Press Release

Galleria Marie-Laure Fleisch is pleased to present, on May 25^th, the second solo show of German artist Jorinde Voigt, entitled Views on Views on Decameron. For the occasion, a series of new drawings and collages on paper, especially designed for the gallery’s spaces, will be on display.

As part of her new research project, the German artist wanted to explore the relationship between text and image, addressing the literary and visual culture of Italy. Her source of inspiration was the “Decameron” by Boccaccio, in particular the popularity it enjoyed in European visual art between the 15^th and the 19^th century, through the subjects and stories developed in the individual tales of the collection. 

The visual language of Jorinde Voigt is the result of a learned, multi-disciplinary education, which began with her cello studies, continued with a foray into the humanities, in particular philosophy and sociology, and reached completion her visual arts studies. Voigt’s expressive research began with photography, a technique that she later abandoned when she felt that the camera was not able to capture reality as a whole, only aspects of it. Her words reveal the reasons that led her to go beyond the univocal framing of the photographic field: “I try to observe the structure of things, not their visual impression”.

Measurement, calculation, algorithm are the tools the artist employs to capture the phenomena that can be perceived through vision, and organize them in her drawings, which appear like mental maps deriving from the phenomena themselves. The artist develops a dynamic vision through the use of lines, curves, arrows and notes, which allow her to visualize what is immaterial and invisible.

The transcriptions of Jorinde Voigt are the product of a complex process of deconstruction of what she observes, developed from different points of view, and its effect is determined by a series of factors that act simultaneously, such as time, or the angle and rotation of the details observed.

The works interact with their addressees, allowing them to become aware of the less evident aspects of reality, and giving them the chance to experiment with a new reading key.

Jorinde Voigt continued her research, turning to the analysis of visual and literary texts, using the collage in an interaction with drawing. The use of colored silhouettes, cut out and mounted on paper, in which form and color stand in a synchronic relation, turns out to be another powerful expressive tool in the work of Jorinde Voigt. This set of elements behaves like musical notation, forming a score in which every element is inextricably linked to the other.

“Views on Views on Decameron” is part of this continuing project. It is a series where Jorinde Voigt develops a double vision procedure, resulting from a process of perception of some visual documents (paintings or miniatures) inspired by Boccaccio’s tales. The double vision is the result of a process that starts from the Italian writer and, through the gaze of old masters (such as Botticelli, Rubens or E. B. Leighton), comes right down to Jorinde Voigt who, in reading these images, asks herself: “What does the picture actually look like in my perception, during the time in which I observe it? How did the painter perceive the subject (of the tale) in the historical period in which he lived?”.

On occasion of the exhibition an artist book published by cura.books. will be produced.

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