Imi Knoebel ̶ Retrospective 1968 – 1996
Exhibition 23.08 – 20.10.96
Born in 1940 in Dessau Imi Knoebel is one of the most important German painters of the generation after Joseph Beuys. Spanning three decades, Knoebel’s work can be attributed to Minimalism, although the limited art-historical term cannot full express his variety of genres, the work’s simultaneously geometric and gestural elements, and the richness of its colors and materials. As the artist’s first major retrospective, the exhibition presents all the major phases of his work.
Knoebel’s oeuvre is influenced by Russian avant-garde art, Neo-Constructivism and "monochromism". In the early 1960s at the school of applied arts in Darmstadt, Knoebel and his artist friend Rainer Giese (1942–1974) adopted the pseudonyms Imi, a mixture of a Dadaist logo and ironic pop gesture: the eponymous common East German laundry detergent – "a guarantee for uncompromising purity" – served the artist duo Imi + Imi as a motto for the radical claim of their artistic ideas.
In 1964 Knoebel entered Joseph Beuys’s class at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. Knoebel’s notion of art, like that of his friends and fellow artists Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, and Blinky Palermo, was influenced by the political optimism of the time. One of his first works was "Raum 19" (Room 19) (1968), named after his studio at the academy. This central work was a spatial installation made out of hardboard and stretchers, a kind of three-dimensional painting that contradicted the usual ideas of a painting and sculpture, and attested to Knoebel’s interest in the production process and de-limitations of the painted image. Here, the idea of Kazimir Malevich’s radically reduced pictorial language intersect with Beuys’s procedural-sculptural ideas.
In the 1970s Knoebel disassociated himself from his earlier work’s right-angled and primarily colorless purism. Furthermore, in search of a synthesis of all visual forces, he transcended genre boundaries between painting, sculpture, and spatial installations. His wall objects’ polygonal color forms seem to float in a limitless pictorial space on the white wall. This, too, represents a continuation of ideas of the Russian avant-garde.
In "Genter Raum" (Room in Ghent) (1980) Knoebel combines the idea of "Room 19" with that of his free color form elements. Here, 461 colored and non-colored pieces of irregularly cut wood produce stacked and layered building blocks of a both complete and completing visual arrangement, and consolidate into a metaphor for "making art".
The 1980s were marked by an intense examination of the primary colors red, yellow, and blue, plus white. The artist’s studio resembled a laboratory for color in which he explored the endless possibilities of their combinations with near-scientific precision. There was always room for free associations, which characterized the pastel colored portrait series of the 1990s. In the series dedicated to Grace Kelly, calculation and randomness, severity and tenderness join to create compositions of perfect beauty.
Stretch your view
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Stretch your view
Gerhard Richter — Audioguide, 2009
Podcast, Podcast, Audioguide
The exhibition presented a comprehensive selection of Gerhard Richter’s abstract paintings that he created since the mid-1970s and that dominate his opus today. The audio guide provides descriptions of selected works in the exhibition, such as the work series "Cage" or the colorful painting "Claudius." MORE
Artist’s talk: Cardiff/Miller and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev
Artist's Talk, Video, Artist's Talk
Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller with Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, artistic director of dOCUMENTA (13) on April 12, 2012, on the occasion of the exhibition opening "Cardiff/Miller — Works from the Goetz Collection" MORE
Beauty now
Exhibition 10.02 – 01.05.00
Beauty was long not a category in modern art - fashion, advertising and mass media had claimed it for their own. In recent years, however, a return of beauty in contemporary art has been evident. MORE
Cardiff & Miller — Works from the Goetz Collection
Exhibition 13.04 – 08.07.12
The exhibition presents eight works by the Canadian artist duo Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, who, by combining image and tone and replicated spaces, activate as many of the viewer's senses as possible in order to make the depicted events as real as possible. Cardiff/Miller participated in dOCUMENTA (13), 2012. MORE
Paul McCarthy - Lala land parodie paradies
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Hughie O’Donoghue
Exhibition 10.01 – 11.02.97
Like Francis Bacon before him, Hughie O’Donoghue concentrates on the human body, its carnality, vulnerability and sensual power. MORE
The Second Face
Exhibition 14.02 – 27.04.97
As a collection of African sculpture, the Barbier-Mueller Collection in Geneva documents the Dark Continent in all its creative richness as hardly any other museum does. MORE
Sean Scully
Exhibition 14.06 – 16.09.01
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Wilhelm Sasnal
Exhibition Walk-through
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Robert Ryman
Exhibition 08.12.00 – 18.02.01
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Michel François. La plante en nous / die pflanze in uns
Exhibition 15.12.00 – 04.03.01
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Neo Rauch
Exhibition 16.03 – 27.05.01
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Made in Munich
Exhibition 21.11.08 – 22.02.09
Since the beginning of the 1970s, Munich along with New York and London, was leading with regards to editions and multiples. The exhibition "Made in Munich" shows works from 1968 to today, which were initiated and produced by a.o. dedicated Munich galleries and "editeurs". MORE
Sigmar Polke — Bulletproof Holidays
Exhibition 17.11.95 – 21.01.96
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Jenny Holzer
Exhibition 16.11 – 12.12.93
Where women are dying, I am wide awake MORE
Hand-Work
Exhibition 02.12.00 – 18.03.01
Senta Connert, Jochen Flinzer, Leni Hoffmann, Charles Long, Peter Rösel MORE
Kurt Schwitters
Exhibition 09.03 – 27.05.01
In the Beginning was MERZ - From Kurt Schwitters until Today MORE
Stories
Exhibition 28.03 – 23.06.02
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Jana Sterbak
Exhibition 21.06 – 22.09.02
Jana Sterbak's objects prevail in the intersection of installation, performance, video and film. Haus der Kunst - in cooperation with the Malmö Konsthall in Sweden - is now staging a retrospective of Jana Sterbak's works created between 1974 and 2001. MORE
Mike Kelley — Catholic Preferences
Exhibition 11.02 – 17.04.95
The opus of the American artist MORE