Origami as an Art Form

I have been thinking about origami and how it fits into the Art world. At present it barely registers at all with people.The population, as a whole, seem to think of it as a child’s pastime and are blissfully unaware of its potential. In truth I will go as far as to say that most origamists seem to be unaware of its potential.
There are some noteworthy exceptions to this generalisation, as anyone who visited the recent Masters of Origami @ Hangar 7 exhibition would agree.
I believe that origami is as valid a medium for artistic expression as traditional media such as painting, sculpture, music, and film and more recent arrivals on the scene such as digital photography, video, installations and virtual art on the internet.



This essay is a call to arms to "ordinary" origamists. It is time for us "ordinary" origamists to start taking our chosen medium seriously.

Lifesize folded steel dart
Dillon Works! Inc.
11775 Harbour Reach Dr.
Mukilteo, WA 98275
The word ORIGAMI means, as far as I am aware “to fold paper” and, to be quite honest, if the resultant work has been folded from fabric, sheet steel, the latest intelli-plastic laminate, or indeed paper, and works, what does it matter?

It seems to me that the key word in the preceding sentence is “works”. The end justifies the means!
 

In the Well of the Great Wave of Kanagawa by Hokusai
Where is the origami equivalent of ...
Guernica by Picasso?
Beethoven’s 9th Symphony?
Monet’s Haystacks?
Rodin’s The Kiss?
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band?
Hokusai’s “In the well of the great wave of Kanagawa”?
Tarrega’s “Recuerdos de la Alhambra”?
to name 6, very different, great works of art.
 

The Kiss by Rodin


Haystacks at Giverny by Monet 		 

The Alhambra, Spain
For many years most origami has been purely representational – an aardvark, a bee, a camel, a duck, an elephant … … a walrus, a xenopus, a yeti, a zebra. Some of these representations are exceedingly accurate anatomically. I point you in the general direction of the many insects and their relatives that are flying around the world of origami. Most of these, for all their lifelikeness, seem to me to be lacking “life”. Your average origami animal just kind of stands there, not really doing very much apart from possessing an approximation of the chosen subject. If you take a look around the other arts it is apparent that in the most successful works the artist has managed to achieve an idea of the “spirit” of the subject. Some are highly realistic and some are at the opposite end of the spectrum and virtually abstract.
A work of art needs to communicate something more than “This is what a badger looks like.”
 
I’m sure it would be better for any animal that is represented (or should that be enfolded?) to be shown behaving in a manner typical of that animal. A greyhound is not just a skinny dog. It is a skinny dog that can run very fast. Snakes wriggle and squirm. They drape themselves over branches and wrap themselves around their prey. (I am aware that origami snakes are a problem!) A tyrannosaurus Rex and most other dinosaurs, have a vast bulk and mass. Little birds like sparrows, starlings and robins hop and jump, quite animatedly, in ways that are specific to their species and quite different to each other. This is what needs to be enfolded within the subject, a suggestion of the creature’s characteristic movement and habits.


But why must we be stuck in the rut of only doing representational stuff? What I’m getting at here is that for origami to be accepted as a proper grown-up art-form it needs to start acting like a proper grown up and it needs to start taking risks.

More than one sheet of paper, glue, surface decoration, some other sheet material than paper. These are just 4 ideas that may be considered as "risky" by some origamists. There are many more.

Most artists take an idea or theme and explore it with his/her chosen medium. Hokusai did 36 different views of Mount Fuji of which The Great Wave (see above) is just the most famous. Picasso took the Spanish Civil War and the bombing of Guernica as his subject. Beethoven was apparently writing about the brotherhood of all humanity in his 9th. These are big and complicated themes.

Why don’t we origamists tackle big themes like these?


Ludwig van Beethoven
 
I am fully aware that what I am asking is not going to be easy. There is little that is truly worthwhile that is easy.
 
Something else that has occurred to me over the last few months of thinking about this; take a long hard look at your average piece of origami. It is, essentially, a 3D sculpture, best displayed on a horizontal surface. Most homes, in my experience, do not have many vacant horizontal surfaces. Table tops, shelves, window sills and floors are, usually, already being used. However, most homes have acres of vacant vertical surface available; the walls. I have been experimenting with origami that is 3D and displays well vertically, a bit like a standard picture. I'm sure that there is great potential to make origami more "arty" in this direction. Properly mounted and framed, origami looks very good indeed.
 

I throw these thoughts out to you, my fellow origamists, in the hope that some of these seeds will fall upon fertile ground.