Imi Knoebel Table for Eindhoven

Imi Knoebel, Table, 1987, wood and paint, ed. 11/25, 74,5 × 162 × 157 cm, selling at Grisebach NGL, I’ve never been as interested as I perhaps empirically should be in Imi Knoebel’s work, and that’s on me. I feel like it requires more understanding or immersion in the context of 80s German painting discourse than I’ve been willing to take on. And so frankly I only end up with an auction’s-eye view of it, which has never thrilled me. Imi Knoebel, Table, 1987, verso, via Grisebach Which is all a setup to still fail to explain how smitten I am by this wack Table from 1987. What even is going on here, table-wise? But the multiple side and underside views at Grisebach show an extraordinary construction, a weird mix of kludgy and precise, where dimensional lumber legs are mitered to the precise, weird angles they’re set into, and the whole thing looks painted by brush, and held together with tensioning keys? This is not a table, but a table-shaped sculpture. And though it was produced as an…