Imi Knoebel

Imi Knoebel was born in Dessau on 31 December 1940 and works as a painter and sculptor. During his studies at the Werkkunstschule in Darmstadt, he became familiar with the ideas of the Bauhaus in courses on structural and constructive composition. Those, but also his lecturers of the preliminary course, such as Johannes Itten and Lászlo Moholy-Nagy, have a visible influence on his work. He also met Imi Giese at the Bauhaus, with whom he later moved to the Düsseldorf Art Academy together. There he studied with Joseph Beuys, among others, and began to study analytical series, the interplay of colors and forms, and Minimal Art.
Knoebel's early work is characterized by a strongly reductionist position, during which his line paintings, light projections and monochrome white works are created in particular. Interest in colour, on the other hand, did not grow until 1974 and at the same time the artist began to deal with the effect of spatial overlays and coloured materials such as wood and aluminium. In doing so, he creates objects whose flatness is made up of various elements that relate to one another in a spatial relationship and thus lend the works a sculptural character.
Knoebel was awarded not only important art prizes but also an honorary doctorate from the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. His work is represented in a wide variety of collections and with individual works he has already been represented at several documenta exhibitions. Knoebel also designed church windows, e.g. that of Reims Cathedral in 2011, in which the versatility of his work is once again evident.