Author Description

Working across an unusually broad range of media, Sigmar Polke is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists of the post-war generation. Experimenting wildly with materials and tools as varied as meteor dust and the Xerox machine, Polke made work of both intimate and monumental scale drawn from sources as diverse as newspaper headlines and Durer prints. He avoided any single signature style, a fluid method best defined by the word 'alibi' which means 'in or at another place'. This is also a reminder of the deflection of responsibility which shaped German behaviour during the Nazi period, necessitating that every artist of Polke's generation reinvent the role of the artist. Published in conjunction with the first comprehensive exhibition to encompass the artist's work across all media, this richly illustrated publication provides an overview of his crossdisciplinary innovations and career. Essays by Kathy Halbreich, Associate Director of The Museum of Modern Art, Mark Godfrey, Curator of International Art, Tate Modern, and other scholars and artists examine the full range of Polke's exceptionally inventive oeuvre and place his enormous scepticism of all social, political and artistic conventions against German history and the country's subsequent transformation during the post-war period.