In the Country of Fans, Japan@Suntory Museum of Art

The ogi or folding fan was invented and developed in Japan. When and how the first folding fan came about is unknown. We do know, however, that by the end of the 10^th century, folding fans were being presented to China and the Korean peninsula as tribute goods or special gifts. Chinese documents include new terms devised to differentiate this new type of fan from the conventional flat fan: “folding fan” of “Japanese fan”, for example. As those sources state, the folding fan was a Japanese original.

Folding fans became more than implements used in religious rituals or in everyday life. Highly portable, they were accessories that people could carry as their mood, location, and the season dictated. They became the most familiar work of art, an object of beauty that anyone, regardless of status, could enjoy anywhere and anytime. Folding fans with waka poems or paintings on them became popular choices for gift exchanges, and circulated in large volumes. They also played an important role as a communication tool linking person to person

Folding fans are also connected to other forms of art, including folding screens and picture scrolls, and also to crafts, including weaving and dyeing. Created in immense variety, folding fans, interacting with every genre and every school of art, contained the essence of beauty, of art that Japanese sought.

This exhibition introduces the beautiful world of the folding fan, so loved by the Japanese, in terms of a broad range of periods and perspectives. Just as the fan in your hand changes its appearance every time it flutters, the multifaceted world of the folding fan is delightfully varied.