Twelve Gates Arts is pleased to present The Pleasure of Futile Cycles, a solo exhibition by the artist, writer, and educator, Yasi Alipour, curated by Maryam Ghoreishi in collaboration with the acclaimed New York platform Asia Contemporary Art Forum (ACAF). As the first association between the two Iranian born Brooklyn based art professionals, Alipour and Ghoreishi, The Pleasure of Futile Cycles is also the premier of ACAF’s 2022 Talking Peers program envisioned by ACAF board directors, curators Leeza Ahmady, Megha Ralapati, and Christopher Ho to prompt collaborations between Asia and Asia diaspora artists, curators and educators. It aims to activate, empower, and renew professional networks building, artistic connections, and expansive peer-to-peer mentorship structures.

The Pleasure of Futile Cycles features recent and new tactile works by Yasi Alipour made on a variety of papers merely through the artist’s act of folding and unfolding paper, or its combination with the cyanotype process. The ad infinitum performance of folding, which Alipour refers to as an infinite choreography on each sheet of paper, evokes rituals as repeated action, rooted in Yasi’s childhood. Integrating this habit and love for folding with her curiosity about math, numbers, and theories around paradoxes such as Zeno’s Paradox, Alipour explores the relationship between the binary logics of paradox theories and the infinite possibilities of dividing a 2D surface into different fractions.