西格馬·波爾克

Private Collection, Europe (acquired directly from the artist)

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2011

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate although fails to convey the iridescent quality of the paint. Condition: This work is in very good condition. The sheet is attached verso to the backing board in several places. There is some slight undulation to the sheet. Very close inspection reveals a small unobtrusive crease to the lower right corner.
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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."

One of the most innovative and radically experimental artists of the Twentieth Century, Sigmar Polke’s illustrious oeuvre reshaped and deconstructed the illusions and conventions of painting and contemporary media. Contesting the traditional role of image-maker, he toyed with figuration and abstraction, experimented with film and photography and examined the physical properties of material and colour, producing an eclectic body of work that is unparalleled. Created in 1994, at the height of Polke's alchemical mastery of pigment and material, Untitled is a vivid drawing of almost mystical effect. Evocative of cosmic eruptions or paranormal effusions, it is a striking paradigm of Polke’s distinctive renunciation of figuration in favour of abstraction.

In a transfixing explosion of pigment, ethereal blues are dispersed on lyrical layers of whites and blacks. The jewel-like properties of pigment that resonate throughout Untitled captivate the viewer in an exhilarating visual experience, a complete enthrallment enhanced by the work’s impressive and monumental scale. A duality of serenity and chaos is deployed here to create an overall effect that is as dynamic as it is mesmeric. Created through the brushing, pouring and scattering of dispersion paint, pigment and solvent, amorphous shapes have formed on the sheet. The vibrant blue pigment has dispersed on impact with delicate tendrils emanating like diaphanous veins. As Mark Godfrey has pointed out: “Polke allowed materials to determine the process rather than the other way around, a strategy that can be seen as a means of removing subjectivity or the authorial power of the artist from the act of painting” (Mark Godfrey, ‘From Moderne Kunst to Entartete Kunst: Polke and Abstraction’, in: Exhibition Catalogue, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, (and travelling), Alibis: Sigmar Polke 1963-2010, 2014, p. 134). In a dynamic diffusion of form the work defies both the artist's and the viewer’s referential grasp and highlights the fragility of perception and the inherent constraints of assigning and fixing meaning.

Running as a thread through Polke’s diverse artistic methodology was his interest in the taxonomies of Modern Art and the formal and theoretical dichotomies of abstraction and figuration. In his 1968 works Modern Art and Constructivist the artist initially manifested this investigation by appropriating and re-evaluating the abstract language delineated by Modernists, such as Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky and Jackson Pollock, and later revisited the subject of abstraction in the 1980s and 90s. Whilst his early works are imbued with the humour and parody that defined his initial output, his later paintings are often considered the work of an innovative alchemist.

His long-standing interest in the reactionary qualities of chemicals was amplified during a trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea in 1980-81. Here, whilst examining the geology of Ayers Rock in northern Australia, Polke re-evaluated the effect and meaning of colour and materials. Looking back on the trip he explained: "I started thinking about colour and its treatment... how, for example, Hinduism explains and uses colour or how Australians use colour... Seeing how colours are made, out of what kind of materials..." (Sigmar Polke quoted in: ibid., p. 132). Challenging the parameters of painterly convention, he renounced the traditional notion of the artist’s hand and turned his inquiry to a unique investigation into alchemical transformations, his compositions being driven by the arbitrary nature and reactive possibilities of diverse materials and the power of colour. As Kathy Halbreich perceptively recognised: “Polke pushed his materials to the point where reason falters and where things begin to find their form not through the artist’s foresight or deliberate hand but through such non-rational conditions as gravity, accident, and the associative power of the unconscious” (Kathy Halbreich, ‘Alibis: An Introduction’, in: ibid., p. 66).

With a magical intensity, Untitled epitomises the chromatic profundity and gripping dynamism of Polke's alchemical explorations. Deliberating upon the subject of perception and representation, Untitled questions the very cornerstones of painting, as well as contending the authority of the image and its emblematic qualities. Replete with mystical splendour this work imparts a resounding physical and metaphysical experience.