Exhibitions

CURRENT:

The Crochet Coral Reef is constantly on display. See here for current, future, and past exhibitions of the Crochet Coral Reef.

PAST:

PLASTIC ENTANGLEMENTS: Ecology, Aesthetics, Materials
@ Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art
September 22–December 30, 2018

TRADE MARKINGS: Frontier Imaginaries Ed. No. 5
@ Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands
April 7 – July 1, 2018

EXPLODE EVERY DAY: An Inquiry into the Phenomenon of Wonder
@ MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA
May 28, 2016 – February 28, 2017

Crochet Coral Reef
@ the University of California, Santa Cruz
February 10 – May 6, 2017

Crochet Coral Reef
@ Museum of Arts and Design, New York
September 15, 2016 – January 22, 2017

Night Begins the Day
@ the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco
June 18 – Sept 20, 2015

Crochet Coral Reef
@ Southwest School of Art, San Antonio, TX
February 12 – April 26, 2015

Crochet Coral Reef
@ New York University Abu Dhabi Institute, UAE
September 28 – December 5, 2014

making space
@ Google Venice Offices, Los Angeles
October 2013 – February 2014

Science + Art Residency:  Being Formed
@ Institute For Figuring, Los Angeles
July – December, 2013

An Alternative Guide to the Universe
@ Hayward Gallery, London
June 11 – August 26, 2013

Out of Fashion
@ GL Holtegaard Museum, Copenhagen
April 2013 – Jan 2014

making space
@ Institute For Figuring, Los Angeles
December 15, 2012 – June 29, 2013

Physics on the Fringe
@ Institute For Figuring, Los Angeles
April 14 – November 10, 2012

Mosely Snowflake Sponge Exhibition
@ The USC Libraries
September 20, 2012 – January 30, 2013

Midden Project
@ The New Children's Museum, San Diego, CA
October 15, 2011 –September 15, 2013

The Logic Alphabet of Shea Zellweger
@ The Museum of Jurassic Technology
Opening reception March 3, 2007 – March 3, 2012

IFF
@ The Walker Art Center
April 24 – September 29, 2009

Inventing Kindergarten
@ Art Center College of Design, Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery
October 13, 2006 – January 7, 2007

Hyperbolic Cactus Garden + Hyperbolic Kelp Garden
@ Fair Exhange, during the LA County Fair, Pomona Fairgrounds
September 8 – October 1, 2006

The Business Card Menger Sponge
@ Machine Project, Los Angeles
Los Angeles – August 26 – September 24, 2006

Crocheting the Hyperbolic Plane
@ Machine Project, Los Angeles
Los Angeles – July 2005

Philosophical Toys
@ Apex Art, New York
June/July 2005

Lithium Legs and Apocalyptic Photons
@ The Santa Monica Museum of Art
April 20 – June 9, 2002

 

Crochet Coral Reef Exhibitions

Hyperbolic: Reefs, Rubbish, and Reason
@ The Williamson Gallery, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA
June 6 – August 21, 2011

Crochet Reef
@ The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC
October 16, 2010 – April 24, 2011

Crochet Reef
@ The Science Gallery, Dublin
March 20, 2010 – June 11, 2010

The IFF "Bleached Reef"
@ The National Design Triennial at the Cooper-Hewitt, NYC
May 14, 2010 – January 9, 2011

Crochet Cactus Garden
Jackson Hole, WY
June 26 – September 28, 2009

Crochet Reef
Scottsdale, AZ
April 11 – July 11, 2009

Crochet Reef Show
@ Track 16 in Los Angeles
Jan 10 – Feb 28, 2009

New York and Chicago Reefs
Staten Island
Sept 27 – Dec 20, 2008

UK Reef Tour
Autumn 2008

Plastic Exploding Inevitable Reef
San Francisco
Sept 7 – Oct 3, 2008

Crochet Reef Symposium
@ Southbank Center
Friday June 13, 2008

Crochet Reef
London
June 11 – August 17, 2008

Crochet Reef
New York
April 6 – May 18, 2008

The Crochet Cactus Garden
@ The Wignall Museum, Chaffey College
January 29 – March 1, 2008

The Crochet Cactus Garden
@ The David Weinberg Gallery
October 26 – December 29, 2007

The Crochet Coral Reef
@ The Chicago Cultural Center
October 13 – December 16, 2007

The Crochet Coral Reef
@ The Andy Warhol Museum
March 11 – June 17, 2007

 

 

Google Exhibition


'Making Space' exhibition at Google, Venice CA. Photo © IFF Archive.

“Making Space” exhibition at Google, Venice CA. Photos © IFF Archive.

On February 10, 2014, the IFF and friends made a field trip to the Google office in Venice, CA, to visit our exhibition there. Titled “Making Space”, the exhibit showcased works developed at the IFF during our major Making Space mathematics and aesthetics project in 2013. Included in the Google show were large-scale sculptures of business card origami, tiny beaded Platonic solids, geometric bamboo stick things, and other enigmatic spatial structures. The pieces looked terrific in the Google space and we thank program manager Max Maxwell for spearheading Google Venice’s innovative arts program. Works featured in the exhibition were by Jake Dotson, Jesse Dotson, Christina Simons, David Orozco, Kathryn Harris, Corrine Cascioppo and Margaret Wertheim. The business card origami sculptures on display built-on and extended original research by engineer Dr. Jeannine Mosely, a pioneer in the field of mathematical paper folding or origami sekkei. Seen below are photos of the elegant installation.

Vistors to the IFF's Making Space exhibition at Google, Venice CA. At left is a business card origami tower by David Orozco.

Vistors to the IFF’s Making Space exhibition at Google, Venice CA. At left is David Orozco’s lattice-like tower, and at far right is a cubic lattice by Jake Dotson.

During the course of the IFF’s Making Space project in 2013, visitors to our gallery were introduced to the techniques of business card origami pioneered by Dr. Jeannine Mosely in order to build material models of fractals. Using 60,000 specially designed, brilliantly colored cards, participants were invited to experiment and develop new structures of their own. It quickly became evident that some participants had a special knack for these techniques and a new taxonomy of business card “species” began to evolve. David Orozco developed an innovative method for constructing lattice-like towers; Jake Dotson started exploring folding techniques based on pyramidal rather than cubic geometries; Jesse Dotson (his younger brother) worked out how to make spherical forms resembling armillary spheres. Inspired by a structure on a geometry website Christina Simons developed a lovely module based on a truncation of the cube that can be fitted together in a crystalline space-filling lattice.

Dr. Mosely’s original techniques had been designed to create three-dimensional fractals, but the IFF’s Margaret Wertheim, encouraged people to also think about two-dimensional forms. Margaret and Christina completed a grid of the nine two-dimensional layers of a Level Two Mosely Snowflake fractal, highlighting the graphic internal anatomy of this self-similar structure. Other participants started to explore in 2D and Tracy Tynan surprised us with a rendition of a Peono space-filling curve. Jesse Dotson constructed  a hexagonal tiling network that made excellent use of our “swirly” patterned cards, while Corrine Cascioppo made a model of the famous “infinity” knot, a mathematical form that has resonance in Tibetan Bhuddism.

Christina Simons places another atomic module into her molecular origami structure. Each atomic unit here is a truncated cube so the balls fill space in a crystalline lattice.

Christina Simons places another atomic module into her molecular origami structure. Each atomic unit here is a truncated cube so the balls fill space in a crystalline lattice.

Included in the Google exhibition also were two vitrines of small beaded mathematical structures made by San Diego artist Kathryn Harris. As part of the Making Space project in 2013 Kathryn conducted a workshop at the IFF showing us how to make Platonic solids from bugle beads and wire. For the Google show she constructed a complete set of the 5 perfectly regular Platonic solids and a set of the 13 semi-regular Archimedean solids. These tiny forms are a delightful invocation of geometric objects that have engaged philosophers and mathematicians attention for thousands of years. The Platonic solids – though named after Plato (who associated them with the five basic elements) – were known to neolithic peoples; the oldest objects that show us these forms are a series of stone balls whose surfaces are inscribed with the network structure of each solid. Found in Scotland, they date back more than 4000 years. Kathryn’s work carries forward this ancient lineage of math and material design.

Kathryn Harris's eades representations of the 5 Platonic solids (left) and the 13 Archimedean solids (right).

Kathryn Harris’s eades representations of the 5 Platonic solids (left) and the 13 Archimedean solids (right).

Making Space exhibition at Google. At left, two Level Two Mosely Snowflake Sponge fractals, folded by Christina Simons and Margaret Wertheim, from an original design by Dr. Jeannine Mosely.

Making Space exhibition at Google. At left are two Level Two Mosely Snowflake Sponge fractals, folded by Christina Simons and Margaret Wertheim, from an original design by Dr. Jeannine Mosely. At right are some of the nine topographic layers which make up these three-dimensional structures. By revealing each layer, one gets a visceral, graphic sense of the fugue-like repetition of crosses and rings that make up these forms. Thes basic architectural motifs are repeated at every level of the fractal’s anatomy.

Jake Dotson's cubic lattice and above, his origami module embedded in a framework of bamboo sticks.

At right, Jake Dotson’s cubic lattice and, hanging above, his origami module embedded in a cubic lattice of bamboo sticks. This structure is a prelude to the many paper-and-stick things that Jake would develop during his Science + Art Residency at the Institute For Figuring in Fall 2013.

Nine topographic layers of the Level Two Mosely Snowflake Fractal.

Nine topographic layers of the Level Two Mosely Snowflake Fractal.

Jesse Dotson with his hexagonal tiling structures and his 'armillary sphere'. At left is David Orozco's tower and three linked Level One Menger Sponge fractals by Margaret Wertheim.

Jesse Dotson with his hexagonal tiling structures and his “armillary sphere”. At left is David Orozco’s tower and three linked Level One Menger Sponge fractals by Margaret Wertheim.

Two Level Two Mosely Snowflake fractals, filed by Christina Simons and Margaret Wertheim, from an original design by Dr. Jeannine Mosely.

Close-up of two Level Two Mosely Snowflake fractals at the Google exhibition, showcasing the elegant business cards that were designed for the IFF’s Making Space project by Cindi Kusuda and Margaret Wertheim. Fractals folded by Christina Simons and Margaret Wertheim, from an original design by Dr. Jeannine Mosely.

The 13 Archimedian solids, realized in wire and bugle beads, by Kathryn Harris.

The 13 Archimedian solids, realized in wire and bugle beads, by Kathryn Harris.