Jooj, a Cape Town-based artist, has broken the Guinness World Record for the largest display of Origami butterflies.
Cape Town, South Africa – Local artist, Jooj, has broken the Guinness World Record for the largest display of origami butterflies. This artwork can be viewed as part of his Merlin Wall showcase at Youngblood Gallery Cape Town.
In 2015 Jooj fell in love with the traditional Japanese method of origami when he began an art piece for his wedding that showcased more than 5,000 UV varnished butterflies.
The Merlin Wall started as a play-on-words with The Berlin Wall then the idea became a very abstract fantasy of making a transparent wall covered in spray paint. Something magical. After he finished a bench covered in origami butterflies, the piece resembled what he imagined on a small scale — an illusion.
After folding a few thousand for the bench, Jooj wondered if there was a record and if so what’s the number?
The number at that time was 14 460.
Taking the number needed to break the record and his desire to create a magical illusion of floating stencil works out of pop culture images, the Merlin Wall started to grow a pair of legs.
Is there a deeper meaning behind a wall? Some walls keep things in, and some walls keep things out. The impact the Berlin Wall left is undeniable more so when the wall came down than when it went up. Jooj wanted to create a wall you could go around and around and then straight through and not something about restriction or prevention.
Jooj has spent the last two years putting his origami pop art collection together and planning the perfect way to bring it to life. On Friday 29th November, the Audit Pro Team joined Jooj at the gallery to count the butterflies – 29 416 was the total number reached, and the current record holder, a company in Japan, had 20,266 butterflies. Please remember the entire company in Japan folded the butterflies –but in this attempt, he was an individual!
He adds, “I am thrilled to have broken the record – my sore hands, long days and nights of folding paper have finally paid off! I could not be happier than ending my 2019 with this record and being able to share this with the world.”
Join us for the official certificate handover by a Guinness World Record adjudicator at the First Thursday showcase at 5:00 pm on Thursday 5th December.
For further information follow the artist’s Instagram jooj_paper, visit his website www.joojart.co.za or call 082 786 2181.
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