Imi Knoebel
Imi Knoebel (pseudonym for Klaus Wolf Knoebel, born December 31, 1940 in Dessau ) is a German painter and sculptor of the art direction of Minimal Art
Life and work
Knoebel spent his childhood near Dresden and moved to Mainz with the family in 1950. From 1962 to 1964 he attended together with Imi Giese ( 1942-1974 ), the art school in Darmstadt, where he, according to ideas of the Bauhaus Basic Course by Johannes Itten and László Moholy -Nagy, constructive and structural composition exercises learned. In 1964, he joined together with Giese at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in the commercial art class by Walter Breker. In 1965 it reached both Imi - like his friend Rainer Giese took Knoebel the name Imi on ( " Imi Imi " ) - by extravagant appearance in the Beuys class to be included in room 20, however, they, at times together with Jörg Immendorff and Blinky Palermo, the adjacent space 19 claimed.
With Giese and Blinky Palermo ( pseudonym for Peter Heisterkamp ), it forms a minimum - type flow under the Beuys students - unlike other Beuys students the same time as Immendorff who turned to the agitprop art. In the early 1970s he was one of the regular visitors of the scene meeting place Ratingen Hof in Düsseldorf's Old Town, the Carmen Knoebel operation together with Ingrid Kohlhöfer ( the wife of Christof Kohlhöfer ).
First created Knoebel black and white line images ( 1966-68 ). Under the influence of Kazimir Malevich and his " Black Square " originated scale sculptures made of superposed plates (eg sandwich I and Sandwich II, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich ) or brightly painted aluminum slats and boards that mutually overlap partially, with pattern similar to Piet Mondrian arise (eg INNINN, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich). Today he lives and works as Knoebel freelance artist in Dusseldorf.
In May 2006, Imi Knoebel honorary doctorate from the Friedrich -Schiller- University Jena. The eulogy was delivered to the New York Frank Stella. In 2011 he was awarded the Kythera price.
2008 Knoebel was commissioned to create six new stained glass windows for the cathedral of Reims. 2011, the windows were completed in time for the 800th anniversary of the cathedral. The windows are located in the two chapels on the left and right of the Chagall window.
Political and Social Commitment
In 1982, Imi Knoebel committed together with Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Walter Dahn, Immendorff, Rune Mields, Gerhard Richter, Katharina Sieverding, Thomas Schütte, Günther Uecker and Franz Erhard Walther " against the martial law in Poland - for Solidarity". The previously exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Dusseldorf works were auctioned in favor of Solidarity on 13 November 1982. 1988 Imi Knoebel created the Children's Songbook, a work of art that continuously uses to this day for the children's rights, in which it fiananziert projects for children in need. John Stüttgen formulated the intension of the child star as follows: " Just as real art, may be mere embellishment and decoration of the prevailing abuses, take the way the children most severely, and the Children's Songbook is not some charitable idea who wants to iron out all just what is served to misery in the name of the world's ruling systems. "