Imi Knoebel

Room For Art presents the new, permanent installation at Volkshaus Basel by German artist Imi Knoebel. Renamed in honour of Knoebel, "Imi Bar" officially opened on 22 September 2021. The new centrepiece of the well-known Basel bar is the stained glass windows designed by Knoebel exclusively for Volkshaus Basel, which celebrate the city of Basel in all its facets. Apart from the Notre-Dame de Reims Cathedral, "Imi Bar" is the only place in the world where the artist's stained glass windows can be seen.

Text by Leopold Weinberg

Ever since I came across Knoebel’s work - thanks to my dear friend, gallerist Stefan von Bartha - it was clear to me, that this was the start of the artist’s work becoming part of my collecting journey. At the time, little did I know, that one day, Imi Knoebel would collaborate with us in the context of Volkshaus Basel (Fenster Basel).

“Systemrelevant” (System-Relevant)

I had visited Imi several times, together with Stefan (he invited me to join him on his artist tour) at his studio in Germany and was so privileged to be invited to his home, where his wife (and backbone of the “Knoebel Studio”) Carmen would join and we would enjoy lunch together and speak about his work.

Knowing Knoebel’s significant career and body of work, winning him over for a commissioned installation or curated show was at best ‘wishful thinking’, if not impossible. At Imi and Carmen’s kitchen table, whilst eating a home-made vegetable soup, I still took my chance and confronted them with my vision of Imi laying his hands on our Bar at Volkshaus Basel, which was designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron. Of course I had spoken about that vision with Stefan beforehand, and we discussed how meaningful it would be, to have a permanent display of Knoebel’s work for us as admirers and collectors, but also for the city of Basel in general. Whilst my request remained unanswered, I enjoyed the rich soup and was served seconds.

Then COVID happened and hectic life suddenly became slow. Borders were closing down and at some point my phone was ringing and Carmen was on the line. She said that they had thought about my request and that Imi will do an installation for us, however, he is not interested in hanging something on the walls, but would much rather do something with the windows. Although I had a slightly different vision of the installation, I was still completely over the moon, understanding that thanks to their commitment, we were on the verge of achieving something that with time could become relevant to art history. Shortly after, both Stefan and I were asked to visit them in order to take a look at Imi’s proposal for the windows. The problem, however, was being allowed to cross the Swiss - German border and visit during the time of the pandemic. When the German border police called Carmen and enquired about the necessity of us traveling to Germany at this time of distress, and questioned whether our visit was 'system-relevant’, she lectured them on the relevance of culture (and art in particular) in a way, they most likely have never been lectured before. The rest is history.