Sigmar Polke can be defined as the most insatiably experimental artists of the twentieth century. The Tate Modern in London presents a retrospective of his work which gives a good vision of the broad range of media he worked with during his five-decade career – not only painting, drawing, photography, film and sculpture, but also notebooks, slide projections and photocopies.
To understand this show called “Alibis”, it is important to consider Polke’s biography. In 1945, near the end of World War II, his family fled Silesia (in present-day Poland) for what would soon be Soviet-occupied East Germany, and then escaped again, this time to West Germany, in 1953. Polke grew up at a time when many Germans deflected blame for the atrocities of the Nazi period with the alibi, ‘I didn’t see anything’. In various works in the exhibition, Polke opposes many Germans of his generation’s tendency to ignore the Nazi past, as if picking off the scab to reopen the wound.
Until February 8th, 2015.
Tate Modern – Bankside – London SE1 9TG
