Sigmar Polke held no regard for the cult of genius and the pathos of masters; he mocked the art world that lay at his feet. An artist who gleefully destroyed every semblance of order in his pictures, the art world celebrated him nonetheless, frenetically showering him with prizes and superlatives.
(...) Continue readingSigmar Polke – Studies in Düsseldorf; founding of ‘Capitalist Realism’
Sigmar Polke was born on 13 February 1941 in Oels, Lower Silesia. The youngest of three sons, his brothers were the evangelist theologian Johannes Polke and sculptor Wilfrid Polke. At the end of the war, the Polke family fled initially to Thüringen and finally in 1953 out of the GDR to the Federal Republic. Sigmar Polke trained as a glass painter in Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth, and from 1961 studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy under Karl Otto Götz and Gerhard Hoehme. He founded a new art style with his colleagues Konrad Lueg, Manfred Kuttner and Gerhard Richter, which they named ‘Capital Realism’, based on the rejection of the established art industry that was to be characteristic for Sigmar Polke’s entire career. For the young painters, however, it was initially quite pragmatically a case of creating alternative ways of presenting their work, since their attitude meant that traditional exhibiting options were denied them.
Artist’s commune; teaching activities; delight in experimentation
From 1972, Sigmar Polke spent six years establishing a studio collaboration with a changing cast of guests and artist friends in Willicher Gaspelshof, and in 1978 he moved to Cologne. He taught as professor on and off for several years at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts and promoted the Pop Art painter Memphis Schultze in his early period. Bored of the traditional methods, Polke began his notorious experiments in which he unleashed an unparalleled creativity. There was barely a material that Polke deemed unsuitable for artistic use. Snail slime, uranium, meteorite dust, even the highly poisonous cobalt nitrate. The art world was enchanted, and celebrated him as a ‘magicican’ and ‘alchemist’ – attracting once again the contemptuous derision of the artist, who never wanted to make friends with the customs of the scene.
Mockery and contempt for the established art industry
Despite the artist’s contempt, the art world loved Sigmar Polke from early on, inviting him to fairs and exhibitions and showering him with praise. He took part in documenta 5 in Kassel as early as 1972, represented in the area of Individual Mythologies. Two further documenta followed in 1977 and 1982 and he also showed his works at the prominently studded group exhibition Zeitgeist. In 2006, he received his largest public commission as part of an artist competition: the redesign of the glass windows of Grossünster in Zürich. Notwithstanding these successes, Polke met the innovations of his followers mostly with biting irony. He chose not to name many of his pictures or gave them a provocative title with mocking innuendos. He is even said to have urinated on the expensive coat of a wealthy collector who visited his studio. The fact that collectors were paying hefty prices for his work did not make the artist feel any better: occasionally he demonstratively destroyed his pictures in front of an interested buyer. The art critic Adrian Searle, with whom he had actually arranged to be interviewed, was simply stood up and found himself at the closed door of a darkened studio. However, these escapades did not diminish his fame; on the contrary, the more clearly Polke articulated his rejection, the more he was celebrated.
Sigmar Polke died in Cologne on 10 June 2010 from cancer.
Sigmar Polke - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz:
