Imi Knoebel

Zwilling [Twin], 1988

Zwilling is part of an early group of works by the artist, which brings into relation two formally related sculptural figures, like a pairing of two like-minded un-equals. At the same time, Imi Knoebel had created his Kinderstern [Star for the Children], a silkscreen print of a revolutionary red, six-pointed star, a portfolio work for the benefit of the Kinderkrebshilfe Baden-Württemberg [Children’s Cancer Aid Association]. The motif—in the form of multiples, stickers, posters as well as pins made of metal or silver and in every color— reached people from a highly diverse swath of society with the purpose of winning them over to help children in need all over the world. The Kinderstern, related via its motif and colors to the free and applied works of the Russian avant-garde of the 1920s, brought the revolutionary and humanistic spirit of Kazimir Malevich, which had vanished into an auratic ether, back to the earth of ‘practical’ humanity. .