TORONTO.- The Institute for Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is pleased to announce the world premiere of Beethoven 1-32 by Jorinde Voigt. Displayed on the Museum's Level 3 from June 9 to October 12, 2012, this exhibition is presented in partnership with Luminato.

Beethoven 1-32, commissioned by Luminato as part of its 2012 festival, features a series of 32 original drawings by Voigt, a rising star of the German art scene. It complements Luminato’s presentation of Stewart Goodyear: The Beethoven Marathon, Goodyear’s highly anticipated performance of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas, performed all in one day, in the order in which they were composed. Voigt’s works provide their own distinct visual interpretation and expression of the emotive power of Beethoven’s piano music. The exhibition opens just prior to the Luminato festival and runs until after Nuit Blanche in the fall.

“The ICC is pleased to partner with Luminato to present Jorinde Voigt’s first-ever Canadian solo exhibition at the ROM, and showcase her amazing drawings for Toronto audiences,” says Francisco Alvarez, Managing Director of the ICC at the ROM. “Beethoven 1-32 is a unique opportunity to experience Jorinde Voigt’s singular interpretation of the synergies between music and graphic art, along with her overall contribution to contemporary drawing and visual culture.”

Voigt’s musical training goes back to childhood cello lessons, and as a visual artist today, she cites the concentration required of those lessons as the source of her artistic discipline. “My work is like music, you can enjoy it without being able to read the score,” she says.

Voigt’s academic credentials include philosophy and literature, multimedia, visual art studies, and visual cultural studies from various respected European institutions such as London’s Royal College of Art. As a practicing artist, Voigt’s earliest solo show dates back to 2006 at the celebrated Perm Millennial exhibition for the Fahnemann Projects in Berlin. Voigt has also participated in several group exhibitions, dating back to 2002, where she landed firmly on the international stage as part of the Liverpool Biennial International Festival of Contemporary Art. Beethoven 1-32 marks Voigt’s first ever solo exhibition in Canada – her previous Canadian exhibition being the 2009 Sweep Me Off My Feet group show at Quebec City’s Musée national des beaux-arts.

“With their precisely plotted arcs and spirals, their vector and contour lines, and their frequent textual annotations, the abstract drawings of Jorinde Voigt evoke a world of diagrams and charts run wild,” notes Jorn Weisbrodt, Artistic Director of Luminato.

This spring, Voigt’s first ever exhibition in the United States, entitled Piece for Words and Views took place at the David Nolan Gallery in New York City. Inspired by Roland Barthes’ 1977 book, A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, the exhibition featured a series of 36 collaged drawings created from 2008 to 2012, along with two sculptural installations. In addition to Beethoven 1-32, Voigt will be participating in the group show Turbulence, taking place at the Louis Vuitton Espace Culturel in Paris later this summer. This March, Voigt was awarded the prestigious Contemporary Drawing Prize 2012 of the Daniel & Florence Guerlain Art Foundation, for her exceptional contribution to illustration as an art form.