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Zigzag books can be set on their bottom edges or laid on their backsides. Either way you can squeeze and stretch the pages, like an accordion.
For more information about accordion folds, click here.

1929–2014, South Africa
Bits and Pieces
Ocean View, South Africa: Peter E. Clarke, 2005–06
National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, museum purchase, 2014-9-1
Do you think this snakelike “book” can fit into its narrow box? Would you believe there are 138 tiny pages, folded like an accordion, in Bits and Pieces? If stretched out as far as possible, how long would it be?
Peter Clarke saved bits and pieces of junk mail—advertisements, flyers, mail-order catalogs—and imagined ways to recycle them into intriguing and whimsical artworks. Even the box is covered with envelope liners: clutter into art.
For more information about Bits and Pieces, click here.

b. 1956, Ghana
Grace Kwami Sculpture
London: Atta Kwami, 1993
Edition 6/32
National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, purchase funds donated by Brian and Diane Leyden, 93-17-1
In Ghana, the spider is the trickster known as Ananse. Imagine a spider with its eight legs. Now count the number of unfolded leaves of this artist’s book.
Atta Kwami constructed this book to resemble Ananse. The pictures you see printed on both sides of the spider “legs” tell the story of his mother, Grace Kwami (1923–2006). She was an artist as well.
Ananse the spider is known for his cleverness and skill, apt metaphors for the creativity of Grace Kwami and her son.
For more information about Grace Kwami Sculpture, click here.