Erik Demaine & Martin Demaine, Destructors III, 2013
New Expressions above the fold in Origami
Traveling Exhibitions New Expressions above the fold in Origami
Yuko Nishimura, Wave, 2013
bove the Fold demonstrates the extraordinary power “To most, the real beauty of and potential of contemporary origami. In the hands Aof nine international artists, what was once considered origami lies in its simplicity, a children’s craft becomes a sophisticated global art form. Paper is transformed into breathtaking sculpture, large-scale allowing everyone to create installations and conceptual works that express contemporary social, political, aesthetic, and cultural dialogues. Above the their interpretation of the Fold is the first traveling exhibition to bring origami installations world in paper.” from around the world to North American audiences. Visionary master folders—such as Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine (Canada/USA), Vincent Floderer (France), —VANESSA GOULD, director, Between the Folds Miri Golan (Israel), Paul Jackson (UK/Israel), Dr. Robert J. Lang (USA), Yuko Nishimura (Japan), Richard Sweeney (UK), and Jiangmei Wu (China/USA)—push the boundaries of paper as a medium to create bold, provocative works.
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Paul Jackson, Untitled, 2014
Each artist will create pieces specifically for this tour—their collective works have never been seen before anywhere in “Even DNA is folded—you the world. and I are born from folding.” These nine internationally celebrated folders comprise a cross- section of contemporary origami artists, ranging in age from —PAUL JACKSON, Above the Fold artist 29 to 71, hailing from four different continents, and working in seven different countries. Their origami creations will present original, “above the fold” commentaries on diverse aspects of modern life and art. increasingly elaborate and provocative sculptural works, while scientists and mathematicians are using origami to Origami, literally meaning “paper folding,” has evolved from unlock the mysteries of the universe. Since even our DNA a Japanese craft into a highly expressive, global art form is folded, origami artist Paul Jackson has expressed, “You that intersects and impacts the realms of art and science. and I are born from folding.” We are all, in essence, works Today, artists from all over the world are folding paper into of origami.
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Detail of Vincent Floderer, Unidentified Flying Origami, 2002-2014
The exhibition celebrates these artists who are redefining a traditional Japanese craft as a modern global genre, inventing “This transformation of unexpected forms of artistic expression. Their works exemplify not only innovative methods of working with paper, flat paper into swirling but also the power of origami to unite disciplines as diverse as sculpture and geometry, physics and religion, mathematics surfaces creates sculpture and the global peace movement. that feels alive.” Above the Fold was developed by International Arts & Artists and independent curator, author, and educator Meher McArthur, former curator of East Asian Art at Pacific Asia —ERIK DEMAINE, Above the Fold artist Museum in Pasadena, California and curator of the traveling exhibition, Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami.
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Richard Sweeney, Air, 2014
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Detail of Jiangmei Wu, Ruga Swan, 2014 Jiangmei Wu works to illustrate how folding can be expressed mathmatically, physically, and asethetically, how it can be done with different materials and techniques, and how these aspects work together with the conceptual space in which they occur. In her folded works like Ruga Swan (ruga is the Latin word fo “a fold, crease, or wrinkle”), the folded forms have rigid properties and at the same time are flexible; they are deployable and can be collapsed again into smaller compressed forms. This installation, created from two folded sections joined together, unites her fascination with interior skin, natural forms, and the effects of light and shadow. There are many examples of folding-inspired design in architecture; however, folded architectural structures rarely make use of one of the main characteristic of folding design – the kinetic ability to morph from a two dimensional surface to a three-dimensional surface. Ruga Swan seeks to construct a deployable three dimensional semi-rigid structure that comes from fabricating two dimensional materials, that can be collapsed into, again, smaller compressed forms.
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Installation of Jiangmei Wu’s Ruga Swan (2014) at Springfield Museums, 2014
Installation of Jiangmei Wu’s Ruga Swan (2014) at Springfield Museums, 2014
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Detail of Robert Lang, Vertical Pond II, 2014 About the Curator
Meher McArthur is a freelance Asian art curator, author Values Through Art (2008-9), and Japan in Blue and White and educator, and curator of the traveling exhibition, Folding (March 2010-March 2011). She lectures and advises at several Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami. She received a BA museums in Southern California, including the Santa Barbara in Japanese Studies from Cambridge University and a MA in Museum of Art, the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Japanese art history from the School of Oriental and African Botanical Gardens, and the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art Studies (SOAS), London University. She worked for nine in Santa Ana, and has advised on Buddhist Art installations years as Curator of East Asian Art at Pacific Asia Museum in for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She is also a Pasadena, CA, where she curated 15 exhibitions, including visiting professor at Scripps College in Claremont, California. Gods and Goblins: Japanese Folk Paintings from Otsu (1999), Her publications include Gods and Goblins: Japanese Folk Constructing the Cosmos in the Religious Arts of Asia (2001), Paintings from Otsu (Pacific Asia Museum, 1999), Reading Paintings, Prints, and Drawings by Hokusai (2001), The Nature Buddhist Art: An Illustrated Guide to Buddhist Signs and of the Beast: Portrayals of Animals in Japanese Paintings Symbols (Thames & Hudson, 2002), The Arts of Asia: Materials, (2001), Visions of Enlightenment: Understanding the Art of Techniques, Styles (Thames & Hudson, 2005), Confucius Buddhism (2002) and Kampai! The Arts of Japanese Sake (Quercus, London, 2010), published in the USA as Confucius: (2004). She also curated the museum’s permanent Chinese A Throneless King (Pegasus Books, 2011), and Folding Paper: Ceramics Galleries (2000) and Gallery of Japanese Art (2006). The Infinite Possibilities of Origami (International Arts & Artists, As a guest curator at Pacific Asia Museum, she curated Jade, 2012). She has also published two children’s books about art: Silk, Porcelain…: An Introduction to the Materials of Asian Michael and the Magical Museum (Pacific Asia Museum, 2003) Art (2007), The Religious Arts of Japan (2007), Lotus Moon: and An ABC of What Art Can Be (The Getty Museum, 2010). The Arts of Otagaki Rengetsu (2008), Confucius: Shaping
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Detail of Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, Greene Recycling/De- Miri Golan, Twisted Holy Book, 2014 structors VIII, 2013
Artists air flow. The models will show the creative process Floderer Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine (Canada/USA) uses to develop his crumpling techniques. Each model derives A father-son collaborative team, the Demaines fold, pleat, and from classical, modular, box-pleated origami forms that he twist paper into powerful sculptural forms that illustrate the transforms into otherworldly creations. The installation will intriguing and profound connections between mathematics adapt to each venue’s gallery space, changing aesthetically and origami. They use mathematical calculations to create with each presentation. unconventional works that challenge the direction of paper foldling. For years, the Demaines have been exploring the Miri Golan (Israel) potential of curved folding, in which paper is folded along a A peace activist, educator, and origami artist, Golan will create curved, rather than a straight line. The Demaines plan to fold a a series of book sculptures, based on her conceptual Folding series of their signature, abstract “Curved-Crease Sculptures” Paper piece, Two Books, in which origami figures emerge from using modular techniques to increase sculptural size. They the pages of two sacred texts, the Torah and the Koran, and will also create combined glass-and-paper folded forms, reach out to each other. Golan hopes to use her installations large works that incorporate text, and mobius hypars (curved- as a catalyst to unite people of different religious and cultural crease foldings) interlocked through space, thus blending art, backgrounds. She has founded an organization called Folding science and literature. Together, a group that encourages Israeli and Palestinian children and adults to fold paper forms as a team, turning the Vincent Floderer (France) creation of origami into a collaborative expression of hope for An artist who specializes in crumpling, a technique that includes a more peaceful world. Golan’s work represents the possibility dampening and stretching origami paper to create organic for origami to be not only a means of artistic expression, but and multi-layered forms, Floderer will create a dynamic, large- also a platform for positive social change. scale installation called Unidentified Flying Origami. It will be a universe of floating, rotating organic models that move via
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Paul Jackson (UK/Israel) Richard Sweeney (UK) A folder who specializes in abstract origami sculptures, A multi-media artist, Sweeney combines handcrafted, three- Jackson will design a series of large, folded photographs dimensional models with computer-aided design and CNC featuring the artist’s own hands. The piece, Untitled, will be (computer numerical control) techniques in the creation of his suspended from the ceiling, with images appearing on the works. He will create a pleated paper installation called Air front and back of the sculpture. On one side the image will that spirals downward from the ceiling in a form that blends appear smooth, and on the opposite it will be fragmented poetry with precision. or abstracted, offering new perspectives on how we view ourselves. Jiangmei Wu (China/USA) An Assistant Professor of design at Indiana University, Bloom- Dr. Robert J. Lang (USA) ington, where she does interdisciplinary work in art, design, A former NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory laser physicist mathmatics, science, and engineering. In addition to practic- and professional origami artist, author and lecturer, Dr. Lang ing and teaching art and design, Wu has consistently been in- will create a large, modular mathematical piece exploring terested as in design as it affects the public realm, historically the concept of infinity. In modular origami, multiple sheets and culturally, and most importantly, from the perspective of of paper are folded into individual units—or modules—and sustainable design and development. Recently, she has been combined to form larger, more complex geometric structures. investigating the relationship between geometry, surface tex- Works are held together by the friction and tension created by ture, computational algorithms, and making techniques in the inserting flaps from one module into pockets of another. Titled art and science of paper folding. Her recent works, includ- Pentasia, the surface of Dr. Lang’s work will be composed ing Ruga Swan, have been made using eco-friendly materials of equilateral triangles and theoretically extends to infinity and techniques, for which she has gained international recog- without ever repeating itself. nition and has been published world-wide.
Yuko Nishimura (Japan) A young talent, Nishimura is already an award-winning origami artist. With a background in architecture and design, Nishimura will contribute several framed, wall-hung tessellations. Nishimura comments, “Japanese people unconsciously experience the action of folding on a daily basis, and therefore encounter various folded forms. I think there must be a special meaning for Japanese people through this everyday practice, folding….In order to link the past with future generations regarding the form of folding, I do not limit myself to the category of origami but consider the pursuit of any possibility of folding paper.”
> Erik Demaine & Martin Demaine, Greene Recycling/Destructors VII, 2013
International Arts & Artists • 9 Hillyer Court NW, Washington, DC 20008 Phone 202.338.0680 • Fax 202.333.0758 • www.artsandartists.org | 10 New Expressions above the fold in Origami
Detail of Yuko Nishmura, Shine, 2008
Specifications
Number of Works Participation Fee Approximately 15 conceptual works and installations $35,000 plus courier travel costs
Requirements Shipping Moderate security; 4,000 - 5,000 square feet IA&A makes all arrangements; exhibitors pay outgoing shipping within the contiguous US Booking Period 12 weeks Tour January 2015 - January 2019 Curator Meher McArthur, author, educator, and independent curator Contact Alyssa Hockenberry Organized by Associate Exhibition Project Manager Meher McArthur and International Arts & Artists [email protected]
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