The Wolfsonian-FIU Presents: Modern Meals: Remaking American Foods from Farm to Kitchen and Women in Motion: Fitness, Sport, and the Female Figure

The Wolfsonian-FIU Presents: Modern Meals: Remaking American Foods from Farm to Kitchen and Women in Motion: Fitness, Sport, and the Female Figure
The Wolfsonian-FIU Presents: Modern Meals: Remaking American Foods from Farm to Kitchen and Women in Motion: Fitness, Sport, and the Female Figure
Poster, Corn. The Food of a Nation, 1918

The Wolfsonian–Florida International University presents two exhibitions: Modern Meals: Remaking American Foods from Farm to Kitchen and Women in Motion: Fitness, Sport, and the Female Figure, opening May 17, 2013 through August 18, 2013. Modern Meals examines how advances in technology and design reshaped the places where food was produced, sold, cooked and eaten from the turn of the century into the post-1945 period, while Women in Motion displays images of physically active women produced by governments, fitness advocates, advertisers, and artists in Europe and the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. Both exhibitions examine aspects of everyday culture in the early 20th century that are still of great concern today, from the methods through which our foods are produced, to equal access to athletic opportunities for women.

“Modern Meals examines how people in the U.S. began eating foods that were mass-produced in the first half of the 20th century. Images and artifacts from The Wolfsonian’s collection illustrate the movement of food from the field, to the factory, supermarket, and kitchen table, in order to explore how modern technology, design, and business practices created new meanings for food and eating in this era,” said Jon Mogul, assistant director for research and academic initiatives. “These objects reveal how the values of industrial efficiency and design shaped the landscapes and intimate spaces of food production and consumption.” The exhibition also demonstrates, however, that even amidst these changes, American culture continued to idealize generations-old practices in the fields and the home.

Women in Motion focuses on increased participation for women in sports and other kinds of physical activity in the early 20th century, as strides were made towards political, economic, and social equality in the United States and Europe. Artwork, advertisements, magazine covers, and political propaganda at the time celebrated the athletic and healthy woman as a source of sex appeal, a basis of national vigor, and—sometimes—as a figure of individual self fulfillment. Drawn from the collection of The Wolfsonian, Women in Motion invites viewers to consider the messages about femininity conveyed by these images.

The Wolfsonian-FIU Presents: Modern Meals: Remaking American Foods from Farm to Kitchen and Women in Motion: Fitness, Sport, and the Female Figure
Magazine, Physical Culture, April 1935

The exhibitions were created as part of the Wolfsonian’s teaching gallery at the Patricia & Philip Frost Art Museum, in conjunction with FIU faculty members. April Merleaux, (Department of History) who was the guest curator of Modern Meals; and Laurie Shrage (Philosophy and Women’s Studies) and Dionne Stephens (Psychology, and African and African Diaspora Studies), who were guest curators for Women in Motion. The development of the exhibitions was supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

For more information about the exhibitions and related public programs, contact maris@thewolf.fiu.edu.

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 John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; The Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, The Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; The State of Florida; Department of Cultural Affairs; The Florida Council on Arts and Culture; The City of Miami Beach Cultural Affairs Program Cultural Arts Council; The Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Foundation; Bacardi, USA., Inc; and The Wolfsonian Visionaries.


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