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Passion is Our Driving Force Sigmar Polke - The Complete Editions (1963 - 2000) 3 November 2000 - 25 February 2001  
/   Following the successful retrospective Sigmar Polke - The Three Lies of Painting from 1997, the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany is proud to present the complete editions and graphic works of Sigmar Polke, comprising more than 200 works on display. These works, created during the past thirty years, mark another significant aspect of the artist’s prolific Œuvre and are shown here for the first time in their entirety. Polke’s inventiveness and pure joy of experiment lead to works which expand the limits of traditionally printed graphic art. From 1963, Sigmar Polke has produced close to 150 editions: A broad range of works deepening and extending his already highly diverse creations. A special feature of Polke’s working method is the individual treatment of each single print of an edition, transforming it into a unique work of art: most of them differ considerably from each other, and like hardly any other artist, Polke "interferes" into the production, frequently changing or rearranging single sheets or objects. His usage of diverse artistic techniques correlates with his position as a critic of his time and society. The repeated use of offset printing in his early prints is revolutionary during the sixties this technique was not commonly considered an artistic medium, and only very few artists worked with it. From the early seventies, Polke incorporated his own photographs into offset printing. His experiments in this body of work consist of treating the photographs with different forms of light in the laboratory. Beginning in the eighties, Polke used chemical manipulations in a painterly way. His painterly means are no longer pigments, but chemical substances. Polke has always used xerocopies to enlarge his offset images, enhancing the impact of the screendots and thereby creating new images. From the beginning of the nineties, he experimented with the manipulation of the copying process, moving the model during the process of exposure in different ways, interrupting the process and starting it anew. Today, he has reached the limits of experimentation on the copy machine and consequently turned his attention to the possibilities of digital image manipulation. The exhibition was shown before at the Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, curated by Martin Hentschel. It will be presented with significant modifications at the Kunsthaus Zürich, after its venue in Bonn. 
(german only)email: Susanne Kleine, Exhibition Curator and Project Manager in Bonn |
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produced and copyright by kunst- und ausstellungshalle der bundesrepublik deutschland
