The Gallery Catherine Putman is pleased to present for the first time an exhibition of Imi Knoebel, major figure of the German abstract painting.

At the occasion of the publication of the portfolio «Schwules Bild», the exhibition will assemble around thirty unique and multiple works.

Imi Knoebel has always expressed himself through the means of colour and volume as it is well illustrated in the portfolio «Schwules Bild», co-edited this year by the Gallery and presented for the first time in this exhibition. This sequence of eight prints, whereby monochrome forms of subtle colours are printed in relief, is inspired by the series of the same name, composed of eight paintings of a very large format (acrylic on wood, about 200 x 150 cm each) dating from 1976.

This edition distinguishes itself from the pieces of the series «Position», compositions of acrylic paint on plastified paper, realised between 2007 and 2012. Realised in five copies by Imi Knoebel himself, these eight paintings / collages, all different, offer dynamic relationships of forms and colours. Within the space constructed by the assembly of eight painted rectangles, small elements of variable sizes float, in balance, declined in infinite nuances of colours, from the most pastel to the flashiest.

This search of balance between forms and colours - fundamental in the work of Imi Knoebel – can be found in a binary relationship, in works from the series entitled « An meine Grüne Seite ». The exhibition presents five of these acrylic on aluminium paintings, of a small format, realised between 2007 and 2014. The support takes us further towards the sculpture. Each painted plate, monochrome, is placed, slightly inclined, on a small aluminium shelf. The plate is leaned against a second painting, this time on paper, of the same format, the tiny space revealed through inclination of the plate liberating a thin coloured stripe.

Finally, the exhibition will display a set of ink on paper works from the seventies, close to the drawing study, the gesture there being different from the one in the recent works, nevertheless we find the search of forms and compositions proper to the artist's work.

The work of Imi Knoebel defines itself by colour and construction. If he is a painter, his paintings and his works on paper always integrate volumes, regular (or not) forms, square, rectangle, cross, that he assembles and superimposes... He places objects in space with great freedom to transform them in a subversive gesture into something new.