The Wolfsonian–Florida International University is ushering in spring with a robust calendar of March events and exhibitions. To celebrate the last full month of Myth and Machine: The First World War in Visual Culture (now closing April 12), kicking things off on March 7 with a special “Making Myth: WWI and American Culture” panel presentation and moderated discussion, featuring luminaries from the University of Kentucky, Wake Forest University, St. Francis College, and FIU. March also marks the first opportunity to experience Craft + Craft—our new adult artmaking workshop series—and the last chance for visitors to check out three exhibitions closing early in the month: Boom, Bust, Boom: Downtown Miami Architecture, 1920s-1930s and Pose and Propaganda: Political Posters from the Contemporary Middle East and Afghanistan(both closing March 8) as well as The Children’s Crusade (closing March 15). Lastly, the third and final screening of our WWI film series “In the Trenches,” which concludes on March 27 with a double-feature finale featuring Yankee Doodle in Berlin (1919) and She Goes to War (1929).
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
*All events are free unless otherwise noted.
Friday, March 6 | 7pm
Florida International University’s creative writing department will read poems from the First World War and present their own original works inspired by the war.
Friday, March 6 | 7–8:30pm
Book Club: The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
The Wolfsonian Book Club explores literary works whose subjects are relevant to current exhibitions and collection themes. In The Secret Agent (1907), Mr. Verloc is a shopkeeper/secret agent in London’s Soho where he lives with his wife Winnie, her infirm mother, and her idiot brother, Stevie. When Verloc is reluctantly involved in an anarchist plot to blow up the Greenwich Observatory things go disastrously wrong, and what appears to be “a simple tale” proves to involve politicians, policemen, foreign diplomats, and London’s fashionable society in the darkest and most surprising situations.
Free for members // Join or RSVP by emailing bookclub@thewolf.fiu.edu.
Saturday, March 7 | 10am
Making Myth: WWI and American Culture
The Wolfsonian–FIU invites you to examine the impact of the First World War on American culture with three national scholars of film, literature, visual art, and memorials: Pearl James, Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies, University of Kentucky; David Lubin, Charlotte C. Weber Professor of Art, Wake Forest University; and Jennifer Wingate, Associate Professor, St. Francis College. Welcome reception begins at 10am, followed by panel presentations and a discussion moderated by April Merleaux, Assistant Professor, Florida International University. Presented with support from the Florida Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
RSVP by emailing hecook@thewolf.fiu.edu.
Saturday, March 7 | 1–4pm
Free Family Day: Discovering Design
Bring your family to The Wolfsonian for a day crawling with creativity and creatures! Build your own imaginative creature with local artist Alexander Zastera and discover the animals in our collection with storytime in the galleries. Our Creative Creatures Gallery Guide will also be available for self-guiding. Discovering Design is generously supported by The Batchelor Foundation, Carnival Foundation, The Garner Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and Wells Fargo.
Free for children under 12 and accompanying adults // RSVP here.
Friday, March 13 | 7pm
Get your craft on at this adult artmaking workshop and craft beer tasting. Join us in the Wolfsonian Café for this inaugural #craftandcraft experiment—it’s like elementary school art class, but with drinks! This month, we’re making classic kites to celebrate the theme of aviation in our current exhibition Myth and Machine.
Thursday, March 19 | 7pm
In honor of the city’s centennial, Carolyn Klepser, author of Lost Miami Beach, will give a talk about the early history of the beach from its days as an isolated outpost to its life as a roaring tourist mecca in the 1920s. Come early to see a special selection of rare books and images in The Wolfsonian library that relate to the presentation, on view 6–7pm.
Free with museum admission // RSVP by emailing hecook@thewolf.fiu.edu.
Friday, March 27 | 7pm
“In the Trenches” WWI Film Series Double Feature: Yankee Doodle in Berlin (1919) & She Goes to War (1929)
Cross dressing and gender bending had a place even in silent war films from the 1910s and 20s. Join us for this double feature and grand finale of “In the Trenches,” our WWI film series curated and introduced by Wolfsonian Chief Librarian Frank Luca. Yankee Doodle in Berlin (1919; run time: 58 minutes) is the story of an army captain who disguises himself as a woman in order to fool the German High Command; while She Goes to War (1929; run time: 50 minutes) follows the tale of a curious young woman who dresses as a man and follows her fiancé into the trenches. Presented with support from the Florida Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Friday, March 27 | 7–9pm
Sketch in the Wolfsonian’s stunning galleries! Experience the Wolfsonian’s collection in a new way by sketching in our galleries on select Friday nights. Whether you are a lifelong artist or an excited novice, a drawing instructor will guide you and offer insight on drawing techniques. We will provide drawing materials and gallery stools to all participants. All ages and levels of experience are welcome; youths under 14 must be accompanied by an adult. Instruction in English and Spanish.
RSVP by emailing hecook@thewolf.fiu.edu.
Weekly on Fridays | 6–6:45pm
Free Friday Evening Guided Tours
Learn more about The Wolfsonian Collection and related art and design themes during a 45-minute free guided tour of the permanent collection or temporary exhibitions.
LAST CHANCE! EXHIBITIONS CLOSING IN MARCH
*All exhibitions are on view at The Wolfsonian’s main site at 1001 Washington Ave, Miami Beach, unless otherwise noted.
Closing March 8
Boom, Bust, Boom: Downtown Miami Architecture, 1920s-1930s
The years following the First World War marked Miami’s first major period of expansion, spurred on by construction of the city’s first skyscrapers, including the Miami Daily News building, now Freedom Tower. The devastating 1926 hurricane dealt a major blow to the city’s economic growth, amplified by the onset of the Great Depression. Signs of recovery solidified with the 1939 completion of the Alfred I. DuPont building, an outstanding example of Art Deco design. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the DuPont building, The Wolfsonian reflects upon this architectural legacy and its role in transforming a seaside town into a vibrant modern metropolis. This exhibition of interwar Downtown Miami architecture includes drawings, blueprints, and ephemera from The Wolfsonian–FIU, with loans from The Historic Alfred I. DuPont Building and Tilia Companies, and the University of Miami School of Architecture Archival Collections. It was made possible through the support of THE HISTORIC ALFRED I. DUPONT BUILDING and TILIA COMPANIES.
Closing March 8
Pose and Propaganda: Political Posters from the Contemporary Middle East and Afghanistan
The physical poses of individuals in images are rendered to communicate culturally specific meanings readily understood by their intended audiences. Using contemporary political posters from the collection of Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Dexter Filkins, this installation considers a range of bodily gestures and expressions deployed to influence the values viewers bring to bear on this widely popular medium, and includes posters from The Wolfsonian’s collection to illustrate the geographic and temporal range of this graphic strategy.
Closing March 15
During the First World War, children of all ages were targeted by propaganda designed to instill patriotism and provide them with a sense that their contributions were also important to the war effort. Education pamphlets, coloring books, nursery rhyme books, games, and juvenile literature were published to reach young audiences, while musical scores, magazines, and posters used images of children to motivate adults to action.
ONGOING EXHIBITIONS
Through April 12 (EXTENDED BY ONE WEEK!)
Myth and Machine: The First World War in Visual Culture
The First World War was radically unlike any earlier armed conflict. On the occasion of the centenary of the start of the war, The Wolfsonian–FIU exhibition Myth and Machine: The First World War in Visual Culture shows how artists, designers, and filmmakers responded to the unprecedented qualities of the war: new technologies, from aircraft to chemical weapons to tanks; the massive mobilization of armaments industries on the home front; the grinding everyday experiences of soldiers in trenches along stationary fronts; and the immense scale of destruction that the war entailed. The exhibition focuses on the role of myth in giving comprehensible form to the shattering realities of the war, and on the relationship between humans and machines as a key theme of wartime visual culture. Among the paintings, sculpture, posters, books, and photographs included are many rare and unique items that will offer an unfamiliar view of a conflict that changed the world.
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.
Through April 5
A Fatal Pass: Entrenchments on the Alpine Front
Photographs by Milan-born artist Luca Artioli show the remains of First World War trenches in the Stelvio Pass, a significant zone of combat on the Alpine front, as they appeared in June 2014 during his visit to the region. In May 1915, Italy entered the First World War on the side of Britain, France, and Russia, with the aim of annexing the “unredeemed lands” (Trento, Trieste, Istria and Dalmatia) held by the Habsburg Empire.For three years, troops fought and died in brutal conditions all along the frontier with Austria-Hungary, from Trentino to the Adriatic Sea. In the mountains, wheretemperatures often reached below zero, Italians and their adversaries alike leveled peaks, opened roads, dug tunnels, and built trenches for shielding soldiers and positioning artillery. Beset by avalanches, snow, and frost, many of the troops who fought in this so-called White War fell as victims of the elements. This installation coincides with The Wolfsonian’s current exhibition, Myth and Machine: The First World War in Visual Culture, on view through April 5, 2015.
Through April 19 | The Wolfsonian Teaching Gallery at Florida International University’s Frost Art Museum
Visualizing the Information Age: Data, Design, and Display
In the twentieth century, truth became statistical. Numbers and data provided a new way to understand such concepts as health, population, work, and territory, and a new language through which parties and states advanced their agendas. Technologies from typewriters and cash registers to radio, television, and stock tickers, assembled, organized, and communicated social and economic data, while methods of social surveying grouped people into “statistical communities.” In order to convey information about these statistical communities, graphic designers developed graphs and charts that represented the abstract and quantitative in visual form. They hoped that these graphic forms of information would offer an objective, scientific basis for the resolution of conflicts and the regulation of society. Visualizing the Information Age shows how the work of these designers provided a new medium for the conduct of social and political debate, even as it encoded the cultural prejudices and presumptions of the day.
Through April 5
Installed on the façade and south-facing wall of The Wolfsonian’s building is an exterior treatment that ties to Myth and Machine: The First World War in Visual Culture. Intricate Pattern Overlay, by Miami-based artist Michelle Weinberg, is a gray-and-pink patterned design inspired by the dazzle camouflage paint treatments developed for American and British warships during the First World War. Weinberg’s mural design incorporates the striping and irregular patterning that was intended to disorient German U-Boats.
The Wolfsonian is located at 1001 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach, FL. Admission is $7 for adults; $5 for seniors, students, and children age 6–12; and free for Wolfsonian members, State University System of Florida staff and students with ID, and children under six. The museum is open Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday from 10am–6pm; Thursday and Friday from 10am–9pm; Sunday from noon–6pm; and is closed on Wednesday. Contact us at 305.531.1001 or visit us online at wolfsonian.org for further information.