by Lucia Billing

Contemporary art that is baroque in this sense addresses politics in ways that refrain from representation and explore other means of being politically effective qua art. Several aspects of the fold demonstrate this political potential: the infinite regress and return of the fold, the bodiliness of matter, and the here-and-now of second-personhood.

— Mieke Bal, in LEXICON FOR CULTURAL ANALYSIS

In the primary school classroom, one of the most common fixtures is the historical timeline. Epochs are delineated, each of them brightly coloured, and notable events are marked out in specificity. The timeline typically begins in the prehistoric period, where there are naturally less notable ‘precise’ events. Despite this, the primitive sequence of the mapped-out chronology takes up far more space than the rest of it. In my case, the purple ribbon stretched itself along the entire wall of the classroom, before morphing into a wavy pattern, getting tighter and tighter. The point of this was of course to show us that history is comparably short and that the time before it is unbearably long.

What can I do?

One must begin somewhere.

Begin what?

The only thing in the world worth beginning:

The End of the world of course.

— Aimé Césaire, in Return to the Native Land

It then begins as a child, the gradual exposition to the idea of history – or in this case pre-history – as a far too overwhelming force of excess. Walter Benjamin’s theses on it are naturally some of the most familiar (to avoid repetition, one will refrain from mentioning them); and there, the ‘wreckage on wreckage’ is frighteningly referred to. That disaster is easily channelled, normalised, categorised, and archived; still, it remains in the stratosphere. History is by all means an eroding force, that expenditure of time exists as entropy in many corners, and therefore quickly starts to wind itself up. Given its very nature, it won’t compress or shrink, it will bend.

The replis of cultural history has existed as long as the frame on which it functions — even past of a few years becomes a great wreckage. The baroque managed to vocalise the fold by giving it an unlimited character that endlessly referred back to itself.

It is the doubling and confusion of the exterior with the interior. The lowest topological point reveals itself to be the highest. The fold of the garment can at times be synonymous with the pocket, as a site to put away an object or a sentiment, though it is not structural in the same way and possesses a far more urgent character.

How long will the enemy mock you, God?

Will the foe revile your name forever?

Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?

Take it from the folds of your garment and destroy them!

But God is my King from long ago;

he brings salvation on the earth.

— Psalm 74:10-12

Its nature remains operative rather than productive, and its two most basic movements are the folding and the unfurling. The latter rarely happens. The continued recycling and revolvement of thought which drives the idea that cultural innovation has come to a halt depends greatly on the impossibility of unfurling. Somehow things have been packed in too tightly, and we have no option but to refer back to the peaks of time. Pastiches of bygone cultures often acquire an off-putting quality on the basis of a wound-up interpretation of the past.

Thinking of the fold in a contemporary setting, one might think of the American presidential inauguration speech, which passionately attempts to cut off the ribbon instead of letting it fold. The future that it refers to is mirroring a past which denies itself by nature, while directly positioning the coming four years as the beginning of a new sequence, one which is seemingly temporal but unending. This is naturally impossible, yet clearly quite an effective technique, as the historical wreck stands to be quite frightening.

The fabric of time is not a mistaken expression. The fold depends upon the textile. You might fold papers, sliced meat, pastry, or clay, yet none of them create folds like fabric does. The housewife folds sheets and clothes—it is the most repetitive daily household chore. The anticipation of a trip is measured by the folds in the suitcase. A steamer, an ironing board, and a hanger all function on the fold, or at least on its potential disappearance.

Although the fold – in the case of design, pleats – is not a recent or specific occurrence in fashion, its most prominent custodian in our time was Issae Miyake. His pleating work is reminiscent of Henriette Negrin’s 1907 Delphos gowns, yet it does not function on a seam in the way that pleats previously did. Saree pleating is held together by force, it is by nature temporary, while a kilt’s folds rely upon sewing. Miyake’s pleats however function by heat. Fabric is laid out in a folded manner, and a high-temperature press holds the memory of its position.

Like the theatrical designs of Sert, Bakst and Benois who at that moment were recreating in the Russian ballet the most cherished periods of art with the aid of works of art impregnated with their spirit and yet original these Fortuny gowns, faithfully antique but markedly original, brought before the eye like a stage setting, with an even greater suggestiveness than a setting, since the setting was left to the imagination, that Venice loaded with the gorgeous East from which they had been taken, of which they were, even more than a relic in the shrine of Saint Mark suggesting the sun and a group of turbaned heads, the fragmentary, mysterious and complementary colour.

— Marcel Proust, in Remembrance of Things Past: The Captive

It is the most appropriate technique for our times. Miyake’s garments have a lot of give in regards to the topography of the body. As it does not depend on any pressure, it is free to move as an accordion. It certainly gives the pieces some playfulness, yet simultaneously moves in such accordance with the body that they seem to be symbiotic to it. The fold was previously administered by society, something which was distinguishable and retrospective. Now it applies itself autonomously, and rather than acting as a garment, it starts to move the subject by default.

William Forsythe - The Loss of Small Detail (Costumes by Issae Miyake)