K21

Imi Knoebel (born in 1940) is one of the most important contemporary abstract artists internationally.

Since the 1960s, this Düsseldorf-based artist has contin-uously developed his emphatically minimalist oeuvre. Beginning in 1964, when he was a student of Joseph Beuys, his analytical work series have reflected a growing concern with the interplay of color and form. This was foundational for his meanwhile long-term preoccupation with the works of the Russian Suprematist Kazimir Malevich. In particular Malevich’s celebrated Black Square – first exhibited in 1915 and regarded as the embodiment of a zero state of painting – has proven a productive point of departure for Knoebel’s own ap-proaches.

In the 1960s, after a series of line paintings and projected light images, Knoebel began producing purist black-and-white works and created his celebrated Room 19. The first series of abstract multicolored works date from the 1970s.

On view in the Bel Etage of the K21 will be Knoebel’s new wall and three-­dimensional pieces alongside Suprematist works by Malevich.