Here’s an exhibition you’ll only find in Miami Beach…
This summer, The Wolfsonian is home to a retrospective look at swimwear design and bathing culture. Beauty on the Beach: A Centennial Celebration of Swimwear explores the role that fashion design plays in shaping and reflecting popular conceptions of glamour and health through an examination of innovations in swimwear design and creative marketing strategies. The exhibition features archival materials from the Jantzen swimwear company — celebrating its one-hundredth anniversary in 2009 — and The Wolfsonian’s collection. The installation Sun Stroke Stimulus is a contemporary portrait of Miami Beach’s “bathing” culture by photographer Miles Geist Ladin. Both are on view July 10-October 11, 2009.
The exhibitions that comprise “Celebrating America” explore various aspects of the American experience — social, political, and cultural — from the early 1900s to the present, through a range of viewpoints. “As we continue our ‘Celebrating America’ series, I am reminded of two things: that economic prosperity and economic hardship have each fueled extraordinary design achievements in this country, and that the decisions that we make today about design — from developing more fuel efficient automobiles to designing affordable homes — will have a global impact on people and the planet in the future,” notes Marianne Lamonaca, associate director for curatorial affairs and education. In our opinion, South Beach’s beautiful Ocean Drive hotels would also qualify as “extraordinary design achievements.”
The series began in July 2008 with A Bittersweet Decade: The New Deal in America, 1933-43 and Thoughts on Democracy and continued with American Streamlined Design: The World of Tomorrow, closing May 17.
After the summer shows on swimwear and bathing culture, “Celebrating America” moves into next fall with Styled for the Road: The Art of Automobile Design, 1908 to 1948, on view October 16, 2009-March 14, 2010.
Sun Stroke Stimulus and Beauty on the Beach are made possible thanks to support from André Balazs and the Raleigh and Standard hotels. The Wolfsonian is also grateful to Jantzen Apparel, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Perry Ellis International, Inc. for providing access to and loans from the Jantzen archives.
We’d like to add that the Jantzen Swimwear advertising artwork display alone will make a trip to the Wolfsonian for this exhibition well worth the effort.
