Art Calendar – Current Exhibitions in Germany

Whether paintings, photographs, drawings or prints, the art of Sigmar Polke is highly appreciated and highly priced. That was not always the case; as Ursula Panhans-Bühler emphasizes in her catalogue text for the current Polke exhibition in Siegen, the appreciation of Polke’s prints “limped comparatively helplessly” behind that of his other works. The Westerwald collector Axel Ciesielski, however, recognized the value of Polke’s editions. Between 1997 and 2009, he acquired all Polke’s about 200 prints, multiples and books and so possesses the world’s only complete editions work of the artist.

The exhibition in the Siegen Museum of Contemporary Art is entitled Die Vervielfältigung des Humors (The Multiplication of Humour) and provides an overview of Ciesielski’s collection of Polke’s editions. Included are Polke’s very first print, an invitation card for the Demonstrativen Ausstellung (i.e., Demonstrative Exhibition), in which he took part in 1963 in Düsseldorf together with Gerhard Richter, Konrad Lueg and Manfred Kuttner; his raster print of two Freundinnen (Girl Friends) from 1967; and the Apparat, mit dem eine Kartoffel eine andere umkreisen kann (Apparatus Whereby One Potato Can Orbit Another) from 1969.