Sigmar Polke
27 Jan - 24 Apr 2010
SIGMAR POLKE
"Works from a decade"
27. January - 24. April
Our first meeting with Sigmar Polke occurred on the occasion of his retrospective exhibition "Sigmar Polke - Alchemist" at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in the spring of 2001.
This was not just a meeting with Sigmar Polke, but also with his partner Augustina von Nagel, an artist whose works we have had the pleasure of exhibiting twice since then, and with whom we still work.
In parallel with this, we have from time to time had the opportunity to present works by Polke to the Nordic public. After ten years, we have now decided to bring together a range of works from this period and exhibit them in the gallery, so that our visitors will have an opportunity to see the artist's works displayed on a larger scale than has previously been possible.
In that connection Erik Steffensen writes: "When you observe a painting by Sigmar Polke, you may come to doubt what it is you are actually seeing. You might have difficulty reading the painting because of a lack of ability to abstract. Or perhaps it is the artist who just has too much of it? Does he imagine the same as us, or does the picture really depict what it purports to be? Sieht man ja, was es ist (You can see what it is) is the title of one of his paintings from 1984. But perhaps that is precisely what we do not do? Now and again, with great humour, Sigmar Polke writes a couple of words in the picture which might lead the audience on the trail of the plot or the performance. In 1968 he wrote the words Modern Art on a canvas, on which he also painted some seemingly neat but spontaneously ordered splashes of colour and brushstrokes. What was that supposed to mean? We know very well that it is modern art, this apparently meaningless scribbling, don't we? Abstract art. Sigmar Polke plays with the canvas and the idea of a picture, as well as with the audience's thoughts and visions. More than any other contemporary artist, he manages to short-circuit, restart and point painting in new directions. That is what amuses Sigmar Polke. Apparently. Not because he wants to laughs at the audience, who may not always be able to follow his pranks all the way out to the micro-galactic space that he creates, but because the artwork may in itself intend and encourage the audience to join in the fun. Use your vision, feelings and ability to abstract. Go exploring. Feel the freedom. Sense the results in Sigmar Polke's Cosmic Laboratory.
He is far-fetched sometimes, Sigmar Polke. That much is obvious. He has a fondness for mushrooms and materials and transformations of all kinds: from graceful transparent layers to strange luminous colours. He experiments, to put it mildly, with both the surface and the underlying structures of the painting. He explores, you might say, the subconscious of the painting. But it is difficult to measure and quantify abstraction, and when it also appears in a form that seems to alter just like the paint that Sigmar Polke often uses, which changes colour when heated - well, then we are on the ropes, if not completely out of the ring, as far as ordinary comprehension is concerned. How can we find a way in to these pictures? It seems to be rather like looking at a substance through an electron microscope. What is that we see, besides observing the large in the small? The universality in a grain of sand that has collided with a few million other grains of sand and ended up under Sigmar Polke's gaze, to be approved and delivered to you? That must be it?
Mixed materials. Canvas is fabric, paper is soaked rags, soil is colour, and everything is one big chemical compound when it comes down to it. Also between people. And between art and the person. Sigmar Polke knows that only too well. But he is good at forgetting it when he paints. Then he is in flow, like an inconsiderable part of the great movement of the universe. But a flow that respects all phases of the history of the universe, from black holes to individual lives to the white dot on the map. Some might feel that Sigmar Polke has not articulated himself sufficiently precisely. That he has, so to speak, pronunciation difficulties in his painting. Others merely observe that he has dropped the bottle, and thereby changed the world forever. There are no mushroom clouds, no sauce stains here. But a generous art has seen the light of day. Art like the consciousness of a new-born baby. A miracle".
"Works from a decade"
27. January - 24. April
Our first meeting with Sigmar Polke occurred on the occasion of his retrospective exhibition "Sigmar Polke - Alchemist" at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in the spring of 2001.
This was not just a meeting with Sigmar Polke, but also with his partner Augustina von Nagel, an artist whose works we have had the pleasure of exhibiting twice since then, and with whom we still work.
In parallel with this, we have from time to time had the opportunity to present works by Polke to the Nordic public. After ten years, we have now decided to bring together a range of works from this period and exhibit them in the gallery, so that our visitors will have an opportunity to see the artist's works displayed on a larger scale than has previously been possible.
In that connection Erik Steffensen writes: "When you observe a painting by Sigmar Polke, you may come to doubt what it is you are actually seeing. You might have difficulty reading the painting because of a lack of ability to abstract. Or perhaps it is the artist who just has too much of it? Does he imagine the same as us, or does the picture really depict what it purports to be? Sieht man ja, was es ist (You can see what it is) is the title of one of his paintings from 1984. But perhaps that is precisely what we do not do? Now and again, with great humour, Sigmar Polke writes a couple of words in the picture which might lead the audience on the trail of the plot or the performance. In 1968 he wrote the words Modern Art on a canvas, on which he also painted some seemingly neat but spontaneously ordered splashes of colour and brushstrokes. What was that supposed to mean? We know very well that it is modern art, this apparently meaningless scribbling, don't we? Abstract art. Sigmar Polke plays with the canvas and the idea of a picture, as well as with the audience's thoughts and visions. More than any other contemporary artist, he manages to short-circuit, restart and point painting in new directions. That is what amuses Sigmar Polke. Apparently. Not because he wants to laughs at the audience, who may not always be able to follow his pranks all the way out to the micro-galactic space that he creates, but because the artwork may in itself intend and encourage the audience to join in the fun. Use your vision, feelings and ability to abstract. Go exploring. Feel the freedom. Sense the results in Sigmar Polke's Cosmic Laboratory.
He is far-fetched sometimes, Sigmar Polke. That much is obvious. He has a fondness for mushrooms and materials and transformations of all kinds: from graceful transparent layers to strange luminous colours. He experiments, to put it mildly, with both the surface and the underlying structures of the painting. He explores, you might say, the subconscious of the painting. But it is difficult to measure and quantify abstraction, and when it also appears in a form that seems to alter just like the paint that Sigmar Polke often uses, which changes colour when heated - well, then we are on the ropes, if not completely out of the ring, as far as ordinary comprehension is concerned. How can we find a way in to these pictures? It seems to be rather like looking at a substance through an electron microscope. What is that we see, besides observing the large in the small? The universality in a grain of sand that has collided with a few million other grains of sand and ended up under Sigmar Polke's gaze, to be approved and delivered to you? That must be it?
Mixed materials. Canvas is fabric, paper is soaked rags, soil is colour, and everything is one big chemical compound when it comes down to it. Also between people. And between art and the person. Sigmar Polke knows that only too well. But he is good at forgetting it when he paints. Then he is in flow, like an inconsiderable part of the great movement of the universe. But a flow that respects all phases of the history of the universe, from black holes to individual lives to the white dot on the map. Some might feel that Sigmar Polke has not articulated himself sufficiently precisely. That he has, so to speak, pronunciation difficulties in his painting. Others merely observe that he has dropped the bottle, and thereby changed the world forever. There are no mushroom clouds, no sauce stains here. But a generous art has seen the light of day. Art like the consciousness of a new-born baby. A miracle".