Exhibitions

Imi Knoebel, Erik Swars

Erik Swars , Imi Knoebel

2022-11-02 until 2022-11-27

KEN NAKAHASHI, in collaboration with Galerie Jochen Hempel from Leipzig, is pleased to announce Imi Knoebel, Erik Swars, an exhibition by two German artists, from November 2 (Wednesday) through 27 (Sunday), 2022.

Each work in this small gallery filled with ever-shifting natural light creates a meaningful field and reiterates a singular encounter, in the same way momentary events are characterized by the relationship between time, space, materiality, color and surface.

Imi Knoebel, born in Dessau, Germany, in 1940, studied under Joseph Beuys at the Düsseldorf Art Academy.

Influenced by Russian avant-garde artist Malevich, Knoebel is a pioneer of German abstract art and one of the leading German artists of the postwar period alongside Gerhard Richter, Blinky Palermo among others.

Knoebel’s masterpieces include Room 19 (1968), 24 Colors—for Blinky (1977), and the Grace Kelly series.

His works emerge as a mass filled with invisible presence by creating relationships between color, material and shape.

This exhibition features five recent works.

[Recent major exhibition/International exhibition]

2022 Galerie Jochen Hempel (Leipzig, Germany)
2021 Dia: Beacon (NYC, USA)
2018 Museum Haus Konstrucktiv (Zurich, Switzerland)
2017 Skulpturenpark Waldfrieden (Wuppertal, Germany)
2016 Musée Fernand Léger (Biot, France)
2014 Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (Germany)
2011 Museum der bildenden Künste MdbK (Leipzig, Germany）
2009 Deutsche Guggenheim (Berlin, Germany)
1972, 1977, 1982, 1987 Documenta (Kassel, Germany)
1985 18th Sao Paulo Biennial

[Major public collection]

The Musée National d'Art Moderne (Paris, France)
Dia: Beacon (NYC, USA)
Dia Art Foundation (NYC, USA)
Bonnefantenmuseum (Maastricht, Netherlands)
Museum für Moderne Kunst MMK (Frankfurt, Germany）
Toyota Municipal Museum of Art (Japan）
The National Museum of Art, Osaka (Japan)
Museu Coleção Berardo (Lisbon, Portugal)
The Broad (Los Angeles, UAS)
MoMA (NYC, USA）
MOCA (Los Angeles, UAS）
Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid, Spain)
Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin, Germany)
Norton Museum (West Palm Beach, USA)
Sammlung Goetz (Munich, Germany)

Erik Swars, born in Zwenkau, Germany, in 1988, studied painting at O JUN’s lab at the Tokyo University of Arts from 2013 to 2014.

He then went onto attend Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle to study under Jochen Plogsties.

Swars explores the interaction of surfaces in painting, photography and space. The Dia series, which has a semiotic title, is characterized by its combination of pale blue and pink minerals, hydrophobic aluminum, and the surface of color shifts with a light-polarizing structure of dammar and others. These works are interpreted as the archive of the moments surrounding the artist during his creation with various materials.

Swars has held five solo shows at KEN NAKAHASHI and this iteration showcases six recent works from 2022.

[Recent major exhibition]