Pattern and Ornament: Wolfsonian FIU- Art and Design in the Modern Age

I was very surprised that I had never seen or heard about this treasure. The building it self was so different from all the modern large art museums that have taken over Miami, and the Wolfsonian FIU was such a nice difference. The building was very art deco which went along nicely with some of the artwork because of the focused art periods. The museum's mission is the use objects to demonstrate the power of persuasive art and design. It is curated to encourage people to see the world in a new perspective and take the past and shape the present and future. The Wolfsonian has a huge collection of aquistions that tell the story of how political, social, and technological changes have formed our present modern world.
The museum's ongoing exhibition "Art and Design in the Modern Age" was a great inspiration for pattern and ornaments because of all the details the furniture had and different time periods that influenced new styles. There was a part that was dedicated to electronic appliances ( mostly Westinghouse appliances) of the late 1930s which were changing the people's homes. New ideas of practicality were changing people's lifestyles. There was also a lot of war propaganda especially for WWI and WWII, and the influence on the home design was also noticeable. There was a beautiful vanity Kem Weber designed in 1929 to portray the times and the mix of art and industry and had a mechanical look to it. One of the pieces that resinated the most to me was the Menneske Pyramid from Denmark, painted by Harald Rudyard Engman in 1941. It is a strong narrative of the influence the Nazis had on the country of Denmark; they took over their history. Just like the way the museum was curated, the painting shows the development of people, society, and technology over time, as well as the impacts of war on a country's (or even the world's) history.
One of the most satisfying parts of this museum, specifically the exhibition of Art and Design of the Modern Age, was the variety of styles that depicted the rapid change over the small amount of time. The world was a sort of climax of change that was being driven by war and technology during those times, and the outcomes of art and design were outstanding.