Sigmar Polke essays

Sigmar Polke essays One of the most important and influential figures on the artistic scene today, Sigmar Polke began his career as a painter in 1963. A number of drawings from the first decade of his activity, most of which has never been seen in the United States, have been assembled for Sigmar Polke: Works on Paper, 1963-1974. Ranging from ballpoint and felt-tipped pen drawings devoted to Capitalist Realism imagery to a series of monumental works from the 1970s, the selection of about 180 drawings and some twenty sketchbooks illustrate all the themes and techniques that Polke explored during this time. Polke was born in East Germany in 1941. At the age of twelve he moved to Dusseldorf, where he studied at the Kunstakademie and produced his first work. Although his work is contemporaneous to American Pop art, Polke demonstrates a different relationship to consumerism than his American counterparts. Rather than showing the glories of modern life, he distorts or disrupts the ready-made iconography, filling it with a personal message. Exhibitions of drawings have been organized in Europe; they have never been fully shown to an American audience. If you want consistency in an artist, you will never find it in Polke. His imagination is sardonic wit and eclectic creative process that have made him one of the most stimulating artists of his generation. Polke has experimented with various styles in modern art ranging from grisaille portraits of furniture, interiors of houses, building exteriors and hand-painted rasters of dots. Polke didnt have the best of materials-usually ballpoint pen on newsprint, sometimes with watercolor or colored pencil-he drew bits and pieces of cartoons and advertisements. Polke also used dots in his works, throwing dot and circle patterns into different pictures. An example Polke did was an Oswald portrait, which was One of the Raster Drawings, most of which employ anonymous figures that...