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from mushrooms to magical worlds

THE CREATIVE CRUMPLING OF VINCENT FLODERER

Photo by Vincent Briè

It all began with a mushroom for Vincent Floderer (b.1961). In 1996, the French artist attended a workshop led by English folder Paul Jackson (see page 56) on paper crumpling techniques. Jackson’s striking works of abstract paper sculpture were unlike anything else being created in the origami world. They profoundly inspired the French artist, who decided to use the techniques he had learned from Jackson to create representational sculptures of organic forms. At the time, Floderer was fascinated by mushrooms, toadstools and other fungi, so he experimented with these elegant organisms. By using thin paper, dampening and stretching it and adding surface coatings, he succeeded in modeling paper mushrooms that are barely distinguishable from the real thing. Since then, his exquisite and often spectacular crumpled sculptures and installations have been exhibited widely and have gained international acclaim. His work has also spawned the French organization Le Crimp, a growing group of artists and scientists who are exploring the possibilities of creasing, crumpling and crushing paper.

Part of Floderer’s success as a “crumpler” can be credited to his solid foundation as a fine artist and his deep understanding of plasticity and form. He studied at one of the world’s most prestigious art colleges, L’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he took workshops in drawing, modeling, morphology, statuary molding, perspective and architectural elements. Having learned how to model realistic sculptures from stone, clay and other materials, he was able to apply his knowledge to the two-dimensional medium of paper. By studying paper folding more deeply and experimenting with different types of paper, he has gradually developed a whole new vocabulary of folding and crumpling techniques that allow him to achieve realism in his work. Because of the perceived irregularity of the crumpled fold, some origami purists have not accepted Floderer’s crumpling as true origami. However, many of his seemingly unteachable forms, including the mushrooms, have very precise crease patterns and folding instructions. He has also taught crumpling workshops and classes, proving to the purists that his work is indeed a type of origami.

Big Blue

Vincent Floderer, France 2005, Japanese Tengujoshi paper (Photo by Romain Chevrier)

Boom! (detail)

Vincent Floderer, France 2000, Wenzhou calligraphy paper, watercolor (Photo by Romain Chevrier)

Over the years, many of his sculptures have been of fungi, plants and sea creatures. To create these highly textured natural forms, Floderer uses thin sheets of paper, such as tissue paper and even paper napkins, and at times applies beeswax and other substances to enhance their color and texture. The range of techniques, tones and textures he has developed have allowed him to create a whole repertoire of mushroom sculptures, from the delicate group Clitocybe (2007), folded very precisely out of tissue paper, to clusters of sulfur tufts and larger, thick-stemmed oysters. As well as mushrooms, Floderer has also succeeded in using crumpling to model a highly realistic tree, a form that has gained him considerable respect in the origami community, in part because it pays homage to the origins of paper in a manner that is not merely clever, but also spiritual: tree begets paper, then paper begets tree.

Some of Floderer’s most exquisite sculptures are the multilayered sea creatures, such as corals, sponges, sea urchins and jellyfish. For these, Floderer uses single sheets of paper, crumpling them to build up a naturalistic volume and texture. His corals are striking examples of his skill in blending origami technique and pure artistry. He first crumples the model using a complex tessellation pattern that produces multiple points. He then colors it with watercolor or pigmented inks using a technique resembling tie-dyeing to produce works that possess the delicacy and translucence of the genuine organism. For his trees, branched corals and sea urchins, he uses a thin Japanese paper called Tengujo (5 gr/m2), but for many of his other natural forms he uses papers made of mulberry fibers or Korean, Indian and Thai papers that resemble Japanese handmade washi. Although his sculptures appear to have the delicacy of the actual creatures he is mimicking, they have proven resilient; only a few have been damaged after repeated manipulations or long-term exhibition.

Although realism is an important aspect of Floderer’s work, mystery and fantasy also play a role in many of his larger sculptures and his installation work. Using similar folding patterns to those of the spiky coral, he turns the layers of paper inside out to produce spectacular abstract creations that evoke the stalactites of a limestone cave or rugged fantasy landscapes. One abstract work entitled Boom! (2000) is folded out of Wenzhou calligraphy paper, a thin but strong, rough and absorbent Chinese paper made from mulberry bark, and colored with watercolor and Indian ink to evoke an organic explosion, perhaps even the Big Bang that created our universe.

Recently, in his installation work, Floderer has created life-size landscapes that are inhabited by mysterious looking creatures. In Unidentified Flying Origami (UFO) (2004), he has folded an eerie world inhabited by large, inflated crumpled paper models of micro-organisms that float and rotate via air flow. Although there are several forms in origami, such as the traditional frog that are inflated, Floderer is probably the first origami artist to explore the potential of inflatable origami in his art. As viewers walk through this mysterious space surrounded by unfamiliar floating creatures, they too are temporarily part of this microscopic world, a perspective that invites them to consider their own place and relevance in a much larger universe.

Coral

Vincent Floderer, France 2005, Bolloré paper 12 gr/m2 (Photo by the artist)

Three Trees

Vincent Floderer, France 2001, Alios paper 25 gr/m2 (Photo by Romain Chevrier)

Blue Coral

Vincent Floderer, France 2005, Japanese Tengujo paper 6 gr/m2 (Photo by Romain Chevrier)

Branch 89b

Vincent Floderer, France 2007, Bolloré paper (Photo by the artist)

In such installation works, in which his crumpled forms are suspended enticingly close to the viewer, the temptation to touch is strong. Floderer is aware that perhaps more so than in any other type of origami, his crumpled works invite movement and touch. So for many years he has been a rare creature in the origami world—an origami performance artist, giving performances that combine teaching, theater and comedy. In these, he teaches his students/participants (occasionally other origami artists) to crumple paper into various forms, a process that also involves dampening and stretching out the paper. These performances have also allowed him to inflate his own models, stretch them out and then recrumple them to their original form, not only to show audiences their ability to move and transform but also to demonstrate the concept that just like living creatures paper also has memory.

Vincent Floderer is considered by many other origami artists to be one of the great innovators in the realm of paper folding. With his background in fine art and his deep understanding of the relationship between materials and form, he has played a large role in elevating origami to a truly sculptural art form, in which a recognizable form is produced by the building up of folds rather than the cutting away with a chisel. With his unique aesthetic sensibility, boundless creativity and sense of whimsy, he has inspired many other artists both in the origami community and beyond to pick up some sheets of paper and explore creative crumpling.

Volcano

Vincent Floderer, France 2005, Bolloré paper 12 gr/m2 (Photo by the artist)

Unidentified Flying Origami (UFO) Installation

Vincent Floderer, France 2004, folded with the Le Crimp team, brown wrapping papers 25–45 gr/m2, cassel extract, shellac (Photo by Jean-Pierre Bonnebouche)

Clitocibe (in glass)

Vincent Floderer, France 2007, tissue paper 17 gr/m2, colored ink, beeswax (Photo by the artist)