Weiss und Schwarz-4 2009

Imi Knoebel made Weiss und Schwarz-4 with paint on panels, probably sometime in the last 20 years. What grabs me is the simple contrast, the black and white thing – it’s so basic, but it's also how we see, how we make sense of the world. The panels are butted right up next to each other, so you’ve got these super clean lines, a kind of geometry that feels both architectural and playful. Look at the surface, how smooth and even the paint is. It's almost like it was sprayed on. No brushstrokes, no texture. It’s so flat, so perfect, you almost don’t see the hand in it at all, but I’d guess there was a lot of hand to get to this point. It reminds me a bit of Mondrian, but with a twist. Where Mondrian was all about the grid, Knoebel breaks it apart, lets it breathe. It’s about taking something familiar and turning it on its head. Makes you wonder what other rules we can break, you know?