Lot 159
  • 159

Sigmar Polke

Estimate
160,000 - 250,000 GBP
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Description

  • Sigmar Polke
  • Untitled
  • signed and dated 1999
  • acrylic and dispersion on paper
  • 196.5 by 148cm.; 77 3/8 by 58 1/4 in.

Provenance

Private Collection, Vienna (acquired directly from the artist)
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Condition

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly brighter in the original. The illustration fails to fully convey the iridescent quality of the surface apparent in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There is very light undulation to the sheet.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

"I like the way the dots in a magnified picture swim about and move about. The way that motifs change from recognisable to unrecognisable – the undecided, ambiguous nature of the situation, the way it remains open", Sigmar Polke in: Dieter Hülsmanns, Kultur de Rasters. Aussteller Gespräch mit dem Maler Sigmar Polke', in: Rheinische Post, 10 May 1966

 

Internationally regarded as one of the most important artists of our era, Sigmar Polke has shaped his artistic career through technical innovation, probing intelligence and almost obsessive investigation into visual culture. Continually taking as his point of departure the artifice of the image and his role as image-maker, in Untitled Polke once again tackles the illusions and paradoxes of the painting through the deconstruction of the mediated common image and its reconstruction into a work of art.

 

In the mid-1990s Polke became fascinated with the random mistakes made by the commercial printing press and the manner in which a scratch or a smudge could disconnect the original from its mass-produced representation. Focusing on these irregularities that mistakenly become part of the norm, Polke once again turned to the common image in his Druckfehler, or 'Printing Mistakes' series, to investigate the poles between representation and abstraction.  Using a photocopier, the artist enlarged, distorted and magnified again the mistakes of the press until the meaning or function of the original was abstracted beyond recognition, and the image as a whole lost in its own minutiae.  At first glance, the present work appears to be a work of creative and emotional of impulse worthy of the American Abstract Expressionists of the 1960s. However, in reality it is an amorphous work of careful and pointed premeditation, where the waves of colour, carefully printed raster dots and the tonal play of blacks and greys ruptures in the image.

 

By transferring meaning from one context to another, Polke not only challenges the viewer to define exactly what they are seeing, but also questions the very authority of the image and its role as a tool of communication by critiquing issues of perception and reality in a media-obsessed works. Through the magical hues of the current work, Polke masterfully highlights the fragility of perception and the inherent problems of assigning fixed meaning.