LES MESNULS.- The Contemporary Drawing Prize of the Daniel & Florence Guerlain Art Foundation was awarded on the 29th of March 2012 to Jorinde Voigt, a German artist born in 1977 in Frankfurt. She first studied philosophy and literature before studying the plastic arts at the University of Berlin, the city where she lives and works today. In 2011, she was shown at the Von der Heydt Museum, in Wuppertal, Germany, and at the Teckningsmuseet, in Laholm, Sweden. In 2004, she had a solo show in France at the Cité Internationale des Arts, "EPM – émotion per minute" and at Public with "Public Relations VoL.1". In 2010, she participated in a group show "Emporte moi" at the MAC/VAL, Vitry sur SeineShe is represented by the galleries David Nolan, New York, Christian Lether, Cologne and Regina, London and Moscow.

The international jury was composed of Bernadette Bainville (France), Joe Battat (Canada), Sandra Mulliez (France), Guillaume de Saint-Seine (France), Muriel Salem (United Kingdom), Giovanni Springmeier (Germany) and Martina Yamin (USA) as well as Daniel and Florence Guerlain.

The Contemporary Drawing Prize is reserved for artists, French or foreign, living in France or not, but having a strong cultural connection to France (through institutional exhibitions, studies, etc…) and for whom drawing is a significant part of their work whatever their main mode of expression might be.

Awarded for the first time in 2007 and biennial until 2009, the prize rewards artists who make any unique work on paper and cardboard using graphic means: crayon, charcoal, red chalk, ink, wash tint, gouache, watercolour, pastel and felt tip…including collages and wall drawings but excluding any computer-driven or mechanical processes.

The award ceremony took place in Paris at the Salon du Dessin at the Palais de la Bourse. The winner received an endowment of 15.000 Euros and the two other selected artists, Marcel Dzama and Marc Bauer, received 2.500 Euros each. A work by the winner is offered by the Foundation to the Graphic Arts collection of the French National Museum of Modern Art - Centre Pompidou.

The candidates are selected by a committee composed of the two founders, Daniel and Florence Guerlain, and four members chosen for their competence and interest in contemporary art. After the work of meeting the artists, visits to the studios and analysis, the committee selects three artists whose work is presented to an international jury that changes every year.

Jorinde Voigt, winner for 2012
We hesitate about the qualifiers used to describe this German artist. Are they writings, partitions, impressions or descriptions…? Jorinde Voigt asks herself the same question and favours the word "notations". As these works on paper do not indicate it at first sight, she starts from a precise observation of nature or of a situation. It may be about air traffic, the line on the horizon or an everyday object like a door or a watering hose, condensed into the basic structures of geometry. The process is very precise and first clarified by the writing. But Jorinde Voigt doesn't stop at this formal description. She then relates the position of her body in relation to her subject, adding the direction of the wind or noises from nature. She also focuses on the cerebral activity going on during this phase of observation. Indeed, her very first work was a study of the definition of space.

Jorinde Voigt develops a Cartesian romanticism, a very contemporary kind of poetry, linked to a world where everything finds itself analysed and dissected since nothing may be hidden. One initial subject may also be the kiss, even though Jorinde Voigt denies having chosen only one "human behaviour". Interpreted under the aegis of the Fibonacci sequence, this accolade develops itself in a logical growth pattern, culminating in passion at a precise moment. In the same way that bird songs and insect noises, when we listen attentively, follow a regular rhythm.

One of the last series was inspired by the observation of erotic Chinese paintings from the 16th century up until today. The work consists of recognizing classic shapes, like a mass of hair or a dress, which are then traced and cut-out on coloured papers. Repositioned on a white background, according to a system of calculated rotation, these archetypes lead the viewer to intuitively reconstruct the scene. Her process has often been compared to that of John Cage but Jorinde Voigt says she has been more influenced by Marcel Duchamp. Far from restricting herself intellectually to the space on a sheet of paper, she has developed a discovery she made when she was very young: concepts open up a reduced space of research compared to what is to be found in front of our very eyes. (Text Marie Maertens / Connaissance des Arts)

A selection of works by Jorinde Voigt, the 2012 winner, as well as by Marcel Dzama and Marc Bauer, the two other nominated artists is on show at the Salon du Dessin, Paris, until the 2nd of April.

The Drawing Prize of the Daniel & Florence Guerlain Contemporary Art Foundation receives the support of Neuflize OBC, The House of Guerlain, Axa Art, Artcurial, Loticis, Château Seguin and the Foundation's Cercle des Amis.