Basel | ArtRegion: Basel - Oberrhein

von Bartha

Imi Knoebel: Centrum

21. November 2020 – 20. Februar 2021

One of the leading German artists of the post-war period, conceptual artist Imi Knoebel is known for his theoretical approach to colour and form. CENTRUM will feature a new series of five large-scale, monochrome paintings by the artist. For this series of work, Knoebel returns to working with wood, a material which has occupied him since the beginning of his career. The works in the series, which will be exhibited for the first time in this exhibition, allude to the contoured skyline of a city. As part of the series, Knoebel has created a distinctive cross-shaped work, symbolically suggestive of a church at the heart of this abstract landscape. With some of the works in the series reaching more than three metres wide, the artworks will dominate the gallery space. Knoebel made the decision to restrict the display of his artwork to the front space of the gallery in order to create a strikingly dense display.

Knoebel’s puristic line drawings of the early 1970s saw the inclusion of colour for the first time in 1974. Throughout a career spanning over 50 years, the artist has continued his experimentation with colour, his powerful use of colour combinations working to reveal the physical potentialities behind often rudimentary materials. By reducing art to its most formal elements, Knoebel highlights the possibilities inherent within these materials and structures.