Jorinde Voigt

Intimate in scale, the size of Voigt’s recent sculptural works is bound to the dimensions of lines that she is able to draw with her own hand. Each work is a whole comprising multiple parts: the reconstruction of different moments in time as one organic unit. Locked in a delicate balance, each individual element fits together in its own unique way, either generating small free-standing structures with sloping open spaces like Tetrade 2 or Tetrade 3 or snugly nestling together, as in Tetrade 1 or Triade 6.

 Although Voigt’s works seldom depict readily recognizable forms there is nonetheless a specificity to them: they could go on forever like Sol LeWitt’s cubes, but embedded within their structure and materiality are conscious accumulations of moments, movements, and atmospheric conditions. As “thought forms”— manifestations of thoughts, ideas, or emotions—these formations have an open and fluid character.

They are not self-contained and discrete, but necessarily permeable, as the sculptures’ organic forms resist closure. Voigt’s forms bear repeating, not because they are neat building blocks that could potentially extend into infinity, but because each work is an attempt to find a unique balance between its constituent parts. The various iterations of these wooden forms are therefore less an operation of repetition and more an act of reorientation or renewal. Similar shapes appear in a new series of works on paper entitled The Sum (Puls). The curved formations of Voigt’s sculptures—which obliquely resemble boomerangs, embryos, or crescents—appear here as chalky shadows or elegant, effervescent lines against a rich midnight blue background. The resonance between the two series is particularly prevalent in the striking blue biomorphic forms and rhythmic lines of the work The Sum (Puls) 6. They interlock and entwine against a background of rich gold leaf, vertically extending in a way that recalls a spinal column or DNA.

In her Rhythm series, Voigt builds lines in three dimensions: slicing, cutting, repositioning, and layering colored paper and existing drawn lines into new configurations. The notion of rhythm applies to any cyclical structure: beating hearts, circadian rhythms, phases of the moon, seasonal cycles, or the ebb and flow of tides. In the natural world, no rhythm can exist on its own.

Voigt’s manipulation of her materials yields numerous questions about limitations, borders, and resilience, which can be expanded in scope to think more broadly about the interlocking rhythms of our world.

Text: Jesi Khadivi