Imi Knoebel

Imi Knoebel is one of the most famous painters in the field of non-figurative Abstract Art. He was a student in Joseph Beuys’ master class when he began to seriously question the role of painting and the image, and in 1968 he had already formulated the first principle of his artistic practice with Raum 19, which have influenced his work, right up to the present day: this is the principle of the layering of individual elements, which are then repeatedly juxtaposed in ever-changing variations. Knoebel has worked in the “border region” between painting and sculpture. Always moving between intuition and calculation, over the next forty years, during the various phases of his artistic production, geometric forms and colour are investigated in an impressive variety of ways. The book is retrospective, but not historical: It only presents the works that the artist feels have a fundamental importance for his creative practice.