Leslie Ovalle/Assistant Entertainment Director
Every Friday, until Feb. 19, the Wolfsonian-FIU will be offering free guided tours from 6 p.m. to 6:45 p.m.
Tours vary from week to week depending on the tour leader, who chooses specific exhibits or collections to concentrate on. This week, on Jan. 22, one of the museum’s curators, Silvia Barisione, will be leading the tour.
She will be focusing on the permanent collection, found on the 5th floor, and the special exhibition, “Philodendron: From Pan-Latin Exotic to American Modern,” found on the 7th floor.
Meg Floryan, the museum’s communications manager, recommends the museum’s permanent collection, “Art and Design in the Modern Age: Selections From The Wolfsonian Collection.” According to her, here you get to really see the essence of the museum.
“What makes us stand out from other museums are the objects that we showcase,” said Floryan.
These include the world’s first commercial baby monitor, designed by Isamu Noguchi and commissioned after the infamous kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby–a case that has been called the biggest since the Resurrection, by press.
Other pieces of art, which will be included in the tour, are a 1895 sphinx-shaped electrical lamp from the Mackenzie castle, a vacuum cleaner, a 1936 painting by Lloyd Morgan of buildings from around the world designed by the architectural firm Schultze and Weaver, a toaster that doesn’t even look like a toaster, and many more.
The second portion of the tour will focus on the Philodendron exhibition, which presents the migration of such flora from the Caribbean and Amazon to North American and European homes.
This is a plant very familiar to all here in South florida and it has come to symbol of all that is “exotic, Latin, and modern,” said the Wolfsonian-FIU website.
“We get you to stop and think about everyday things that can be art,” said Floryan, “we have a more unusual experience than other museums.”
For more information about the Wolfsonian-FIU’s collections and free guided tours contact the museum at 305-531-1001 or visit wolfsonian.org.
Image Courtesy of Wolfsonian-FIU
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