Lot 48 | Sigmar Polke | Untitled

POLKE, SIGMAR
1941 Oels/Lower Silesia - 2010 Cologne

Title: Untitled.
Date: ca. 1968-69/1990.
Technique: Gelatin silver print on Agfa.
Depiction Size: 50,5 x 53,5cm.
Notation: . Signed as well as dedicated to Kasper König.
Frame: Framed.


The photograph depicts the studio in Sigmar Polke's apartment in Kirchfeldstraße in Düsseldorf. The motif dates from around 1968-69, the print from around 1990.

We thank Mr. Michael Trier for the kind, scientific support.

Provenance:
- Kasper König Collection, Berlin (directly from the artist)

Early work of the artist
This work by Sigmar Polke from 1968/90 is from a series of six photographs that capture various arrangements of a spiral mounted on the wall from different angles. The black and white photograph from the König Collection was taken in the artist's flat, furnished with a lounger, cushion, blanket and a flower under a sloping roof. The central eye-catcher is the spiral of measuring tape and drawing pins, humorously mounted on the white wall. Polke supplements the spiral with round elements next to or on the line when it takes a different direction. Other circular elements include black records and a plate as well as a drawing depicting an ammonite.

Loops in Polke's work
Parallel to these photographic works, there is another variation, which Polke has labelled a 'boredom loop'. In contrast to his private space, Polke arranged this version on a high studio or exhibition wall. These variations, as well as this photograph from Polke's early oeuvre, document his playful approach to symbolic themes from art history. The theme of inspiration is explored in another photographic work, 'Higher beings command', also using everyday objects. In his contribution to the German Pavilion at the 1986 Venice Biennale, Sigmar Polke returned to the theme of the loop that spirals across a picture surface. On the surface of the painting, the lines refer to the woodcut 'Der Triumphwagen Kaiser Maximilians I' by Albrecht Dürer, created in 1522.

Polke and König
Sigmar Polke and Kasper König met in the 1960s through Konrad Lueg, who later founded the Konrad Fischer Gallery in Düsseldorf. König exhibited Polke's works in the two significant exhibitions 'Westkunst' in Cologne and 'Von hier aus' in Düsseldorf in the first half of the 1980s and invited him to Portikus in Frankfurt am Main in 1994. The collaboration continued when König became director of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne in 2000.