Imi Knoebel was born Klaus Wolf Knoebel in Dessau in 1940. He studied art at the Werkkunstschule Darmstadt under Johannes Itten and László Moholy-Nagy, enrolling in 1962. There, he met fellow student Rainer Giese, with whom he would discuss at length their shared appreciation for Malevich. Their reverence for the modern master was such that Knoebel and Giese were nicknamed ‘Imi & Imi’, the diminutive of ‘Ich mit Ihm’ (‘I with him’). The moniker was coincidentally the brand of an East German washing detergent, which conferred an ironic twist on their radical self-branding. The two students managed to convince Joseph Beuys to accept them as students at the Kunstakademie (Fine Arts Academy) Düsseldorf (1964-1971). Moreover, they were entrusted with the keys to Room 19, a studio adjacent to Beuys’ legendary classroom in Room 20. In Room 19, Knoebel created a foundational eponymous work, Raum 19 (1968), which introduced Masonite into the artist’s technical arsenal as an industrial material of choice, which he continued to use throughout the rest of his career.
Knoebel, Giese and Palermo (with whom they shared a workshop) steered away from the pop influences most of Beuys’ students embraced at the time and developed their own personal brand of German minimalism as an offshoot of Malevich’s suprematism. Superimposed painted panels serve the creation of early works (Sandwich I & II), the structured colours of which seem to be a nod to Piet Mondrian (INNINN or Pinakothek der Moderne, for example).
Experimenting even further, Knoebel was among the first artists of his generation to use photographic tools as a means to expand the compositional repertoire in painting. His Innenprojektionen (Interior Projections; 1968–1970), for example, rely on empty transparent projection slides as supports to visually project vacant squares on to exhibition walls. Empty at first, the slides would later be filled with vertical and horizontal ink lines, creating an endless variety of intangible grids on physical interior architectonic spaces. Through this series and its accompanying photographic and video documentation (such as Projektion 1 from 1968 or Projektion X from 1970-1971, for example), Knoebel participated in dematerialising the medium of painting.
Whereas the late 1960s and early 1970s were dominated by black and white grids, colour would be the focus of the following era. Superimposed coloured shapes were the artist’s interpretation of the ‘portrait’ genre. When Knoebel’s friend Palermo died, the artist began experimenting more explicitly and consistently with colour, with Farben – für Blinky (1977) marking the beginning of this dedicated process. The 1980s were characterised by the use of found objects in his works, primarily as surfaces or supports on which to paint. This introduction of physicality breached the dimensional divide, with painted images existing in the third dimension, a physical reality amplified by technical traces and markings, such as drips and residue, tipping over the image’s ‘edge’. This expanded the redefinition of the medium of painting Frank Stella had initiated in the 1960s. In the 1990s, aluminium – cut-out and painted in single, often primary, colours – became the surface’s material of choice. His adherence to the principles of the primary trinity shows the lasting influence of Mondrian.
This principle remained even in one of his most important commissions. In 2008, he was asked to create six new stained glass windows for the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Reims. The windows, abstract compositions with hundreds of pieces of glass in vivid shades of red, blue and yellow, were installed in 2011 to celebrate the edifice’s 800th anniversary. In 2015, he completed the initial commission with a set of three additional windows.
Knoebel has exhibited extensively, including solo exhibitions at Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, Switzerland (2018); Museum Haus Lange und Haus Esters, Krefeld, Germany (2015); Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, K21, Düsseldorf, Germany (2015); Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany (2014); Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig, Germany (2011); Gemeentemuseum, The Hague (2010); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2009); Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2009); Dia:Beacon, New York (2008); Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany (2004); Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover, Germany (2002); Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Valencia, Spain (1997); Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland (1997); Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (1996); and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1996).
Knoebel lives and works in Düsseldorf.
