Rosemarie Chiarlone explores the physical and psychological boundaries of human connection. With the installation “Mapping Trajectories by Rosemarie Chiarlone” at the Wolfsonian-FIU Bridge Tender House, the artist blends poetry, painting and typography, creating a streetside canvas on the Washington Avenue sidewalk outside of the museum.
“I was working in my studio on a mapping series,” explains Chiarlone, “so when the curatorial staff (of the Wolfsonian) came to visit me, they suggested that I do a proposal for the Bridge Tender House.” She immediately went to HistoryMiami.
“I actually got an archival image of the Bridge Tender House when it was first built on the Miami River,” says Chiarlone.
“I was working in my studio on a mapping series,” says Rosemarie Chiarlone, “so when the curatorial staff (of The Wolfsonian) came to visit me, they suggested that I do a proposal for the Bridge Tender House.” (Photo courtesy of the artist)
She then had it enlarged and from that, painted the actual image facing west.“It almost looks like an abstraction, so it really makes people question, what’s there? And I think that questioning intrigues people to actually come and look at it.”
On the wall that’s facing east on the large window is the actual drone shot taking from above Washington Avenue. "I painted on that drone shot."
With her work focusing on human connection, Chiarlone says that she wanted pedestrians to question where they are, both physically and on a psychological plane.
There’s a circular image on the painted drone shot that is much like a magnification
“What I want is for pedestrians to look at it and then question, ‘Is this where I am right now?’ They have to guess and take a second look.”
The installation explores the journey of the iconic structure from its original site, which began its life at the 27th Avenue crossing of the Miami River and is now on the Washington Avenue sidewalk.
In 2022, it was dedicated as the Josephine Baker Pavilion.
Exterior, "Mapping Trajectories" by Rosemarie Chiarlone (2024). (Photo courtesy of the Wolfsonian-FIU)
“It’s actually in a present location as a sculptural icon,” Chiarlone notes. Again, she examines her exploration of the human connection. “I’ve seen people taking pictures of themselves in front of it. . . . so it adds another layer. Are they being seen and connected to the site, to the space, to the image, to the house?”
When she works on a series, Chiarlone says she also creates a companion book. This one is titled "Tender" and is displayed in the Wolfsonian-FIU’s lobby along with a newsprint tabloid that visitors can take with them.
“That is another connection,” says Chiarlone.
She talks about being influenced by the work of French artist Sonia Delaunay and a book Delaunay designed in collaboration with the poet Blaise Cendrars titled “La Prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France.”
Unfolded, the book was six feet long. Delaunay and Cendrars initially intended to publish 150 copies, which opened together in a line would have equaled the height of the Eiffel Tower.
“When I initially did the tabloid, I had wanted to print enough editions so that it would actually line up to show the (Bridge Tender House) journey from the river to the beach.” But that, she says, became very expensive.
“So I did about 1,361, which could actually be the length of the bridge. The way it is made, visitors can take the tabloid and hang them and put a poster in their house if they wanted to. So they are actually taking with them a piece of artwork.”
The tabloid talks about the history of the Bridge Tender House, so they do also take with them some context.
Again, it is Chiarlone wanting to create that human connection.
"“Washington Avenue,” from Mapping Trajectories by Rosemarie Chiarlone (2024).
In addition to the work at The Wolfsonian-FIU, Chiarlone’s exhibition “The Story” is installed at the Miami Beach Regional Library. She waxes poetic about the beauty of the gallery inside the library space.“People ask me, ‘why would you want to show in a library?” She explains that when the Bass Museum of Art was going through its renovations, a space was built inside the library to show work from the museum.
“And it’s this beautiful little gallery space that has floor-to-ceiling windows that face south,” she says
For the work inside the library, Chiarlone found inspiration in “The Story of Man,” a sand concrete relief sculpture that was once part of the Miami Beach Public Library, now on the grounds of the Bass Museum.
Standing in the northeast corner of Collins Park, the rotunda was created in 1962 by Florida artists Albert Vrana.
“I was thinking that the story of man is culture, it’s language, it’s art, it’s music, it’s people with civilizations.
At the Miami Beach Public Library, Rosemarie Chiarlone's "The Story" was inspired by Albert Vrana's "The Story of Man" in the northeast corner of Collins Park.
She said she did a 24-foot wall piece with each panel at six and a half feet tall and four feet wide.
"Tthere are six panels, so it goes to 24 and they flush together. And I created the surface to be like Vrana's. So it's made with sand."
The text on the images is a poem inspired by astronomer Carl Sagan’s 1994 book, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.”
“Sagan called Earth the blue dot, and he called it the human planet. So it all ties together.”She created the black pieces with India ink, salt and mica.
“So the mica shines like stars.”
She finds that her two pieces – the one at The Wolfsonian and the other work at the Miami Beach Public Library are interwined.“I think the beauty about Miami Beach, in a sense, is that you have someone like Micky Wolfson who created a museum with objects, and it's really the Museum of Ideas, right? And then you have this guy, Vrana, who's doing a library aesthetically and visually with the components of meaningful relationships to society.”
IF YOU GO:
WHAT: Rosemarie Chiarlone, "Mapping Trajectories" and "The Story"
WHERE: The Wolfsonian-FIU, 1001 Washington Ave., Miami Beach, and Miami Beach Regional Library, 227 22nd St., Miami Beach
INFO: www.wolfsonian.org and mdpls.org/event
