IMI KNOEBEL

For the first time, Imi Knoebel presents the paintings Först Aid I, II, III from 2004, which hang side by side in the back room of the gallery. While two works are monochrome in bright red or yellow, the middle one combines both colors, but the expressive application of paint is common to all. Since the 1990s, Imi Knoebel has increasingly used aluminium as a painting surface, but Först Aid I, II, III characterises a singularity in the artist’s oeuvre: the individual aluminium plates were welded together. The long weld seams, which are rough and strikingly visible, place the material under tension. Instead of flat picture surfaces, resistant pictorial grounds have been created which, in combination with the intense colors, radiate a strong materiality and immediate presence.

The fact that the artist’s works skillfully move between painting and sculpture is also and particularly impressive when looking at the work »Standing Painting E«, 2020, which stands on the floor and is over 3 meters high. The title and the large-format dimensions of the Standing Painting series refer to the artist’s experiences when looking at standing stones, free-standing, towering blocks of stone in the vast expanses of Scotland. Accordingly, the free form of the work is made from a single aluminium plate, which Imi Knoebel has painted in a diverse manner and then repeatedly glazed over.

The Love Child works feature free, irregular, even absurd shapes. Thin, cut metal panels, painted unprimed with acrylic paint and broad brushstrokes. Mounted on a large nail that protrudes from the works through a hole and on which they balance to find their final alignment. Love Child Dorian and Love Child Phoenix, which can be seen in the exhibition, were made from copper plates, and painted with dynamic brushstrokes. Material and the way they are hung give the works a lightness and refreshing spontaneity.

The presentation also includes a group of etc. works, painterly explorations of colour and graphic structures with acrylic paint on plastic foil, framed in aluminium frames.

The diversity of the exhibited works testifies the artist Imi Knoebel’s ongoing and consistent exploration of what painting is and what painting can be.

Press release courtesy Galerie Christian Lethert