JORINDE VOIGT: The State of Play

David Nolan Gallery is delighted to present “The State of Play,” an exhibition of new works by Jorinde Voigt. For the artist’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery, Voigt continues to expand upon her singular practice of methodical and conceptually rigorous “visual scores” that transcend everyday perceptual experiences and attempt to translate into color and form that which is most ephemeral and impenetrable.

Working serially and within a predetermined structure and set of formal restraints, Voigt’s process begins by hand dying each sheet of paper a hue that corresponds to specific stimuli or emotion. In the case of her newest series, Potential (2020), Voigt selected a midnight blue, albeit with its various real-life associations (i.e. time of day, nautical and cosmological phenomena, et al.) put into question. Voigt’s meticulous notations and gestural markings then introduce an added layer of visual coding, allowing each unique work within the series to convey its own individual and emotional meaning. Experienced serially, Voigt’s works build incrementally, unraveling as if walking through an operatic score, lulling the viewer into a kind of dream state that is at once familiar and otherworldly.

As in reality, elements of chance always interrupt Voigt’s pre-existing frameworks and new forms and meanings emerge that lead to other revelations, and so on. In The Match and studies for Immersive Integral Rainbow the artist simultaneously alludes to real and philosophical phenomena while destabilizing the viewer’s expectation of space and time. Voigt’s applications of jagged shapes of gold leaf likewise grounds the work and suggests infinite movement. For Voigt, the literal translation of a concept - whether a text, symphony, or a city stroll (all explored in previous bodies of work) - is counter to how one experiences daily life. Landscapes aren’t stable, and experiences evolve exponentially. Voigt’s hybrid worlds collapse these virtual realities in which past and present, internal and external comingle and morph indefinitely, interrupted and guided by the artist’s disciplined notations and choreographed movements that respond to the artist’s own physicality and anticipate the viewer’s interconnected experience.

Jorinde Voigt was born in Frankfurt am Main and lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo museum exhibitions include: The Menil Collection, Houston (2019); Horst-Janssen-Museum, Oldenburg, Germany (2019); St. Matthäus-Kirche, Berlin, Germany (2018); Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2016); Kunstraum Innsbruck, Austria (2016); Kunsthalle Krems, Austria (2015); MACRO Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome, Italy (2014); Langen Foundation, Neuss, Germany (2013); Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada (2012); Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal, Germany (2011); and Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Netherlands (2010), among others.

Recent group exhibitions include: Instanbul Modern, Istanbul, Turkey (2020); MAK, Vienna, and Albertina, Vienna, Austria (both 2019); Pelaires Centre Cultural Contemporani, Palma, Spain and Villa Schöningen, Potsdam, Germany (both 2018); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Sharjah Biennial 13, UAE, and 14th Lyon Biennale, France (all 2017); Manifesta 11, Zurich, Switzerland, Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia, and Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent, Belguim (all 2016); Morgan Library & Museum, New York, and deCordova Sculpture and Museum, Lincoln, MA (both 2015); Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Russia (2014); Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2013); Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, Netherlands (2012); 54th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale, Italy (2011); and Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany (2010), among others.

Voigt’s work is represented in prominent public collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago, IL; The Morgan Library & Museum, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; The British Museum, London; Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, Germany; Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich, Germany; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany; Kunsthaus Zürich; and UBS Art Collection, New York, among others. In 2012, she received the Daniel & Florence Guerlain Contemporary Drawing Prize, and since 2014, has held the position of Professor for Conceptual Drawing and Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, Germany.