Jorinde Voigt (1977) - Focus Var. XII (Attention Study)

Jorinde Voigt: Focus (Attention Study) Var. XII (2014)

A unique work by Jorinde Voigt, a leading figure in contemporary drawing. On a Ditone print base, individually reworked by hand in pastel, oil pastel and ink, the sheet unfolds Voigt's unmistakable visual language: a red, airbrushed sphere of concentration at the upper left; a fine, sweeping bundle of ink trajectories that gathers and disperses like a field of forces; a red timeline threading horizontally across the sheet; and, throughout, curved orbits, directional arrows and handwritten annotations. Nothing is illustrated — everything is notated.

The work belongs to Voigt's Attention Studies, in which she renders the intangible dynamics of perception and interpersonal relationship in an almost scientific, diagrammatic manner. Read like a musical score — Voigt's practice is rooted in her background in music and philosophy — the composition tracks attention as it moves along the timeline, drawn toward a focus and then pulled away, so that concentration, distraction and rupture become legible as vectors in time. Here that method is condensed into a single, hand-finished variation.

As Variation XII, individually worked by the artist, this is a unique piece rather than a uniform print. Published by H. M. Klosterfelde Edition, Berlin — one of the foremost edition houses for contemporary art. Signed.

Title: Focus (Attention Study) Var. XII
Year: 2014
Technique: Ditone (pigment) print with unique hand-drawing in pastel, oil pastel and ink, on PhotoArt Natural Matt 310 g paper; a unique work
Signature: Hand-signed
Dimensions: 51 × 36 cm, framed
Publisher: H. M. Klosterfelde Edition, Berlin
Condition: Excellent [please confirm]

Jorinde Voigt (born 1977 in Frankfurt am Main; lives and works in Berlin) is a German multidisciplinary artist known for large-scale yet delicate drawings that attempt, almost scientifically, to grasp what constantly withdraws itself — sound, movement, perception, time. She studied philosophy and literature in Göttingen before training at the Universität der Künste Berlin and the Royal College of Art, London. In 2012 she received the Daniel & Florence Guerlain Contemporary Drawing Prize in Paris, one of the most important awards in the field of drawing, following the Otto Dix Prize in 2008. She has taken part in the Venice Biennale (2011), Manifesta 11 (2016), the Biennale de Lyon and the Sharjah Biennial (both 2017). After a professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich (2014–2019), she has held the chair of Conceptual Drawing and Painting at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg since 2019. Her work is held in major public collections including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art and the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the British Museum in London, the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin and the Kunsthaus Zürich.