ART-PRESENTATION: Sigmar Polke-The Editions
Sigmar Polke’s images are products of his world and surroundings. They reveal many traces of the changing society of the postwar years. Trivial scenes, the banality of everyday life, ambitions of the middle classes, national and international politics, all of this, he put under a microscope to consider and analyze. This enabled him to convey a unique picture of reality, shot through with irony, humour, and pointed criticism.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: me Collectors Room Archive
The exhibition “The Editions” at me Collectors Room in Berlin presents the complete editioned works of Sigmar Polke, one of the most important contemporary artists. The first graphic piece was produced in 1963, establishing Sigmar Polke’s work group of editions. It was a square invitation card with a magazine cut-out stuck onto it, produced for the “Demonstrative Exhibition” that Polke showed together with Gerhard Richter, Konrad Lueg and Manfred Kuttner in Kaiserstrasse, Düsseldorf. Between this first multiple from his student days and the four large-format prints “Danneckers Hausgecko. Die Zwei Frauen” (2009), Sigmar Polke’s extremely multifaceted, humorous, ironically ambiguous and always very serious creative oeuvre emerged, with a total of circa 200 works. The artist’s editioned works hold a special place within his oeuvre. For Sigmar Polke editions were a further opportunity for intensive and excessive variations on his experiments, allowing him to stage a confrontation without end between himself and the world. Like an alchemist, he expected different techniques to bend to the will of his creative ego and so his editioned works comprise objects, books, portfolios, photographs, photocopies, collages, and numerous prints. Polke never allowed technique to dictate the progression of his artistic work. In part, he transformed identical prints into unique objects by altering the foreground, background, or layering. The Kunstraum am Limes Collection thus contains several variations of copies of the same edition, including, for example, “Freundinnen I” (1967), “Reihertanz” (1997) or “Sauberes Auto” (2002). Other works are compositions consisting of several layers and printed on both front and back, such as “Leave the Lab and Enter the Office” (1980–91) or “Eisberg” (2001). “Figur mit Hand (Es schwindelt…)” (1973) and “Danneckers Hausgecko” (2009) are serigraphs and lithographs, printed on textured, flocked paper embossed with lizardskin. On closer examination, the ‘dot’ print, a hallmark of Sigmar Polke paintings, becomes visible through the specific surface structure. A selection of Sigmar Polke’s posters is presented in parallel. Coloured, serial prints with everyday motifs appear as German-Pop in the vicinity of reportage-like, socially critical photos or mixed-media images produced on furnishing fabrics. Media and cultural history is reflected in the multiples based on adaptation of historical engravings into optical apparatus and magical procedures. Not only full of references but equally diverse technically, Polke ensnares the viewer by laying subtle traps in his works, so lending substance to his reputation as one of the most important artists of our times.
Info: Curator Tereza de Arruda, me Collectors Room Berlin / Olbricht Foundation Auguststrasse 68, Berlin, Duration: 28/4-27/8/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 12:00-18:00, www.me-berlin.com
