BLUE STAR MUSEUMS PARTNERSHIP
In effect through September 5, 2011—Join The Wolfsonian and 1,300 museums across America in celebrating the Blue Star Museums partnership. In honor of the program, The Wolfsonian offers free gallery admission to all active duty military personnel and their families.
AUGUST
BOOK CLUB
Friday, August 5, 7pm
PRIVATE LIFE BY JANE SMILEY (2010)—Private Life is a riveting new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winner that traverses the intimate landscape of one woman’s life, from the 1880s to World War II. Margaret Mayfield is nearly an old maid at twenty-seven in post–Civil War Missouri when she marries Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early. He’s the most famous man their small town has ever produced: a naval officer and a brilliant astronomer—a genius who, according to the local paper, has changed the universe. Margaret’s mother calls the match “a piece of luck.” The Wolfsonian Book Club explores literary works whose subjects are relevant to current exhibitions and collection themes. To join or to RSVP: 305.535.2644 or programs@thewolf.fiu.edu. Free for members.
SEPTEMBER
BOOK CLUB
Friday, September 9, 7pm
TWILIGHT AT THE WORLD OF TOMORROW: GENIUS, MADNESS, MURDER, AND THE 1939 WORLD’S FAIR ON THE BRINK OF WAR BY JAMES MAURO (2010)—The summer of 1939 was an epic turning point for America—a brief window between the Great Depression and World War II. It was the last season of unbridled hope for peace and prosperity; by Labor Day, the Nazis were in Poland. And nothing would come to symbolize this transformation from acute optimism to fear and dread more than the 1939 New York World’s Fair. A glorious vision of the future, the Fair introduced television, the fax machine, nylon, and fluorescent lights. The “World of Tomorrow,” as it was called, was a dream city built upon a notorious garbage dump—The Great Gatsby’s infamous ash heaps. Yet these lofty dreams would come crashing down to earth in just two years. From the fair’s opening on a stormy spring day, everything that could go wrong did: not just freakish weather but power failures and bomb threats. The Wolfsonian Book Club explores literary works whose subjects are relevant to current exhibitions and collection themes. To join or to RSVP: 305.535.2644 or programs@thewolf.fiu.edu. Free for members.
FILM
Sunday, September 11, 4pm
IMAGES OF THE WORLD AND THE INSCRIPTION OF WAR—The Wolfsonian will present Harun Farocki’s film, Images of the World and the Inscription of War (1989, 75 minutes). Thematically rooted in the double meaning of Aufklärung—the German word for both enlightenment and aerial surveillance—Farocki’s film maps the murky distinction between imaged event and lived experience in a world of technologically mediated vision. It traces the effect of imaging technology on human thought and action, illustrating how the representation (the virtual) and the thing itself (the actual) tend to converge wherever perception is subject to the selective sight lines of the camera. Free. For more information: 305.535.2644 or programs@thewolf.fiu.edu.
BOOK TALK & SIGNING
Saturday, September 24, 1pm
BOB GRAHAM: THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM—Senator Bob Graham, former two-term Governor of Florida and eighteen-year US Senator, discusses his suspenseful novel, The Keys to the Kingdom (Vanguard Press, 2011). Following an explosive New York Times op-ed piece about the 9/11 investigation, a former Senator and co-chair of the Congressional Inquiry Commission is found dead near his Florida home. Carl Hiaasen claims Graham’s novel “delivers uncommon insight into the treacherous and sometimes frantic craft of intelligence gathering. It reads like a true story because Graham knows where the truth lies.” Free. For more information: 305.535.2644 or programs@thewolf.fiu.edu.
OCTOBER
BOOK TALK
Saturday, October 1, 5pm
ORI SOLTES: UNTANGLING THE MIDDLE EAST WEB—The Middle East is a morass, a tangled web of diverse threads—religion, politics, ethnicity, nationalism, and economics. Each of these is a complex tangle of its own interwoven with confusing definitions, conflicting aspirations, and interferences from beyond the region. Ori Z. Soltes, Ph.D, who currently teaches theology, philosophy and art history at Georgetown University, addresses these issues in his latest book, Untangling the Web: A Thinking Person’s Guide to Why the Middle East is a Mess and Always Has Been (Bartleby Press, 2011). The book provides a guide to the history and complexity of this region as he reveals why simple solutions are so difficult to come by. Book signing follows talk. Free. For more information: 305.535.2680 or paola@thewolf.fiu.edu.
BOOK CLUB
Friday, October 14, 7pm
NO-NO BOY BY JOHN OKADA (1979)—The only novel written by Okada, it addresses the fallout of the Japanese American internment during World War II. Set in Seattle, No-No Boy tells the story of Ichiro Yamada who returns home from prison and struggles with his decision of not having joined the army. Following his release, he contemplates his future in the United States. The Wolfsonian Book Club explores literary works whose subjects are relevant to current exhibitions and collection themes. To join or to RSVP: 305.535.2644 or programs@thewolf.fiu.edu. Free for members.
ON VIEW
ART FOR ALL: BRITISH POSTERS FOR TRANSPORT
Organized by the Yale Center for British Art
On view through August 14, 2011
In 1908 the London Underground began an aggressive campaign that became one of the most successful, adventurous, and best sustained branding operations ever attempted. This poster campaign not only encouraged ridership on the public transport system; it helped to foster a civic identity for the city of London. The more than 5,000 works produced include some of the greatest achievements of poster art. Art for All features outstanding posters executed for both the Underground and the British railways.
CLASS DISTINCTIONS: SELECTIONS FROM THE LAURENCE MILLER COLLECTION
On view in the museum’s rare book and special collections library vestibule through September 2011
Today the great luxury liners of the period before the Second World War evoke images of opulent accommodations. But during that period, the majority of passengers did not enjoy the amenities available to those who sailed “first class.” Most passengers traveled “cabin,” “tourist,” or “third class”—the domain of teachers, students, refugees, and others seeking inexpensive transport. It was not until the late 1950s that the standards of accommodations for the economy passenger improved.
This display of items exploring class distinctions in postwar ocean travel is culled from a substantial collection that Laurence Miller donated to The Wolfsonian in 2008. A life-long cruise industry aficionado, Miller amassed tens of thousands of printed items representing virtually every major company in the passenger ship industry. Miller’s donation augments The Wolfsonian’s existing holdings of steamship line advertisements, schedules, maps, deck plans, and other printed promotional materials from the interwar era.
REFLECTIONS ON LOSS AND COMMEMORATION
On view September 8 through September 30, 2011
An installation of objects from The Wolfsonian collection to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001, which poses questions about how humans record and commemorate disaster, tragedy, and loss through the visual arts.
LIBERTY, EQUALITY, AND FRATERNITY: FRENCH DESIGN FOR LIVING
On view December 2011 through March 18, 2012
Organized by The Wolfsonian-Florida International University, from the centre national des arts plastiques, Paris
The French motto, “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,” serves as the conceptual framework for this insightful exhibition exploring French cultural identity through design. The exhibition examines the changing political, economic, and cultural contexts in which French design is created and disseminated. Approximately one hundred and fifty objects will be exhibited, including furniture, industrial design, and craft, created by some of the most celebrated French designers of the past and present, including Pierre Paulin, Roger Tallon, Olivier Mourgue, Philippe Starck, and the Bouroullec Brothers, as well as others lesser known from the United States.
ART AND DESIGN IN THE MODERN AGE: SELECTIONS FROM THE WOLFSONIAN COLLECTION
Ongoing
The Wolfsonian–FIU holds an astounding collection of modern objects—both the rare and the overlooked—from the 1885 to 1945 era, demonstrating the active role design plays in motivating actions, expressing ideas, creating desires, and shaping identities. Exhibition themes underscore designers’ responses to new materials and technologies, the role of graphic design as an instrument of political and commercial persuasion, and the nature of state-sponsored public art and architecture programs.
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, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday from noon-6pm; 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; United Airlines, the Official Airline of The Wolfsonian–FIU; and Bacardi USA, Inc.