The FIU-Wolfsonian’s innovative Thoughts on Democracy: Reinterpreting Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms Posters exhibition will be on view in Miami Beach at the City Hall Gallery, September 2 – 29, Mondays through Fridays from 8:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m.
Thoughts on Democracy brings together original works inspired by Norman Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms” posters that were created by 60 renowned contemporary artists and designers including Elliott Earls, Chip Kidd, Experimental Jetset, Scott Stowell, and others.
“We invited artists and designers to participate in a ‘graphic remix’ that would reinterpret Rockwell’s posters in today’s visual language,” said Wolfsonian art director Tim Hossler, who conceived the project and co-curated the show with Steven Heller, co-chair of the MFA Design Department at the School of Visual Arts. “We are thrilled with the response and are eager to see how the participants’ exploration of democracy stimulates public conversation on the subject.”
Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms” paintings were first published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1943, and were later issued by the government as posters for a U.S. war bond drive. The paintings illustrated the ideals expressed in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s impassioned “Four Freedoms” speech to Congress in 1941, in which he envisioned a “world founded upon four essential human freedoms” — Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear.
Thoughts on Democracy is steadily achieving that goal by building its audience venue by venue. So far, the exhibition has been on view at The Wolfsonian, Miami International Airport, the Aventura Mall, and the Galeria Metropolitana in Mexico City. The exhibition is also reaching a virtual audience through its blog, http://thoughtsondemocracy.blogspot.com/, which will be continually updated in the coming months as more venues show the exhibition.
Miami Beach City Hall Gallery is located at 1700 Convention Center Drive, fourth floor, Miami Beach.
