The Wolfsonian–Florida International University presents Slowly but surely/ Lento pero seguro, a site-specific installation by artist Federico Uribe on view in The Bridge Tender’s House through March 14, 2010.
In Slowly but surely/ Lento pero seguro, Uribe transforms discarded healthcare equipment into a wry meditation on the commonplace in The Wolfsonian’s Bridge Tender’s House, fronting the museum’s Washington Avenue façade. Crutches, a wheelchair, and walkers have been reassembled into a tree, a bicycle, and a dog. This ordinary urban scene, placed within a “green field” comprised of drug capsules and discarded pill containers, invites the viewer to experience the work on multiple levels—aesthetic, physical, and psychic.
The installation, constructed of mixed media, is presented in conjunction with the gallery display, Advertising for Health, on view at The Wolfsonian beginning February 19, 2010.
Uribe, born in Colombia, lives and works in Miami. He has exhibited widely in solo and group shows in the Americas and in Europe. He has described his work as the metamorphosis of items used in daily life into new objects with different significance, and has said, “If a sculpture makes viewers smile, or compels them to want to touch it, then, I believe, it becomes a permanent and amiable memory which generates affection and love.”
About The Bridge Tender’s House
The hexagonal stainless-steel Bridge Tender’s House, built in 1939 to serve Miami’s 27th Avenue bridge, was saved from demolition in the late 1980s.
About The Wolfsonian–Florida International University
The Wolfsonian is a museum, library, and research center that uses objects to illustrate the persuasive power of art and design, to explore what it means to be modern, and to tell the story of social, historical, and technological changes that have transformed our world. The collections comprise approximately 120,000 objects from the period of 1885 to 1945—the height of the Industrial Revolution to the end of the Second World War—in a variety of media including furniture; industrial-design objects; works in glass, ceramics, and metal; rare books; periodicals; ephemera; works on paper; paintings; textiles; and medals.
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, Saturday and Sunday from noon-6pm; Thursday and Friday from noon-9pm; and is closed on Wednesday. Contact us at 305.531.1001 or visit us online at www.wolfsonian.org for further information.
The Wolfsonian receives ongoing support from The Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; the City of Miami Beach, Cultural Affairs Program, Cultural Arts Council; the William J. and Tina Rosenberg Foundation; Continental Airlines, the Official Airline of The Wolfsonian–FIU; Bacardi USA, Inc.; and Arrowood Vineyards & Winery.