FRITZ HORSTMAN: FOLDED LIGHT
March 1–April 22, 2023
Saturday, March 4 | Artist Reception, 5–7pm | Artist Remarks, 6pm
Municipal Bonds
Minnesota Street Project
1275 Minnesota Street, San Francisco, CA
Municipal Bonds is pleased to announce “Fritz Horstman: Folded Light” on view March 1–April 22, 2023. The gallery’s first exhibition with the artist features a selection of Horstman’s Folded Cyanotypes. The work comprises deep blue images of shapes that emerge from the confluence of folded paper and sunlight.
Folded Cyanotypes are a series of two-dimensional objects, which carry the memory of light, three-dimensional space and manual manipulation, and which stem from Horstman’s interest in natural structure. They are at once sculptures and drawings, which also fit comfortably into the history of cameraless photography. Made by first folding paper by hand into an intricate pattern, they are then unfolded. Cyanotype photographic fluid is applied by brush, and then working in the dark to protect the light-sensitive material, the paper is refolded and placed in natural light, which the artist sometimes manipulates using mirrors and lenses. The paper is then rinsed in water, and pressed flat to dry. What was exposed to light in the process turns blue when developed, and what was not remains white, furthering the spatial complications by reversing lightness and darkness.
The folding patterns are Horstman’s own adaptations of tessellating patterns. Following the same physics that impels crystals to grow at certain angles, dried mud to crack in chaotic-yet-predictable ways, and produces the familiarity of the creases in a particular smile, the tessellating folding patterns interlock in ways similar to geometric tiles. Their shapes and the materiality of paper present both firm boundaries and enormous potential. Though the act of physically dealing with paper beyond a certain dimension becomes unwieldy, any of the patterns could in theory extend forever, charting the artist’s own understanding of being and space.
Municipal Bonds
Minnesota Street Project
1275 Minnesota Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
917.450.0583
info@municipalbonds.art
Wednesday–Saturday, 12–5pm
Above image: Folded Cyanotype 201, 2022, 9 x 9 in. (24 x 24 cm), cyanotype fluid on paper
