Synopsis
ne of the most significant artists of his generation, Sigmar Polke came of age creatively around 1963 in Dsseldorf. His earliest expressive idiom was crude and humorous, its images outrageous, and its content seemingly trivial, but embedded in these works were subversive and parodic commentaries on consumer society, German postwar politics, and classic artistic conventions. Few of Polke's works demonstrate more vividly his imagination, sardonic wit, and eclectic creative process than the drawings, watercolors, and gouaches of the 1960s and early 70s. More than 300 works are illustrated, including small sketches in ballpoint and felt-tipped pen, larger sheets in watercolor and gouache, and still others stamped with a dot screen process, as well as pages from over a dozen small sketchbooks and several monumental works on paper. This books was published to accopany the first American exhibiton of these drawings shown at The Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1999.
About the Author
Sigmar Polke was born in East Germany in 1941 and studied at the State Academy of Art in Dusseldorf. He first achieved recognition in 1963 when he began working in a witty and irreverent style he termed "Capitalist Realism"--often considered a more complex and political cousin to Anglo-American Pop Art. He has continued to create innovative and aesthetically impressive works through the present day. He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at such major institutions as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, San Fransisco; the Musée de l'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; the Hirshorn Museum, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Brooklyn Museum; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Walker Arts Center; and, in 1999, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has been the recipient of the Venice Biennale' s "Golden Lion," the Erasmus award, and the Carnegie award. He lives and works in Cologne, Germany.
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