early twentieth-century race relations through their representations of blacks, whites, American Indians, and Asian immigrants—the melting pot of America.
Ongoing
Art and Design in the Modern Age: Selections from The Wolfsonian Collection
These galleries provide an overview of the museum’s holdings of American and European artifacts from the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. Culled from The Wolfsonian collection are approximately three hundred works in a variety of formats, ranging from books, posters, and postcards to decorative arts, architectural models, paintings, and sculptures. Focal points include design reform movements, urbanism, industrial design, transportation, world’s fairs, advertising, and political propaganda. The United States, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands are most fully represented in the collection. Art and Design in the Modern Age: Selections from The Wolfsonian Collection examines the ways in which art and design have both influenced and adapted to the modern world. During this period the fine arts were characterized by unprecedented experimentation and innovation. At the same time, design became a critical issue for producers and consumers as machine-made objects replaced those crafted by hand. The works on display demonstrate designers’ responses to the profound social and technological changes stimulated by the Industrial Revolution. They reveal how people living in this tumultuous period viewed the world and their place in it, as industrialization, urbanization, mass production, and new transportation and communication systems revolutionized modern life. By interpreting these artifacts in their historical context, The Wolfsonian aims to elucidate the technological and aesthetic concerns, as well as the social, political, and economic motivations that influenced their production. Inaugurated in November 1996, this ongoing exhibition is periodically updated.
The Wolfsonian is at 1001 Washington Ave., Miami Beach, FL 33139. Call 305-531-1001 for more info.
