Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles is pleased to present an exhibition featuring paintings by Imi Knoebel that show his continuous dealing with the abstract image in two contrary groups of works: Position and Big Girl. The works — all painted on aluminum — range between painting and sculpture and consist of geometric shapes on the one hand and organic shapes on the other hand.
With his constructivist approach, Imi Knoebel has created an impressive oeuvre concentrating consistently on form and color far beyond any representative function. The path leads from black and white line paintings, via spatial installations made of hard fibre images and objects, to colored painting on wood; since the 1990s, he has been increasingly using aluminum as a painting surface. The artistic practice of layering, lining up and stacking is also characteristic of Imi Knoebel and can be described as his basic design principle. As early as the mid-1970s, he began layering color tones or rather their carriers on top of, above or behind each other. The work Amerikanische Wand (1977) was the first layered colored work and was exhibited together with 24 Farben – für Blinky at Dia Art Foundation, Cologne in 1977 — today they are part of the Dia: Beacon Collection. The first wall work made of colored aluminum strips followed with Sweet Baby Jane in 1991. The group of works entitled Position should also be seen in the context of these works as Knoebel himself stated, ‘In my work, I always return to the beginnings — even today — and I connect everything.’
The individual works of the Position group consist of two aluminum elements: a rectangular shape, always same size, upon which a second geometric shape of a different size is positioned. Imi Knoebel painted each element monochrome with acrylic paint creating moments of tension and a painterly whole. The layering principle also enhances the sculptural character of the works. The differing color arrangement of the two elements as well as the variation in the shape and positioning of the second element create a multitude of surprising compositions.
Questions of color, form, and space are also addressed in the Big Girl works, however, instead of positioning a geometric element on an image, the artist places a free, organic shape directly on the wall, which thus becomes a canvas. Each work of the group of works is shaped and painted differently. This exuberant experimentation with free forms could already be observed in the aforementioned work 24 Farben - für Blinky (1977). The use of a pre-formed ground is visually reminiscent of the minimalist works of American artists such as Frank Stella and Ellsworth Kelly, however, Imi Knoebel combines it with a powerful gestural brushstroke that reveals the trace of the artist’s hand.
The individual picture objects made of solid aluminum appear to be floating on the wall just as the paint that does not soak into the picture carrier, but is applied to it like a second layer in a densely structured surface.
- Dr. Cornelia Kratz
Imi Knoebel (b. 1940, Dessau) studied at Werkkunstschule Darmstadt before transferring to Joseph Beuys’ class at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1964. He has participated in documenta several times and his works are exhibited in museums worldwide: among others, at Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich in 2018, at Skulpturenpark Waldfrieden, Wuppertal in 2017, at Musée National Fernand Léger, Biot, France in 2016. On the occasion of his 75th birthday, the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg 2014 presented a major retrospective. In 2006, Imi Knoebel received an honorary doctorate from the Friedrich Schiller University, in 2011 he was awarded the Kythera Prize, and in 2016, he was named Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Works by Imi Knoebel are housed in well-known public collections such as the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Dia: Beacon and Dia Art Foundation, New York; Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht; MK, Frankfurt; Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon; The Broad, Los Angeles; MoMA, New York; MOCA, Los Angeles; Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Norton Museum, West Palm Beach, and Sammlung Goetz, Munich.
The exhibition was conceived in cooperation with the artist, Carmen Knoebel and Galerie Christian Lethert, Cologne.