Sigmar Polke

Sigmar Polke

Sigmar Polke (born February 13 1941) is a German painter and photographer.

Life and works

Polke was born in Oels in Lower Silesia. He fled with his family to Thuringia in 1945 during the Expulsion of Germans after World War II. His family escaped from the Communist regime in East Germany in 1953, traveling first to West Berlin and then to Düsseldorf.

Upon his arrival in West Germany, in Wittich, Polke began to spend time in galleries and museums and worked as an apprentice in a stained glass factory called Dusseldorf Kaiserswerth, before entering the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Art School) at age twenty. From 1961-1967 he studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy under Karl Otto Goetz and Gerhard Hoehme and began his creative output during a time of enormous social, cultural, and artistic changes in Germany and elsewhere. During the 1960s,Düsseldorf, in particular, was a prosperous, commercial city and an important center of artistic activity.

In 1963 Polke founded “Kapitalistischen Realismus” (Capitalistic Realism), a painting movement with Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg (later called Konrad Fischer). It is an anti-style of art, appropriating the pictorial short-hand of advertising. This title also referred to the realist style of art known as ‘Socialist Realism’, then the official art doctrine of the Soviet Union (from which he had fled with his family), but it also commented upon the consumer-driven art ‘doctrine’ of western capitalism. He also participated in “Demonstrative Ausstellung”, a store-front exhibition in Düsseldorf with Kuttner, Lueg, and Richter.

Polke's creative output during this time of enormous social, cultural, and artistic changes in Germany and elsewhere, demonstrate most vividly his imagination, sardonic wit, and subversive approach in his drawings, watercolors, and gouaches produced during the 1960s and 1970's. Embedded in these images are incisive and parodic commentaries on consumer society, the postwar political scene in Germany, and classic artistic conventions. [Sigmar Polke: Works on Paper 1963-1974, MOMA; ISBN 0-87070-082-0.]

The anarchistic element of the work Polke developed, was largely engendered by his mercurial approach. His irreverence for traditional painting techniques and materials and his lack of allegiance to any one mode of representation has established his now-respected reputation as a visual revolutionary. Paganini, an expression of "the difficulty of purging the demons of Nazism" - witness the "hidden" swastikas - is typical of Polke's tendency to accumulate a range of different mediums within one canvas. It is not unusual for Polke to combine household materials and paint, lacquers, pigments, screen print and transparent sheeting in one piece. A complicated "narrative" is often implicit in the multi-layered picture, giving the effect of witnessing the projection of a hallucination or dream through a series of veils.

Polke embarked on a series of world travels throughout the 1970s, photographing in Pakistan, Paris, New York, Afghanistan, and Brazil. From 1977-1991 he was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Hamburg. He settled in Cologne, where he continues to live and work.

In 2007, Vienna's Museum Moderner Kunst held an exhibition of Polke's work entitled, "Sigmar Polke: Retrospektive" that spanned his career from his appropriations of Pop imagery and continuing through decades of perplexing compositions and clever critiques to arrive at current works that employ a haze of chemicals, minerals, and paints. [citation | title= Top Ten Europe | author=Robert Ayers | publisher=MUSEUMS MAGAZINE | year=2007 | date= July 12, 2007| url=http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/25332/top-ten-europe/| accessdate=2008-04-29 ]

Notes and References

Recognition

*1964: “Neodada Pop Decollage Kapitalistischer Realismus”, Galerie René Block, Berlin; Awarded the Young Germans award in Baden-Baden with Klaus Geldmacher and Dieter Krieg
*1975: Awarded the prize for painting at the XIII Bienal de Sao Paulo
*1986: Awarded a “Golden Lion” at the XLII Biennale di Venezia
*1988: Awarded the 1988 Baden-Württemberg International Prize for Painting
*1994: Awarded the Erasmus Prize (Amsterdam)
*1995: Carnegie Award at the Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
*1998: International Center of Photography, Infinity Award for Art; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York
*2002: "Praemium Imperiale" awarded by the Japan Art Association
*2007: Awarded the Rubens Prize (Siegen, Germany) x

See also

*The Portrait Now

External links

* http://www.michaelwerner.com

* [http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/artistInfo/artist/524/lang/1 "Current exhibitions and connection to galeries at Artfacts.Net" ]
* [http://www.galerieleu.de/artists/sigmar_polke/biography/ Exhibitions and literature]
* [http://www.goethe.de/kue/bku/thm/kab/en2132118.htm Portrait of the artist by the Goethe-Institut]


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  • Sigmar Polke — (* 13. Februar 1941 in Oels, Niederschlesien; † 10. Juni 2010 in Köln) war ein deutscher Maler und Fotograf. Seine Malerei war dem postmodernen Realismus zuzuordnen (Kapitalistischer Realismus) und zitierte Ausdrucksweisen der Pop Art, ohne dass… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Sigmar Polke — Nacimiento 13 de febrero de 1941 Oels, Baja Silesia, Polonia Fallecimiento 10 de junio de 2010 69 años Colonia, Alemania …   Wikipedia Español

  • Sigmar Polke — Naissance 13 février 1941 Oels (Silésie) Décès 11 juin 2010 (à 69 ans) Cologne (Allemagne) Nationalité …   Wikipédia en Français

  • POLKE (S.) — Sigmar POLKE (1941 ) Le peintre allemand Sigmar Polke est né en 1941 à Oels en Silésie; il arrive à Berlin Ouest en 1953. Il vient de la République démocratique allemande, où le dogme du réalisme socialiste est tout puissant. Il étudie à… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • Sigmar — ist ein männlicher Vorname. Herkunft und Bedeutung Der Name Siegmar stammt aus dem Althochdeutschen: sigu (Sieg) + mari (‘berühmt’ oder ‘sagenhaft‘, wie in Mär). Namensträger Sigmar Gabriel (* 1959), deutscher Politiker (SPD) Sigmar von Holleneck …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Polke — ist der Familienname folgender Personen: Emil Polke (1858–1930), österreichischer sozialdemokratischer Politiker Johannes Polke (* 1931), deutscher Theologe, Heimatforscher und Journalist Sigmar Polke (1941–2010), deutscher Maler und Fotograf… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Polke, Sigmar — ▪ German artist born Feb. 13, 1941, Oels, E.Ger. [now Oleśnica, Pol.]       German artist whose complex and layered paintings played an important role in the resurgence of modern German art.       Polke emigrated with his family from East Germany …   Universalium

  • Polke — Pọlke,   Sigmar, Künstler, * Oels 13. 2. 1941; seit 1989 Professor an der Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg. Seine großformatigen »Rasterbilder« haben die unpersönliche Reproduktionstechnik der Massenmedien zum Thema, seine Stoffbilder… …   Universal-Lexikon

  • Johannes Polke — (* 20. Mai 1931 in Ludwigsdorf) ist ein deutscher Theologe, Heimatforscher und Journalist. Polke wurde in Ludwigsdorf geboren. Zu seinen Geschwistern zählen die Künstler Wilfrid Polke und Sigmar Polke. Nach dem Schulbesuch in Oels und Dingelstädt …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Wilfrid Polke — Eiserner Ritter (Ebernburg) Wilfrid Polke (* 1932 in Oels, Niederschlesien) ist ein deutscher Bildhauer und Maler. Nach dem Abitur und einer Bildhauerlehre studierte er von 1954 bis 1959 an der Staatlichen Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Polke ist… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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