Sigmar Polke (1941-2010)

"I split myself in two, so to speak, so as not to do injustice to myself and the things outside my person and somehow suppress them. Perhaps, everything will come together sometime, that I can’t say, I’m very happy about this sort of manysidedness." (S. Polke, quoted in D. Hülsmanns,’Kultur des 'Rasters: Ateliergespräch mit dem Maler Sigmar Polke’, in Rheinische Post, 10 May 1966)

“The processes are what interest me. The picture is not really necessary. The unforeseeable is what turns out to be interesting.” (S. Polke, quoted in Sigmar Polke Farbproben-Materiealversuche-Probierbilder aus den Jahren 1973-1986, exh. cat., Galerie Klein, Bad Münstereifel, 1999, n.p.)

“[Polke’s] work emanates the stuff of life—it’s music. His work is a font of ideas. Any one move can provide a career for a lesser artist. He is a font; a treasury. The roller coaster ride he takes one on with various stops for high and low culture is unpredictable, brash, and irreverent. Giotto and Matisse have long been in my pantheon. I’m thinking of adding a third—Polke. He makes me glad that I’m an artist.” (J. Baldessari, quoted in Sigmar Polke, exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, 1990, p. 20)