'dass die Geschichte zusammenbleibt – Schattenraum 6 + 3 Bilder', 1989

A large cuboid made of brown fiberboard stands closely in front of a black painting of a similar size, while two further panels lean against an adjacent wall. This walk-in – accompanied by the three titular Bilder (pictures) – presents one of Imi Knoebel’s explorations in bringing surface and space into dialogue with each other.

The work is the sixth in a series of seven Schattenraum (shadow space) installations created between 1988 and 1989, a time of upheaval in Germany. Knoebel was interested in pursuing Kazimir Malevich’s exploration of figure and ground and transferred this principle of painting into a spatial context. The sobriety in his work was particularly evident at the beginning of his artistic career in the radical minimization of his painterly means and in the use of industrially produced fiberboard.

Imi Knoebel (born 1940 in Dessau) is one of the German postwar generation’s most significant artists. His work embodies a constructivist approach, based on the study of form, color, and material. Despite his affinity for object art, he always describes himself as a painter. Knoebel lives and works in Düsseldorf.