Three questions to Jorinde Voigt

Anna Moldenhauer: The Gesamtkunstwerk “Gefaltete Zeit” (Folded Time) consists of a wall piece, a sculpture, and matching furniture. How did you get started on the project?

Jorinde Voigt: I mainly focused on philosophical topics and drew them by hand—algorithms, structures, and rotational forms. I explored how to talk about things you can't see. I was very fortunate to be commissioned to transform a room into a walk-in picture, as this was something I had always dreamed of doing. The approach was similar to my work in general, which is based on the location itself. In Frankfurt am Main, the city where I come from, on the upper floors of a high-rise building close to the sky, in a reception room that has a social function. The briefing also included a barista bar and a counter as well as seating, so different themes flow into each other. I created the wall drawing with oil pastels, guided by my study of the movements of water and sky. The lines flow freely into shapes. The places where they come together as grooves are covered with 24-carat gold leaf. The colors I chose are all taken from the sky and the Main River. They form a hybrid. It is not an illustration, but an extract from the overall impression. The dynamically curved stainless steel mirror for the counter cladding is also based on a hand-drawn line. It was manufactured by the Frankfurt-based company Arnold, which works for Jeff Koons, among others.

I determined the radii of the upholstered sculpture, the “soft sculpture” on which we sit, according to the Fibonacci principle, an infinite sequence of numbers in which each subsequent number is the sum of the two previous ones. A kind of primordial principle for all living things, for growth, which indicates that everything we see exists only once. It was realized in collaboration with architect Michael Bayer and a furniture maker. The seats are modular, meaning they can be arranged in numerous formations and respond to the lively situation in the lobby. In art, sculpture is something sublime, untouchable. I, on the other hand, want to encourage interaction with them, and this consideration led to the creation of the sofa element. The hanging sculpture consists of four shapes that are connected to each other, forming loops and bathed in the pink of the evening sky. The lighting gives them a kind of golden shimmer at the edges, like you see on the horizon at sunset. The shape communicates with us on an intuitive level, just as we basically read space with our bodies rather than purely intellectually. The soft line continues in the pink quartzite. The trades, such as the stonemason, had the most complicated tasks in this project. Even the waves in the stainless steel surfaces do not follow a conventional radius, but were specially made. Every component of the whole is unique, which I think is great. We worked on this room for a year and a half until it was completed, which alone shows how much heart and soul went into the project.

Why was the dynamic in the forms important to you?

Jorinde Voigt: There is an interesting essay by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze about folds: information that is far apart on a straight line suddenly becomes adjacent when you fold it. This idea particularly occupied my mind during the lockdown of the coronavirus pandemic, as it was a time of waiting in which energy did not flow straight ahead as usual, but gathered instead. In this sense, the fold is a kind of storage medium that condenses a lot of information in one place at the same time. I translated this image into space and thus questioned its boundaries. What effect do the shapes have on interaction when the lines are not straight, but soft, open, and appear different from every point of view? This aspect is repeated in the mirror image that always moves with us. I also find the different materialities exciting. The goal was to design an immersive experience of body, space, and time.

Was there a challenge that you hadn't anticipated?

Jorinde Voigt: Legal requirements regarding workplaces had to be taken into account for the sculptures. This meant that the shape had to be adapted to these requirements down to the millimeter. I enlisted the help of an architect and made lots and lots of drawings. In the end, it was an exciting process.