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
@ Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison
September 13, 2019 – January 5, 2020

@ Smith College Museum of Art, New Hampshire
February 8 – July 28, 2019

@ Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon
September 22 – December 30, 2018

@ Palmer Art Museum, University of Pennsylvania
February 13 – June 17th, 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

THE LOGIC ALPHABET OF SHEA ZELLWEGER

At the MUSEUM OF JURASSIC TECHNOLOGY

Curated by IFF co-director Christine Wertheim

This exhibition was shown from March 3, 2007 to March 1, 2012.

Opening Reception: Saturday March 3 2007,  7pm
@ Museum of Jurassic Technology
9341 Venice Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232

Lecture: Saturday March 3 2007 @ 5pm
Join exhibit curator Christine Wertheim and IFF director Margaret Wertheim
for a discussion about logic and a conversation with Dr. Shea Zellweger
@ Foshay Masonic Lodge
9635 Venice Blvd (2 Blocks West of the MJT)

Logic Alphabet models by Shea Zellweger.

In 1953, while working a hotel switchboard, Shea Zellweger began a journey that would culminate in a radical new notation for formal logic, the set of relations that underlies modern computing. From a garage in Ohio, Zellweger developed a visual language he dubbed the “Logic Alphabet,” in which a group of specially designed letter-shapes are maneuvered like puzzles to reveal the geometric patterns hidden beneath the symbolic web of logic. For more than fifty years, Zellweger has been exploring the symmetries and relations inherent in these patterns, which he has made manifest in a series of delicately crafted wooden models and in thousands of pages of diagrams. In this jewel-box exhibit, the Institute For Figuring and the Museum of Jurassic Technology proudly present Dr Shea Zellweger’s Logic Alphabet models and drawings.

The Logic Alphabet Tesseract – a four-dimensional cube. Diagrams by Warren Tschantz.

Zellweger’s work is based on a discovery that the logic on which our computers run is allied with a geometric structure whose form is a tesseract, a four-dimensional cube.  Much of his research over the past half century has aimed at identifying all the subsets of this group of relations in one, two, and three dimensions. The resulting models and diagrams, often crystalline in nature, constitute a genuine research project in logic while simultaneously passing through distinct aesthetic phases,
 reminiscent of Russian Constructivism, concrete poetry and Pop Art. What is most important here is that these physical models enable us manipulate logical symbols spatially – we may learn to do logic by flipping and rotating these marvelous toys.

Left: The Logical Garnet, three dimensional projection of the Logic Alphabet tesseract. Right: A cubic sub-group of the Logical Garnet.

That logic is underpinned by a spatial architecture was independently discovered at least six times in the history of mathematics, first by C.S. Pierce, one of  the pioneers of the field. For Zellweger this fact is of more than purely formal significance - it is the seed of a potential pedagogical revolution. Through model play, he proposes, we may teach our infants logic in school. Like the great nineteenth century creator of the kindergarten system of education, Friedrich Froebel - himself an experienced crystallographer - Zellweger’s models call forth the latent potentiality of the mind through engagement of both the eyes and hands. This revolution would not be confined to the schoolroom, for given that logic is the foundation of computing, the alphabet might serve to re-envision the computer itself.

On Saturday March 3, please join exhibit curator Christine Wertheim and IFF Director Margaret Wertheim in a conversation with Dr Shea Zellweger  at the Foshay Masonic Lodge in Culver City (2 blocks west of the MJT). The event will be followed by a reception at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, where the exhibit is on display.

$15 general admission to Conversation and Reception
$12  IFF + MJT members, students, seniors

The Logic Alphabet is on view at the Museum of Jurassic Technology
Thursday through Sunday 12noon – 6pm.

This exhibition was assisted by grants from the Annenberg Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

For more information on the Logic Alphabet see here [LINK]

For the IFF interview with Shea Zelleweger [LINK]