Imi Knoebel: Once Upon a Time

Imi Knoebel’s exhibition ‘Once Upon a Time’ at White Cube Bermondsey includes examples from three new painting series as well as a major installation exhibited for the first time. Exploring recent directions in Knoebel’s ever-evolving engagement with non-representational art, the project also contains an element of storytelling, as the title suggests – the result of Knoebel looking back at his career as an abstract artist.

At age 82, Knoebel still works daily in his Düsseldorf studio. As he has since he studied with artist and activist Joseph Beuys at the city’s Kunstakademie in 1964, Knoebel develops his ideas through the hands-on process of making his wall- and floor-based works. For inspiration, he draws on art’s basic building blocks – line, form and colour – as well as the collections of cut-paper shapes, paint swatches and other materials that surround him in his workspace.