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Lot Essay
‘It is clear that a progressive scientific approach like my own can no longer concern itself with boorish causalities or self-satisfied reasons but must focus instead upon relationships, since without relationships, even causality itself might just as well pack up and leave, and every reason would be without consequence. Thus in my scientific work I concentrated upon the exploration of those relationships which genuinely bind things together, beyond their tendentious subdivision into ‘causes’ and ‘effects’. This whole system of classifying things as causes and effects must come to an end! We must create a world of free and equal phenomena, a world in which things are finally allowed to form relationships once again, relationships liberated from the bonds of servile textbook causality and narrow-minded, finger-pointing consecution... (for) only in these relationships is it possible to find the true meaning and the true order of things’ (S. Polke, quoted in ‘Early Influences, Later Consequences...’ in Sigmar Polke -The Three Lies of Painting, exh. cat., Kunst-und Ausstellugnshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschalnd, Bonn, 1997, pp. 289-290).
A mixture of unexpected form and material, Untitled demonstrates Sigmar Polke’s layering of various media through diverse processes to create an enduring abstract piece. Throughout the artist’s oeuvre, from his early rasterbild of the 1960s to his alchemical experiments from the 1980s onwards, he has consistently pushed the boundaries of his material and visual explorations, questioning the process of image making. Upon a polka-dotted fabric background, he has layered cream acrylic paint to produce an abstract web-like form. On top of this, we see examples of Polke’s raster dots, representing one of his most important and enduring motifs that he conceived first in the 1960s. Polke employed the technique, associated with modern newsprint, to subvert and question the apparent truth of the everyday images he appropriated. Here, he has returned to this process and its effects in a more abstract manner, painting a section on top of the cream acrylic in his recognisable raster technique in purple paint, interrupting the dynamic abstract form that dominates the composition. The overlaid raster serves no representational or mimetic purpose, but features in the work like a patterned screen that both reveals and obscures. On the top left hand corner, Polke has used dispersion fluid that has thinned the paint and reacted with it, producing delicate, vein-like lines in the paint. Through the layering of differing materials, a varied and unstable surface texture is created.
Through his exploration of process, material and ultimately the possibilities of painting, Untitled exemplifies Polke’s ambition and success as an artist. After exploring photography, Polke returned to this medium with a new vigour as he tested the properties of many new materials. This led to the production of abstract pieces that explored accident and chance, emphasized by the spontaneous form of the acrylic paint and the use of dispersion fluid in the present work. In this investigation of chance, Polke follows in the tradition of pioneering German painters such as Willi Baumeister, Oskar Schlemmer and Franz Krause whose Modulation und Patina painting is derived ‘almost completely independent of creative intention’ (W. Baumeister and H. Rasch, quoted in M. Hentschel, Sigmar Polke: The Three Lies of Painting, exh. cat., Kunst-und Ausstellugnshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschalnd, Bonn, 1997, p. 75). Polke has rejected any sense of control, allowing the paint to drip and cover the canvas naturally, resulting in an ambiguous and multi-layered surface that, like his oeuvre, denies any easy or functional categorisation. In Untitled, Polke shares his fascination with the inherent state of flux involved in the nature of perception, imagery and image-making within the real world through a shifting presentation of form, pattern and material.
A mixture of unexpected form and material, Untitled demonstrates Sigmar Polke’s layering of various media through diverse processes to create an enduring abstract piece. Throughout the artist’s oeuvre, from his early rasterbild of the 1960s to his alchemical experiments from the 1980s onwards, he has consistently pushed the boundaries of his material and visual explorations, questioning the process of image making. Upon a polka-dotted fabric background, he has layered cream acrylic paint to produce an abstract web-like form. On top of this, we see examples of Polke’s raster dots, representing one of his most important and enduring motifs that he conceived first in the 1960s. Polke employed the technique, associated with modern newsprint, to subvert and question the apparent truth of the everyday images he appropriated. Here, he has returned to this process and its effects in a more abstract manner, painting a section on top of the cream acrylic in his recognisable raster technique in purple paint, interrupting the dynamic abstract form that dominates the composition. The overlaid raster serves no representational or mimetic purpose, but features in the work like a patterned screen that both reveals and obscures. On the top left hand corner, Polke has used dispersion fluid that has thinned the paint and reacted with it, producing delicate, vein-like lines in the paint. Through the layering of differing materials, a varied and unstable surface texture is created.
Through his exploration of process, material and ultimately the possibilities of painting, Untitled exemplifies Polke’s ambition and success as an artist. After exploring photography, Polke returned to this medium with a new vigour as he tested the properties of many new materials. This led to the production of abstract pieces that explored accident and chance, emphasized by the spontaneous form of the acrylic paint and the use of dispersion fluid in the present work. In this investigation of chance, Polke follows in the tradition of pioneering German painters such as Willi Baumeister, Oskar Schlemmer and Franz Krause whose Modulation und Patina painting is derived ‘almost completely independent of creative intention’ (W. Baumeister and H. Rasch, quoted in M. Hentschel, Sigmar Polke: The Three Lies of Painting, exh. cat., Kunst-und Ausstellugnshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschalnd, Bonn, 1997, p. 75). Polke has rejected any sense of control, allowing the paint to drip and cover the canvas naturally, resulting in an ambiguous and multi-layered surface that, like his oeuvre, denies any easy or functional categorisation. In Untitled, Polke shares his fascination with the inherent state of flux involved in the nature of perception, imagery and image-making within the real world through a shifting presentation of form, pattern and material.