Imi Knoebel, Untitled, 1977, Deutsche Bank Collection
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Imi Knoebel, Untitled, 1977, Deutsche Bank Collection
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Imi Knoebel, Untitled, 1980; From the series "Drachenzeichnung", Deutsche Bank Collection
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Imi Knoebel, Untitled, 1988, Deutsche Bank Collection
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Imi Knoebel’s works in the Deutsche Bank Collection play through virtually all existing possibilities of non-objective art. In the process, they unite opposing qualities: geometry and gesture, system and chance. His early exploration of experimental form and material are well represented by the paper works in the bank’s collection, ranging from the rust protector Mennige to the "immaterial" light projections and the gestural, informal abstractions.
Knoebel had already been investigating Kasimir Malevich in depth before he began studying with Joseph Beuys at the Dusseldorf Kunstakademie. The reduced formal language and the spiritual aspects in the work of the Russian artist left a deep mark on him. Together with his fellow students Imi Giese and Blinky Palermo, Knoebel developed a German answer to American Minimal Art in the 1960s. Even while he refrains from emphasizing his authorship in art production and frequently reverts to mathematical principles and serial structures, traces of his "signature" can always be found in his works, even in the monochromatic ones, such as a brush stroke or an uneven application of paint.
The Deutsche Bank Collection has been purchasing works by Imi Knoebel for over 25 years. The number has reached over 1,000 individual pieces today. The collages, drawings, photographs, and prints now on show at the 60 Wall Gallery in New York offer insight into the development of an oeuvre so comprehensive that it surprises the viewer again and again and attracts great interest particularly among artists of a younger generation. At the same time, the show focuses on a medium that has stood at the center of the bank’s collecting activities since the very beginning—paper.
Imi Knoebel: Selections from the Deutsche Bank Collection
60 Wall Gallery, Deutsche Bank
12/14/2009 – 4/9/2010
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