POLKE POST 12 takes a look at Polke’s fascination with the magical. At the invitation of Burg Hülshoff – Center for Literature, Anna Polke and Sophia Stang took part in the digital Droste Festival on the subject of Dark Magic. The evening on June 25, 2021 was dedicated to magical correlations between the work of Sigmar Polke and Thomas Kling: Magier unter sich und unter uns: Thomas Kling und Sigmar Polke (Magicians among themselves and among us: Thomas Kling and Sigmar Polke) – a reading, talk, and panel discussion with Anna Polke, Marcel Beyer, Sophia Stang, and Gabriele Wix.
We are taking this special event as an opportunity for our POLKE POST and to share an excerpt from the lecture “Du musst schnell gucken.” Magie und flüchtige Materialisierungen im Werk Sigmar Polkes (“You have to look quickly.” Magic and ephemeral materializations in the work of Sigmar Polke) by Sophia Stang.
Polke Post 12 - Droste Festival Dark Magic: Sophia Stang about magic in the work of Sigmar Polke
POLKE POST 12
Magic in the work of Sigmar Polke
Ghosts, magicians, optical illusions, magic lanterns, magic squares, and parapsychological phenomena. Sigmar Polke productively employed magic on a variety of levels in his work, as content for his painting or bound to the representation of specific figures or objects, but it was even more appealing to him as a fertile breeding ground for creative processes. This was made manifest in his interest in alchemical procedures, the powers of materials, and the sometimes unpredictable transformations engendered by their interconnections. The magical, whether of spiritual origin or the features of particular materials, plays a substantial role in his games with the image support and the audience, who, in confronting Polke’s chameleon-like imagery feel tempted to move back and forth, crouch down, stand on tiptoe, and go very close to the painting, or even to catch a glimpse behind it.
“You have to look quickly. You have to look at my paintings very quickly. [...] An image only becomes an image if you add something of your own. With images that change you have to insert yourself into them to be able to flow with them. Otherwise, you’re out of the frame. Otherwise, the painting will fall off the wall.”[1]
During the 1980s, Polke’s interest in supernatural phenomena, inexplicable forces, and perceptual illusions was complemented by his enthusiasm for pigments, their origin, manufacture, and history, as well as types of earth and minerals. Inspired by his extensive travels during that decade – including, above all, his more than one-year long trip through Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, and Thailand from spring 1980 to 1981 – he began dedicating himself to the study of pigments. […] The chromatic qualities of violet pigment in particular aroused his interest. As he described it: “[…] I became involved with pigments, not the earth colors but rather violet. An entirely abstract matter that only exists here, which is surprising for me too.”[2] He worked with this common industrial pigment on a considerable number of his paintings from the 1980s onwards, including the group of works Negativwerte (Negative Values) from 1982, which Polke presented, in the year of its creation, at documenta 7 organized by Rudi Fuchs. A golden glint envelops the three 260 × 200 cm canvases, which the artist created by rubbing and polishing the pigments after their application, and which were reflected and intensified by the canvases’ white primer.[3] The fall of light transforms the paintings’ appearance – no-one witnesses the same visual instance, depending on angle the paintings alternate between light and dark, shimmering purple, olive green, and gold. The title of the works evokes photographic processes, that is negative film’s inversion of tonal values, which in terms of the material is conversely indexed to the luminosity and color of the motif being recorded, the light becoming dark and the dark light.
The shimmering pigments evoke a cosmic glow, which is simultaneously swallowed by the dark depths of the canvases; galactic lineaments and structures can be discerned, reminiscent of stellar nebulae and shifting scenes in the nocturnal sky, as well as celestial dark matter. Polke added the names of the stars Alcor, Mizar, and Aldebaran to the three works’ titles. Aldebaran belongs to the Taurus constellation and is one of the brightest stars in the sky. Mizar is a bright double star that is accompanied by the smaller star Alcor (horse and rider); the two form the drawbar of the Big Dipper and are regarded as “eye tests”: they are visible to the naked eye, providing a challenge for the observer’s eyesight. The observing eye likewise searches for fixed points in Polke’s Negativwerte. In attempting to photograph the paintings, for example as exhibits, they apparently swallow any light. The dark depths that they conjure are also reminiscent of a black mirror (an obsidian), which, as a device employed in both magic and fortune-telling, promises supernatural insights. [...]
Initially, this new material aspect of Polke’s work was not unanimously welcomed by critics. In 1984, for example, the Negativwerte were shown by Harald Szeemann in a minor display in the stairwell for the monographic exhibition at Kunsthaus Zürich.[4] His works had previously been regarded as caustic commentaries on current social and political events, which now seemed to be lacking. If this is considered in terms of the subject matter being focused on here, it becomes clear that it was not, in fact, a radical change but a consistent continuation of his work (as already demonstrated in other contexts). What they have in common is a questioning approach and an invitation to look critically, because we do not generally see things as they are. Illusion and the enigmatic are essential aspects of Sigmar Polke’s work in various genres. His material experiments are likewise characterized by both disruptions to the expected outcome of processes and “incorrect” results. [...]
In the “chameleon-like nature”[5] of his works, employing movement, changeability, the possible, and processual, Polke countered the paradox that works of art exist in stagnation since they are unavoidably things that have been created.
Accessing the mystical realms of magic, sorcery, and alchemy supported his concern to avoid the invariable in his work; a fixation on origin, history, authorship and, last but not least, the supposed truths that paintings claim to convey. The continuous change and vibrating of his paintings not only force us to look quickly, but also to constantly question our own perceptions, according to what is true and false, what is dream, sorcery, or magic, and what is reality.
Sophia Stang
[1] Sigmar Polke, quoted after the Engl. version of the interview from Art Press, in: Parkett, No. 26, 1990, pp. 18-26, here: 25 [transl. amended].
[2] Ibid., p. 19 [transl. amended].
[3] I would like to thank Michael Trier for providing key technical details.
[4] For this also see Bice Curiger in the context of POLKE SALON 2 in conversation with Julie Sissia, https://www.anna-polke-stiftung.com/en/events/.
[5] Thomas McEvilley, Flower Power or Trying to Say the Obvious about Sigmar Polke, in: Parkett, No. 30, 1991, pp. 32–40, here: 40.