In the POLKE SALON 10: Sigmar Polke. Mother of Invention art historian Anja Isabel Schneider talks to Jean-Pierre Criqui, critic and curator at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, about Polke's great capacity for renewal, looking at themes in his work such as the circus and revolution.
The former scholarship holder of the Anna Polke Foundation deals with the circus as a motif in Sigmar Polke's work and as a potential metaphor for Polke's artistic stance, Criqui wrote in 2001 about the coolness of Sigmar Polke's group of works on the French Revolution and characterized him - under the influence of Frank Zappa - as the “true mother of invention”. We can be curious...
The former scholarship holder of the Anna Polke Foundation examines the circus as a motif in Sigmar Polke's work and as a potential metaphor for Polke's fundamental artistic approach.
Polke Post 27 - Invitation POLKE SALON with Jean-Pierre Criqui and Anja Isabel Schneider
POLKE POST 27
Invitation POLKE SALON 10: Sigmar Polke. Mother of Invention
And the world ended. Or so it seemed. Some kind of cosmic disorder, some belch or hiccup in the digestive order of the Galaxy…
Due to its indeterminacy and utopic, revolutionary potentialities, the circus has been of great appeal throughout the history to artists, filmmakers, and writers. The circus, too, features in the work of Sigmar Polke. In exploring the motif of the circus in Polke’s oeuvre, we can draw a line from his early Rasterbilder, such as Zirkus (Circus, 1966) to his later works, including Zirkusfiguren (Circus Figures, 2005). This research project is aimed at contributing to an analysis of Sigmar Polke and the circus—with an outlook that is both dialogic and transdisciplinary.
Starting from Polke’s multi-faceted artistic approaches that address the circus or elements thereof in works such as Messerwerfer (Knife Thrower, 1975)—in addition to exploring the circus as potential metaphor for Polke’s artistic stance—the theme of the circus proves fruitful in pointing out dialogic moments that engage with Polke’s legacy. This means not only focusing on Polke’s works, but also bringing in other voices, past and present, across different media. One such voice is that of author and filmmaker Alexander Kluge. Kluge, whose fascination with the circus gave rise to various films, literary texts, and exhibition projects, focuses on such relationality. This takes the form of multifarious dialogues. “My moon,” as Kluge poignantly notes, “does not shine if not illuminated by other constellations.”[1] Polke’s work, I posit, is endowed with such illuminating faculty.[2]
The theme of the circus points to different thematic undercurrents in Sigmar Polke’s oeuvre.
To be sure, Polke’s engagement with the circus not only forges links to social, economic, and political contexts, critically admonishing the political vice of utopian dreams in the realm of air, it also designates an alternate space that is both marginal and liminal. Its epitome figure, I venture, is the tightrope walker[3] and “other high-flying acrobats”: their risky, “death-defying leaps are the most extreme a body can produce, but it does bring them off.”[4] If the utopian element of the circus is underlined by thinkers such as Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, or Siegfried Kracauer, who ascribe utopian potential to the circus to reverse conventional world orders, to suspend rules, constraints, and restrictions that govern our reality, albeit only temporarily, we are to ask: What other spaces are delineated and alluded to under the big top in the here selected works? Exploring new inroads into Sigmar Polke’s artistic production, what solidarities, forms of cooperation and resistance come to the fore with respect to contemporary circus research and practice?
Featuring several hallmarks of Polke’s work, a street photograph, painted in dots, and a patterned fabric, form the backdrop to Zirkusfiguren (Circus figures, 2005). Against this background, clowns, acrobats, and animals each perform a balancing act. Polke juxtaposes Zirkusfiguren with Die Trennung des Mondes von den einzelnen Planeten (The separation of the moon from other planets, 2005), an abstracted rendering of the scene (mirrored/reversed), set against a mosaic pattern. To the now schematic circus figures, Polke adds two large dice that appear in the foreground. Beyond these overt references to chance and play, the work’s title Die Trennung des Mondes von den einzelnen Planeten propels us into the cosmic realm. As in Kluge’s pluriverse, cosmic motifs abound throughout Polke’s work. Take for instance Polke’s self-portrait as astronaut (Polke als Astronaut, 1968). The same year, the artist expands the planetary system with a 10th planet “Polke” that he invites us to explore (Erweiterung des Planetensystems um einen 10. Planeten, 1968). Circling back to Die Trennung des Mondes von den einzelnen Planeten, the line from Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus comes to mind. A literary exploration of cosmic interference amidst a profusion of tropes.
[1] Translated from the German: “Ohne von anderen Gestirnen beleuchtet zu werden, leuchtet mein Mond nicht.” Alexander Kluge, in “Glückliche Umstände, leihweise: Alexander Kluge im Gespräch mit Thomas Combrink, (ed.), Glückliche Umstände, leihweise, Frankfurt am Main, 2008, pp. 338-339.
[2] See Kluge’s homage to Polke Achsenzeit Axial Age (Hommage an Sigmar Polke), 2021, Productive Image Interference. Sigmar Polke and Artistic Perspectives Today, http://www.festival-anna-polke-stiftung.com (last accessed June 1, 2023).
[3] Polke has been described as a tightrope walker: “[…] ein Seiltänzer, ein richtiger Artist, ohne Netz und ohne doppelten Boden.” Bruno Brunnet, “Im stillen Gedenken an Schlingelchen,” BZ-Berlin, June 13, 2010.
[4] Ernst Bloch, “Better Castles in the Sky at the Country Fair and Circus, in Fairy Tales and Colportage,” (1959) in The Utopian Function of Art and Literature, Massachusetts, 1988, p. 179.
[5] Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus, 1984, manuscript to her magical realist novel, n. pag.
Excerpt from the exposé by Anja Isabel Schneider, scholarship holder of the Anna Polke Foundation, 2023