Margin of Error

November 13, 2015–May 8, 2016
The Wolfsonian–FIU @ 1001 Washington Avenue

Margin of Error explored cultural responses to mechanical mastery and engineered catastrophes of the modern age—the shipwrecks, crashes, explosions, collapses, and novel types of workplace injury that interrupt the path of progress. Revealing the consequences of mankind’s endeavor to defy and exceed limits, the exhibition traced the narrative of technological ambition from myth and triumph to peril and accident prevention through over two hundred works from the mid-nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including decorative and graphic art, painting, sculpture, industrial artifacts, photography, and ephemera. Major artists and designers showcased included Man Ray, Lewis Hine, Margaret Bourke-White, Herbert Bayer, Julius Klinger, and Louis Lozowick.