BADEN-BADEN.- He was a magician when it came to forms and media and, at the same time, a cynic when it came to reality: in his multi-facetted images, moments of painting and elements of drawing, materials and patterns, photos and drawings are layered, collaged and contrasted while his pictorial worlds reflect critically on our social and political worlds – his irony was biting and nasty. Frequently, fine lines are laid over the surface of the picture, adding a dimension to those of area and space. The line connects, reconciles and inflates but it also crosses out, deletes and changes.

Today, Sigmar Polke, who died in 2010, counts among the great inventors of pictures and as one of the most important German painters of the past decades. Under the title Alchemy and Arabesque, the exhibition at Museum Frieder Burda focuses on the “mysterious grounds” for/of his painting and the elegant patterns of lines he formed for it. Prestigious loans from the artist’s legacy, international collections and museums complement the numerous exhibits from the Collection Frieder Burda, which identified the work of Sigmar Polke as one of its main focusses very early on. Curator Helmut Friedel explains the concept he drew up for this exhibition, which comprises more than 100 works: “The line, the drawing, is not even connected to the painted area; instead, it often leads a fragile life of its own at a short distance above it. Sigmar Polke must have loved this state of levitation, incompletion, reversibility and possibility, since it constantly returns in various forms like a leitmotif in his work. By focussing on his arabesques, we again create an equally insightful and exciting point of access to Polke’s oeuvre.”

Frieder Burda has this to say: “alongside Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke certainly belongs to the central figures in my collection. Therefore, it is particularly pleasing for me, ten years after our retrospective, to dedicate another exhibition to this wonderful artist who is sadly no longer with us.” He goes on to say: “Sigmar Polke was an excellent artist in terms of craftsmanship, a good painter and a remarkable drawer. His humour and background irony, his wealth of ideas and his ability to send himself up were unique. But above all, it is his childish curiosity and his joy at experimentation that fascinate me and which we want to put in the spotlight of our exhibition. As the person who best knows Polke’s oeuvre, Helmut Friedel follows the curved lines and arabesques into the depths and abysses of his pictures and in doing so, opens up a new and interesting perspective on his creativity.”

The lines in Polke’s pictures are “achieved” in different ways: by means of adhesive tape, templates, paints or by copying the wonderful arabesques of Dürer or Altdorfer. The busy backgrounds to his paintings are created by his choice of materials, such as fabrics, foils, grids or “magical” chemical processes arising from the mixture of chemicals, varnishes or even plant juices. Contrasts such as “deliberate” or more “random” constantly penetrate and overlay each other, whereby it never becomes truly clear where the driving force comes from. Hence, the fabric or resin pictures stand opposite the linear portrayals – the palm lines, beauty lines and curlicues – but in an embrace.

Sigmar Polke (* 13. February 1941 in Oels, Lower Silesia; † 10. June 2010 in Cologne) was a German painter and photographer. Polke’s early works, inspired by American pop art, reflected the consumer culture of post-war German society. With his grid and fabric pictures, he developed a pictorial cosmos that was entirely his own and simply cannot be pigeon-holed in stylistic categories. His attitude to painting included extremely ironic elements. Polke participated in documenta several times (1972, 1977 and 1982). In 1986, he conceived and realised the German pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale. The artist received several renowned international awards, such as the prize for painting at the XIIIth Biennale of São Paulo (1975), the Venice Art Biennale’s Golden Lion for his life’s work (1986), the city of Goslar’s art prize, the Kaiserring (2000), Tokyo’s Praemium Imperiale (2002) and the city of Siegen’s Rubenspreis (2007). In 2015, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne – in co-operation with the MoMA in New York and the Tate Gallery in London – posthumously dedicated an extensive retrospective to Sigmar Polke.