Sigmar Polke
“Music from an Unknown Source”
“Moderne Kunst” and an Excursion into Polke’s Black

The longer we look at Sigmar Polke’s work, the more clearly we see before our eyes its special power of regeneration. A power that even extends to elements from far back, to previously unremarked features that then re-emerge under the guise of new ‘finds.’ Polke’s work is replete with moments of covert and covert anticipation. A complex web of diversity is not only evident within individual pictures but also stretehes- retrospectively –between works that might otherwise appear to be temporal and aesthetic poles apart.

‘Moderne Kunst’ (Modern Art) from 1968 has rightly been credited with irony, parody and a ‘tabula rasa’ attitude that clearly demonstrates Polke’s alert response to the feeling of times. ‘Moderne Kunst’ –laconic and audaciously ‘poster-like’ in style- is unique in the history of post-war art.

An Expensive One-Hander in 40 Parts

The forty gouaches presented in this exhibition are all 70x100 cm and all made in 1996. In them Polke presents a contemporary chamber recital of “cosmic tasters” of his entire artistic output, at the same time affording an insight into its riches.

Tables of Elements

In 1964 Polke painted eleven sausages spaced evenly across the canvas. They resemble curved brushstrokes. They are isolated and would make a good brain teaser: “Ceci n’est pas une saucisse!” –this is not a sausage and it is not a cucumber either and I am poor artist. I know all about the game of illusionism but my home is in the universe. I juggle with ideas from the USA, with serialism and all-overs. What should a person paint when people after the war had to deal with basic issues, specially after we could no longer expect any nourisment from the French brushstroke?

One of the pictures in this exhibition has title ‘using such laughably simple little words like “always” or “never” or “unfortunately” or “aw” (No. 12) . Only too aware that the full might of world literature consists of precisely such laughably simple little words, we can only laugh with Polke at this ridiculously ambitious undertaking. Particularly with his pronounced leaning towards ‘laughably simple’ dots, lines and splats of colour, nothing is too menial in Polke’s eyes to play a part in something ultimately grandiose.

Music from an Unknown Source

Moderne art has taught us to see, how to see seeing, seeing that observes itself; and this also part of what Poyke’s early painting, ‘Moderne Kunst’ tells us. But unlike other Modernist, Sigmar Polke does not take art as the starting point for his voyage of discovery: instead he starts from reality and what reality could become.

‘Music from an unknown source: seal off doors and do not enter the room’ is the title of No. 39. Is this a grim comment on the house of art? Or on the houses of those who do not know Polke’s art? Polke’s work is about the sensualisation of thinking: thinking that is anchored in perception. Let the music in –all of it! For Polke’s art is a joyous hymn to thinking and tumultuous life.

Sigmar Polke's exhibition can be visited at the Millî Reasürans Art Gallery from November 7 to 27, 2001.