A major collection of works on paper by one of the world’s most influential contemporary artists is on show at the DELL Gallery @ QCA until September 8.
SIGMAR POLKE: Music from an Unknown Source brings together a series of 40 gouaches, all produced in 1996, making for a rich insight into Polke’s wider practice.
Polke was born in Silesia (then East Germany, now Poland) in 1941 and studied art at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf under Joseph Beuys between 1961 and 1967.
Along with fellow students Gerhard Richter and Konrad Fischer, he was a founding member of the pop-inspired ‘Capital Realist’ style of art, which depicted objects of desire from advertising and news sources.
Since the 1960s, Polke’s work has resisted easy definition, the results of which can be unexpected, ironic, humorous and whimsical.
In the gouaches of this exhibition, Polke makes the dripping and flowing of paint his theme, originating from the character of the watery gouaches. The controlled and uncontrolled ‘allowing to happen’ of physical phenomena plays an important role for him.
Music from an Unknown Source is an international touring exhibition, developed by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (IFA) in Germany and presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Sydney.
DELL Gallery @ QCA is the only venue in Queensland to host the exhibition before it tours overseas.
Call (07) 3735 7414 for more information or visit: www.griffith.edu.au/centre/artworks