Imi Knoebel – Pure Freude

Imi Knoebel was born Wolf Knoebel in Dessau in 1940. He spent his early years near Dresden, and later moved with his mother and four siblings to Mainz. In 1964, he and his friend Imi Giese (Pseudonym for Rainer Giese) went to study at the Academy of Arts in Düsseldorf; the following year they changed courses to study with Joseph Beuys, and from 1966 until 1969 they used Room 19 at the Academy as a studio, where their IMI identity became manifest.

It was in this now legendary room that Knoebel produced his minimalist works, which emerged from a highly puristic, experimental position diametrically opposed in many ways to the aesthetic principles of Beuys.

Among the artists of his generation, Knoebel was the mysterious, introverted one. Perhaps his most typical work (in this position) was a collection of 250,000 drawings which no one had set eyes on. They were locked, in bundles, in large wooden cupboards – and these were the visible artwork. A more apt image of the hermetic seclusion of new art has never yet been conceived.

This denial of immediate access and disclosure of meaning constitutes a hermetic quality in Knoebel’s work, which has to this day enabled him to maintain the strength to oppose consumerism, the availability of art and the appropriation of the artist.

The work presented stands as a pointed refusal to give any information about itself. If one looks more closely, however, one may recognise the calculated proportions and progressions. Chance and order, chaos and system are present here in a subtle combination, which remains hidden to the fleeting glance.

Gallery hours Wed-Fri 2 – 6:30 pm, Sat noon – 4 pm

Imi Knoebel geboren am 31. Dezember 1940 in Dessau, ist ein bedeutender deutscher Maler und Bildhauer. Von 1962-1964 besuchte Knoebel die Werkkunstschule in Darmstadt, wo er Kurse zur strukturalen und konstruktiven Komposition belegte, die nach den Ideen des Bauhaus Vorkurses von Johannes Itten und Lászlo Moholy-Nagy modelliert waren. Hier traf er auf Imi Giese (Pseudonym Rainer Giese), mit dem zusammen er 1964 an die Düsseldorfer Kunstakademie wechselte, wo die beiden es in die Klasse von Joseph Beuys schafften.

Jetzt verwandeln Imi Knoebels zu Gruppen montierte farbige Tafeln und Leisten mit dem Titel “Pure Freude” die Räume der Galerie Römerapotheke in ein Farbspektakel. Die Werke verkörpern in leuchtenden, autonomen und doch harmonischen Farbkombinationen Gelb, Blau, Pink, Grün, Weiss, Gold die “Pure Freude”. Imi Knoebel geht es dabei um die Darstellung von Fläche, Format, Struktur und Bildkörper – und um Gegenstandslosigkeit.

Öffnungszeiten Mi-Fr 14 – 18.30 Uhr, Sa 12 – 16 Uhr

www.roemerapotheke.ch

Location:
Galerie Römerapotheke
Rämistrasse 18
8001 Zürich
Switzerland