Imi Knoebel (*1940) is one of the most important contemporary abstract artists internationally. Since the 1960s, this Düsseldorf based artist has continuously developed his emphatically minimalist oeuvre. Beginning in 1964, when he was a student of Joseph Beuys, his analytical work series have reflected a growing concern with the interplay of color and form.
This was foundational for his meanwhile long-term preoccupation with the works of the Russian Suprematist Kazimir Malevich. In particular Malevich’s celebrated Black Square – first exhibited in 1915 and regarded as the embodiment of a zero state of painting – has proven a productive point of departure for Knoebel’s own approaches. In the 1960s, after a series of line paintings and projected light images, Knoebel began producing purist black-and-white works and created his celebrated Room 19. The first series of abstract multicolored works date from the 1970s.