Classical Modernism is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for the generations of artists that followed. This catalogue sheds new light on the relationship between modern and contemporary art across the generations and across the genres, through the encounter between the artists featured in two outstanding collections. In the early twentieth century the avant-garde prepared the way for a free treatment of colour, line and space and created new community models. Many contemporary artists have studied the legacy of modernism and pose new questions concerning the treatment of body, gender and identity. The new presentation of the modern art collection in the Pinakothek der Moderne shows these new ideas in cooperation with the Sammlung Goetz. Works of art from both collections as well as the Stiftung Ann und Jürgen Wilde enter into a new kind of dialogue. Artists: Francis Bacon, Max Beckmann, Huma Bhabha, Louise Bourgeois, Max Ernst, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Rodney Graham, Florence Henri, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Kathe Kollwitz, Jonathan Lasker, Sarah Lucas, Franz Marc, Henri Matisse, Paulina Olowska, Pablo Picasso, Thomas Schütte, Kiki Smith and Wolfgang Tillmans et. al.

Imi Knoebel – the “eternally young old master of a radically non-representational painting style�. Imi Knoebel (b. 1940) is regarded as a master of non-representational art. The monograph accompanying the retrospective in the Sammlung Goetz shows the entire spectrum of his creative artistic work from the 1960s until the present day. There is a particular focus on the connections between form and content within his works. Imi Knoebel is one of the great German artists of the present day. He studied at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf with Joseph Beuys and immediately won approval with his radically non-representational art. In his works he combines abstract painting with industrial materiality and a serial approach to his works. His oeuvre illustrated in this publication extends from black-and-white photographs to hardboard pictures, and from objects of cast concrete to acrylic paintings on aluminium.