Sigmar Polke (1941-2010)

Taking his cue from the kind of questioning of rationalism and scientific certainty posed by Heisenberg and Wittgenstein and combining their disruptive theories with a unique personal mysticism which, he provocatively claims, operates according to the commands of 'higher beings', Polke's work presents a picture of reality as an unstable veil of Maya. Reality is a phenomenon, Polke's paintings argue, that can only ever be understood partially or in a fragmentary way and is best expressed within the pictorial frame of bizarre or surprising relationships that suggest meaning. Even if, by definition, it is a meaning that will forever remain undecipherable. Transcending linear and conventional understandings of time, space, reason, and always and above all, the mundaneness of a commonsensical view of the world, it is these chance-driven relationships that give Polke's pictures their
mystery, life and ability to captivate and enchant the imagination.