Imi Knoebel, etcetera @ Thaddaeus Ropac, Marais

Imi Knoebel, 

The website blurb for Imi Knoebel's etcetera at Thaddaeus Ropac's Marais gallery doesn't offer many ways into the exhibition. It says that his "abstract art investigates the fundamentals of painting and sculpture through an exploration of form, colour and material. [Knoebel's] aim is to uncover the basic material elements of art, which he locates in the simple interactions between humans and the essential conditions of our world." Isn't this what every abstract painter does? And couldn't we say this about any number of abstract works? It seems such a generic and ungenerous way to describe Knoebel's abstraction. Because, in these paintings, he is doing something quite unique. 

Imi Knoebel, CIII (2024)

Knoebel paints on metal most of the time, creating a surface that is fast, transparent and, in many cases, luminous. The literature references Malevich, but the artist whose work most resonated in my mind as I wandered the three floors of this exhibition was Ellsworth Kelly. Knoebel may have little interest in Kelly's work, but these energetic works are, at times, exploring some of the same parameters of painting. Knoebel's paintings challenge perception and our trust in what we see, in how we see and, much of the time, this is achieved through colour. At a distance from works in the main gallery, they shift in size and shape depending on where we stand. The edges of the metal support appears to weft and warp, squares becoming trapezoids, quadrilaterals with non-parallel sides. Up close, I tried to decipher the exact shape of the support, often in vain. That said, there are works for which the aluminium has obvious non-parallel sides, even if, from some angles, they appear as square.

Imi Knoebel, LXIV (2023)

The markings are also unique in that they are somewhere between expressionist swipes and graffiti markings. There are a lot of lines and strokes, swiping of different colours together as the brush is swept down or across the support. The transparency of paint comes from these very quick strokes, sometimes making shapes, at others, remaining lines. Unlike a lot of abstract painting, it is almost impossible to see something familiar in the surface markings of Knoebel's. Rather, in a more modernist tradition - perhaps more reminiscent of Philip Guston than Malevich - we see the shapes moving, vibrating, shifting to demarcate foreground and background, left and right of the picture plane. We also see negotiations between figure and ground, as if in a search for balance on the canvas. Strokes become explorations of space as it is drawn thanks to the restlessness of our vision. 

Imi Knoebel, XXXV (2023)

In the absoluteness of their abstraction, we see Knoebel's pictures engaged in questions of structure, how and where to place the line within the four (uneven) sides of a support. Similarly, in the sliding of paint up and down, around, creating shapes, there is an interrogation of what is a brushstroke. At least, he asks, what is its purpose? Where does it begin and end? Is it used to define or to shade? Sometimes the line looks like it might be hieroglyphic, a secret language telling stories for the initiated only. At other times, there is something resembling art brut about the lines, childlike scribbles on paper. And in still other paintings, the graffiti-like language screams a confused expressionism. 

Imi Knoebel, XXXVI (2023)

Not only is Knoebel doing something unique in his paintings, but the works are also diverse. Some are pretty, others harsh, others exploratory. Each has a different tone, depending on the colour and shape, direction, purpose of the line. In the upstairs gallery, smaller works on paper started to resemble indeterminate spaces, rooms, with objects—furniture for example—inside. All of which is to say, I was pleasantly surprised at the freshness of these paintings, to see them embracing so many different languages of abstraction, speaking to different moments in the history of painted abstraction. They are doing a lot more than is claimed in the publicity, making a rewarding visit.