Virtual Tour - Kay Sekimachi: Geometries

[Music] hello i'm janelle porter and i'm the guest curator of this exhibition k sekimachi geometries ke sekimachi begins weaving with monofilament in the early 1960s that is the point at which this survey exhibition begins the sculptures that hang in this grouping run between 1965 and into the 1970s at the beginning of the platform over which all of these works hang are several monofilament works then we see the work progress into different kinds of forms and the introduction of linen with monofilament and finally she completes working in this way with card weavings in linen in mostly natural black and very little color nylon monofilament was a recent invention in the 1960s it was a material that no one as far as she knew had used for weaving sakamachi discovered that weaving with monofilament which is slippery was slow and painstaking one inch required an hour of weaving the works in the monofilament series numbering about two dozen evolved to become increasingly layered and volumetric with intersecting convex and concave planes and later to include structural tubing and minuscule glass beads that amplify surface dynamics sekimachi first used card weaving to finish the tails of the monofilament sculptures card weaving is an ancient egyptian method that replaces the loom with punched cards these ingenious but understated hanging forms bridge the virtuosity of the monofilaments and the restraint of the smaller scaled works that followed an invitation to participate in the first international exhibition of miniature textiles motivated sekimachi to begin a series of small scale woven nesting boxes their formal simplicity contradicts their complex construction sekimachi devised a way to transform a two-dimensional weaving into a seamless rectilinear box if you look closely inside the boxes you'll see that the pattern of the lid is replicated but in the inverse at the bottom of the box sekimachi recognized the vitality and potential of paper while making maquettes for her complex boxes and books the reverence for paper so vital to japanese craft and culture is particularly relevant in sekimachi's vessels like traditional origami the washi vessel works are folded from a single square piece of paper machine stitching adds surface detail paper allowed sekimachi to work quickly and to experiment in ways that diverge from the time demanding labor of the loom succumachi began to make woven linen books in 1980 and continued for two decades each is printed with an image a painting on paper is heat transferred onto the warp threads the finished accordion fold object can be displayed multiple ways but is ideally held in the hand to be experienced or read like a book sekimachi's books picture landscapes from mount fuji to mauna kea to point reyes a nod to the landscapes of these japanese masters sekimachi recently wrote my series of woven books was inspired by a childhood treasure this little japanese accordion fold book bore great meaning it was one of the few objects that accompanied me through my confinement in a u.s internment camp for japanese americans my books and boxes express the japanese aspect of duality between strength and fragility which is reflective of life itself sekimachi used a fine gauge linen to weave the layers of her peaked ecot box series she achieved the ecot patterning with paint applied to warp threads to emphasize the origami influenced planes stitching is added like a drawn line unlike their coarse linen predecessors the ecot boxes require the addition of an interior armature to transform them from flat weaving to volumetric sculpture the takara bako series is characterized by its softly folding top here the artist exploits the play of contradictory ideas flexible and stiff rectilinear and curvilinear to great effect by mixing plain and twill weave pattern and solid and black or natural thread and painted warp the works in succumachi's kiriwood series are made of kerry wood paper kerry is a fast-growing hardwood with light fine-grained wood typically used for chests boxes and gita or clogs the visual exchange between that which appears stiff the wood and that which reads soft the fold is entrancing the elegant geometries stitching designs and closed and open form show sekimachi's relentless experimentation this section of works on this wall is a from a series of works titled homages and the works pay homage to two heroes of kasikamachi's paul clay and agnes martin the titles of the works are homage to bk or homage to am and they're just these very straightforward serene and quiet weavings in linen in which kay sakimachi has painted the warp threads in places with black and woven the weft through a continuous weft to make these just utterly beautiful minimal weavings and they're just simply gorgeous and such an incredible kind of body of work for an artist working into her 90s kind of revisiting her early heroes especially paul clay and later agnes martin k sekimachi geometries is open through october 24th at bam pfa i hope you'll come see it you

Channel: BAMPFA

Views: 752

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: UC, Berkeley, Art, Museum, Pacific, Film, Archive, BAMPFA

Id: VCnQKg6LO1k

Length: 7min 59sec (479 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 12 2021