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above: Canapé Monochrome Magenta Chair, 1989, acrylic on wood, 159 x 233 x 9 cms (63 x 93 x 4 inches). Courtesy: the artist opposite: Revolver I, 2003, acrylic on aluminium, 232 x 310 x 11 cms (92 x 123 x 4 inches). Courtesy: the artist and Galerie Fahnemann, Berlin

IMI KNOEBEL M ARK G ISBOURNE
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PROFILE

THE lack of a singularity of purpose over the last ten years has all too often been replaced by a pluralistic set of practices claiming to be virtues as ends in themselves. It is refreshing, therefore, to turn to an artist who has shown a continuous development, in both procedure and aesthetics, over the last 40 years. Imi (Klaus Wolf) Knoebel (born Dessau, 1940), has continued the tradition of constructivism from the 1960s. He studied with his friend and fellow student Imi Giese (Imi, an acronym of ‘ich mit ihm’ – I with him -– marks a sharing of personal identity). They both studied at the Darmstadt (1962–4) and thereafter joined Joseph Beuys at the Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf (1964–71). While Knoebel’s early training had been shaped by the influence of Bauhaus masters like Johannes Itten and László Moholy-Nagy, through which he learnt constructivist and structural composition, it was not until he reached Düsseldorf that he was given the freedom to expose what became the driving force of his subsequent practice. In the context of the freedom allowed them by Beuys, both Knoebel and Giese (with whom he shared a studio – Raum 19 – at the Akademie, from 1965–1971) worked together alongside Blinky Palermo and Jorg Immendorf. The rediscovery at that time for all these artists was the work of the then largely forgotten Malevich: ‘we were fascinated by the Black Square. That was the phenomenon that completely absorbed us: that was

the real change’, as Knoebel recalled. And, what has remained consistent to Knoebel’s work (later developed through an engagement with Mondrian and subsequent theories of colour) is a clarification of the processes of making through abstraction and construction. Initially, seen in two-dimensional terms, through his Linienbildseries (1966–8), but codified in his Raum(1968), which he exhibited in his Düsseldorf studio using stacked and propped hartfaserbild(industrial hardboard), stretchers, T-squares and angles, which have become common to his work. What could exist before Malevich’s Black Squarecame into being, other than its component parts? It is this commitment to constructive compositional enquiry that remains consistently present in Knoebel’s works. Giese committed suicide in 1974, Palermo died in 1977, while Immendorf subsequently returned to figuration. Since that time Knoebel has ploughed a solitary furrow. The driving force behind his endeavour is essentially modernist, working in such a way that he has long since abandoned the arbitrary boundaries between what was considered either painting or sculpture. There may at times seem to be lacuna in this respect, as in works like the Eigentum Himmelreichseries of 1983, which are distinctly Beuysian sculptures (even 1960s Rainer Ruthenbeck-like in terms of installation) or, conversely, in works like the periodic two-dimensional Schlacht(1991),

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