Imi Knoebel

Imi Knoebel is one of the most important European representatives of non-representational art, and he has devoted a lifetime to developing it. Around 1966, his first work was influenced by Kazimir Malevich's paintings and by Joseph Beuys, who taught him.Layering, sequencing, and stacking became his trademark techniques once he discovered masonite and its potential for creating large three-dimensional work. However, Knoebel also adopted a constrasting approach by producing extremely pared-down images which have no material form, to represent the immaterial.This catalogue of the exhibition (Imi Knoebel: Kernstücke (Key Works), at Kunstmuseum Krefeld, Museum Haus Esters, 22 March - 23 August 2015) provides a concentrated review of his early years; a newly-created complex of his works provides an insight into the essence of his multi-form work.English and German text.

Imi Knoebel, one of the most important contemporary abstract painters, has concentrated for over 15 years on the primary colours of blue, yellow and red; these have a similar architectural function to that of foundation stones. Based on the artist's proposal – an abstract composition of these colours – in 2008 Knoebel received a commission to design six church windows for the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Reims.These have been inaugurated in June 2011 in this high Gothic cathedral where the French kings were crowned. This opulent volume provides both a richly colourful documentation and an in-depth description of the entire project, which, following the tradition of Marc Chagall and Brigitte Simon who both designed church windows, creates a fascinating symbiosis between the old and the new.

This monograph surveys the diverse oeuvre of the ever-popular German artist Imi Knoebel, whose adventures in the elementary functions of form and color seem more relevant than ever. Opening up new perspectives on selected phases of Knoebel's career, and tackling many lesser-known explorations alongside his classic geometric/minimalistic fiberboard paintings, it examines, in chronological order, the artist's time at the Darmstadt Werkkunstschule and the Düsseldorf Art Academy, where he studied with Joseph Beuys, and where he met one of the artists with whom he would become most closely associated, Blinky Palermo. Also addressed here is Knoebel's relationship to American Minimalism, and his early explorations of serial light photography and printmaking. This volume focuses on these early activities and recent paintings from the 1990s to 2009.

The original edition of this ambitious reference was published in hardcover in 1998, in two oversize volumes (10x13"). This edition combines the two volumes into one; it's paperbound ("flexi-cover"--the paper has a plastic coating), smaller (8x10", and affordable for art book buyers with shallower pockets--none of whom should pass it by. The scope is encyclopedic: half the work (originally the first volume) is devoted to painting; the other half to sculpture, new media, and photography. Chapters are arranged thematically, and each page displays several examples (in color) of work under discussion. The final section, a lexicon of artists, includes a small bandw photo of each artist, as well as biographical information and details of work, writings, and exhibitions. Ruhrberg and the three other authors are veteran art historians, curators, and writers, as is editor Walther. c. Book News Inc.

Born in Dessau in 1940, Imi Knoebel is a leading figure of 1960s abstraction. He was a student in Joseph Beuys' master class when he began to seriously question the role of the image in painting, and by 1968 he had formulated the foundation of his practice in the seminal installation "Raum 19," which has continued to influence his work. Working in between painting and sculpture, Knoebel layers individual elements which are repeatedly juxtaposed in ever-changing variations. Over the course of his nearly five decade-long career, he has continually moved between intuition and calculation, always finding innovative ways to investigate geometric form and color. This precise retrospective volume with comprehensive texts by Dirk Martin, Johannes Stüttgen and Franz-Joachin Verspohl, among others, presents a grouping of works, made between 1966 and 2006, that were chosen by Knoebel for their fundamental importance in his practice.

"The Dia Foundation's exhibition of works by Imi Knoebel also furthers Dia's primary commitment to collaboration with artists to the ends of long-term, carefully designed installations of their work."--Page 5.

In 2009, Imi Knoebel (born 1940) created a "total artwork" in the upper hall of Berliner Neue Nationalgalerie (designed by Mies van der Rohe), documented here. Through whitewashed glass walls, the building was transformed into a kind of giant lantern.

Regarding the Popular charts the complex relationship between the avant-gardes and modernisms on the one hand and popular culture on the other. Covering (neo-)avant-gardists and modernists from various European countries, this second volume in the series European Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies explores the nature of so-called “low” culture, dealing with aspects as diverse as the everyday and the folkloric. Regarding the Popular charts the many ways in which the allegedly “high” modernists and avant-gardists looked at and represented the “low”. As such, this book will appeal to all those with an interest in the dynamic of modern experimental arts and literatures.