E. T.

Spanning over three metres in height and two in width, E. T. is a stunning example of Imi Knoebel’s radiant abstractions. Executed in 1998-1999, the painting is divided into two bright yellow sections, each covered with an arrangement of vivid aluminium bars that spell at the titular E. T. The work is a striking hybrid of painting and sculpture that probes the relationship between colour and materiality. Absorbing the teachings of Mondrian, Malevich and Moholy-Nagy, Knoebel’s preoccupation with the language of abstraction continues the legacy of European Modernism. Unlike the reductive imagery of his predecessors, however, Knoebel’s idiom is characterised by a profound and playful search for freedom in both concept and execution, and his works defy medium specificity. As the artist himself said when asked about his painting, ‘I look at it and can only take in the beauty, and I don’t want to see it in relation to anything else. Only what I see, simply because it has its own validity’ (I. Knoebel, quoted in J. Stüttgen, ‘“I wouldn’t Say Anything Voluntary Anyway!” Interview with Imi Knoebel,’ Imi Knoebel: Works 1966- 2014, exh. cat., Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, 2014, p. 24). The desire to see new possibilities in the grammar of colour and form lies at the heart of Knoebel’s practice, and E. T. encapsulates his hope for a new chromatic physicality.