Sigmar Polke - Tate Modern

Sigmar Polke, Girlfriends, 1965/6

Whenever I read a positive article about Sigmar Polke I am filled with enthusiasm. I love the idea of an artist who makes work about sausages and socks; I am highly sympathetic to the ethos which is typically ascribed to his work: curator Mark Godfrey described him as an alchemist in reverse, "Gold seems to be turned into shit… We see [his work] more in terms of contamination and poison. It’s not really about transformation to raise things up – almost everything becomes toxic." His work is messy and confusing: "Polke’s paintings could be cantankerous and awkward and weirdly ugly, and could also leave you standing on the brink of beauty, wallowing in gorgeous colour." (Adrian Searle.) I like its roots in 'Capitalist Realism', his and Richter's sceptical response to Pop; I love the idea of its bloody-minded resistance to easy consumption. Which is also, unfortunately, just my problem - when I have actually seen his work I am often left feeling I don't quite 'get' it and frustrated. However, I will go to this retrospective (enthusiastically reviewed by Adrian Searle and Richard Dorment) and try again.

Read reviews by Adrian Searle, Waldemar Januszczak, Richard Dorment and a preview by Holly Williams. 

Sigmar Polke, The Sausage Eater, 1963

Sigmar Polke, Alice in Wonderland, 1971

Sigmar Polke, Heron Painting II, 1968

Sigmar Polke, Polke as Astronaut, 1968

Sigmar Polke, Portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald, 1963

Sigmar Polke, Untitled (Quetta, Pakistan), 1974-8

Sigmar Polke, 1941 - 2010

Sigmar Polke died on 10th June, 2010: see his obituary in The Guardian and Adrian Searle's memory of almost interviewing him.

(Sigmar Polke, Jeux d'enfants, 1988, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris)

John Baldessari contibuted the following to the catalogue for Polke's exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in 1990:

Polke is an Artist's Artist

Compare a similar artist's work to Polke's and it looks stiff and labored. His work emanates the stuff of life - it's music.

His work is a f0nt of ideas. Any one move can provide a career for a lesser artist. He is a font; a treasury.

The roller-coaster ride he takes one on with various stops for high and low culture is unpredictable, brash and irreverent.

Giotto and Matisse have long been in my pantheon. I'm thinking of adding a third - Polke. He makes me glad that I'm an artist.

(John Baldessari in Simpson (1991), 20)

Sigmar Polke: a selected bibliography

Bickers, Patricia (2003) “Angry White Man”, Art Monthly, No.271, November, pp1-5

Byatt, A.S. (2003) "Polke Dots", Tate Magazine, Issue 7

Curiger, Bice (1994) “The Flip Side of Things”, Parkett, No.40/41, pp118-35

Ferguson, Russell ed. (1995) Sigmar Polke: Photoworks: When Pictures Vanish, Los Angeles: MOCA, LA

Gintz, Claude (1985) “Polke’s Slow Dissolve”, Art in America, Vol.73, Dec., pp102-9

Graulich, Gerhard et al (1996) Sigmar Polke: Transit, Ostfilden-Ruit: Cantz

Hentschel, Martin et al (1997) Sigmar Polke: The Three Lies of Painting, Ostfilden-Ruit: Cantz

Lane, John R. and Wylie, Charles eds. (2003) Sigmar Polke: History of Everything: Paintings and Drawings, 1998-2003, London: Yale UP

Masters, Christopher (2010) “Sigmar Polke Obituary”, The Guardian, 14 June

Moure, Gloria (2005) Sigmar Polke: Paintings, Photographs and Films, Barcelona: Edicciones Polígrafa

Nesbit, Judith ed. (1995) Sigmar Polke: Join the Dots, London: Tate Gallery Publications

Schjeldahl, Peter (2008) “Sigmar Polke” in Let’s See: Writings on Art for the ‘New Yorker’, London: Thames & Hudson, pp135-7

Schmidt, Eva et al (2008) Sigmar Polke: Miracle of Siegen: The Lens Paintings, Köln: DuMont

Searle, Adrian (2010) "Sigmar Polke – sorry I missed you”, The Guardian, 16 June

Simpson, Frania ed. (1991) Sigmar Polke, San Francisco: SFMoMA