Imi Knoebel
15 Nov 2007 - 05 Jan 2008
IMI KNOEBEL
"drunter und drüber und kreuz und quer"
15th November 2007– 5th January 2008
Opening hours: 11 am to 2 pm and 4:30 pm to 8:30 pm
Opening: Thursday 15th November 2007, 8 pm
Galería Helga de Alvear is proud to present a show of recent work by Imi Knoebel.
Knoebel was a student of Joseph Beuys at the academy of Düsseldorf, where he coincided with fellow students like Blinky Palermo. From the 1970s onwards, his work took a direction he continues researching to date. While based on postulates that may be traced back to the geometric constructivism of Malevich or Joseph Albers, or to the radicalisation of painting, he takes it much further than that. His primary concerns are the recurrent issues in painting, addressing colour, support and space. Knoebel’s best known works are his painted aluminium structures, making up grids sustained on the subtlety of the paintbrush when applying colour, but also on the relationships established between the full and the void, the vertical and the horizontal, etc.
Already foregrounded in the title of the show, From Top to Bottom and From One Side to the Other, is a desire to give yet another spin to the best known aspects in Knoebel’s work. If in the past the aluminium grids created perfectly organised geometric structures, now these same grids are disordered on the work support. What used to be underpinned by an ideal order now seems to struggle against the power of gravity.
In the framework of his rapprochement to the sculptural in “Rosa Ecke” and “No. 4,” Knoebel creates 3-D spaces that are accessible to spectators. These are quasi-rooms, spaces in which what really matters is the interior, constructed using aluminium sheets and the colour they are painted with. Their stability and perception change with the movement of the spectator, being altered depending on the angle of vision and leading to the discovery of new previously unseen details.
Imi Knoebel conceives his art practice as a pure pictorial experience, with no room for the narrative in his endeavour to underscore the basic and essential: the painted surface and its support. The objectual nature of his works locates them on the border with sculpture, establishing a new relationship with the environment and the spectator. Knoebel exhibited his work at the Dia Art Foundation of New York in 1987, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1996, and more recently at Wilhelm-Hack Museum Ludwigshafen. He also took part in major group exhibitions and events, such as Documenta 5 (1972), Documenta 6 (1977), Documenta 7 (1982) and Documenta 8 (1987).
"drunter und drüber und kreuz und quer"
15th November 2007– 5th January 2008
Opening hours: 11 am to 2 pm and 4:30 pm to 8:30 pm
Opening: Thursday 15th November 2007, 8 pm
Galería Helga de Alvear is proud to present a show of recent work by Imi Knoebel.
Knoebel was a student of Joseph Beuys at the academy of Düsseldorf, where he coincided with fellow students like Blinky Palermo. From the 1970s onwards, his work took a direction he continues researching to date. While based on postulates that may be traced back to the geometric constructivism of Malevich or Joseph Albers, or to the radicalisation of painting, he takes it much further than that. His primary concerns are the recurrent issues in painting, addressing colour, support and space. Knoebel’s best known works are his painted aluminium structures, making up grids sustained on the subtlety of the paintbrush when applying colour, but also on the relationships established between the full and the void, the vertical and the horizontal, etc.
Already foregrounded in the title of the show, From Top to Bottom and From One Side to the Other, is a desire to give yet another spin to the best known aspects in Knoebel’s work. If in the past the aluminium grids created perfectly organised geometric structures, now these same grids are disordered on the work support. What used to be underpinned by an ideal order now seems to struggle against the power of gravity.
In the framework of his rapprochement to the sculptural in “Rosa Ecke” and “No. 4,” Knoebel creates 3-D spaces that are accessible to spectators. These are quasi-rooms, spaces in which what really matters is the interior, constructed using aluminium sheets and the colour they are painted with. Their stability and perception change with the movement of the spectator, being altered depending on the angle of vision and leading to the discovery of new previously unseen details.
Imi Knoebel conceives his art practice as a pure pictorial experience, with no room for the narrative in his endeavour to underscore the basic and essential: the painted surface and its support. The objectual nature of his works locates them on the border with sculpture, establishing a new relationship with the environment and the spectator. Knoebel exhibited his work at the Dia Art Foundation of New York in 1987, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1996, and more recently at Wilhelm-Hack Museum Ludwigshafen. He also took part in major group exhibitions and events, such as Documenta 5 (1972), Documenta 6 (1977), Documenta 7 (1982) and Documenta 8 (1987).