Imi Knoebel: Works 1966–2014
25 October 2014–15 February 2015
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
Hollerplatz 1
38440 Wolfsburg
Germany
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 11am–6pm
T +49 (0) 5361 26690
F +49 (0) 5361 266966
info [at] kunstmuseum-wolfsburg.de
“When I’m doing an exhibition, I simply try to create a new painting with the paintings I’ve just made or put together.”
The Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg presents the first worldwide comprehensive exhibition of Imi Knoebel’s oeuvre in almost 20 years, in honor of this important German artist. Imi Knoebel. Works 1966–2014 features more than 100 paintings, objects, and installations, ranging from the Linienbilder [Line Paintings] (1966–68), Raum 19 III [Room 19 III] (1968/2006), and Eigentum Himmelreich [Property Kingdom of Heaven] (1983), to the aluminum paintings from the 1990s, as well as his most recent works.
Each and every painting is part of a constantly growing body of work. To this very day Knoebel continues to go back to earlier works, adding, expanding, and reinterpreting. His creative process is reflected in the presentation, which the artist himself has designed for the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg’s spacious architecture. He has set up “three walls running diagonally through the gigantic space, opening up a number of paths.” To him, a wall is not simply an empty space for hanging pictures. Rather, it becomes part of both the painting and the setting. Here, visitors do not simply move from one work of art to the next, from one wall of pictures to the next. Instead, as they stroll through the space, they create new relationships among the individual paintings, the groups of works, and the exhibition space. Even though the show is a survey of nearly 50 years, it is not organized chronologically. At the start, as Knoebel says, it features “just the beginnings, actually—and then everything gets mixed up!”
