Francisco de Goya lived at the height of his career, from the second half of the 18th century until his death in 1828, during what universal history calls the end of the modern era. German artist Sigmar Polke (1941-2010) grew up at the end of another era: Germany’s defeat in World War II, which led him to first live in the east ( Silesia) then to the west (Düsseldorf). ). When the German traveled to Madrid in 1982 to discover the work of Goya, he felt an immediate connection with the way in which the Aragonese, like him, used satire, the macabre and criticism to reflect a society in mutation. The dazzle was such that Polke always dreamed of having his works exhibited alongside those of the Spaniard.
The wish now comes true with the opening of the exhibition on Tuesday Sigmar Polke. Affinities revealed. Through 40 pieces (paintings, photographs, drawings and objects) by what is considered one of the most influential contemporary European artists, the exhibition shows the influence that the author of the works had on him. black paints, before and after seeing their production in person. “The fall of an established world and the beginning of another which remains to come, but with a dominant reluctance not to accept it, unites Polke with Goya. The Spaniard questioned the modernity he saw emerging, and the German knew the two regimes of divided post-war Germany; “He experienced the consequences of a war,” explains commissioner Gloria Moure.
Moure has studied Polke since his doctoral thesis and has directed his two solo exhibitions in Spain: in 1993 and in 2000. This is the first time that a solo exhibition of his has taken place in Madrid. “In the 80s, he spent six weeks here with almost daily visits to the Prado. We talked a lot about the Prado, and when I came to see the museum, he asked me if a series of paintings were still there. I am convinced that my father would be moved to see his works exhibited with those of Goya,” declared Anna Polke, the German writer’s daughter, during the presentation. The exhibition reveals the affinities between the two creators in three areas: the artistic, political and social circumstances which marked them; the dark iconography they shared and the specific work of the painting.
Polke entered the world art scene after founding, in 1963, with Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg, the movement capitalist realisma parody of socialist realism which was then the official artistic doctrine of the Soviet Union. The group draws inspiration from the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein to appropriate the language of advertising and satirize objects arriving from the United States and with them the free market model. However, when Polke first encountered Goya’s paintings in person, in the 1980s, he had already abandoned this stage and was going through a phase of prolific experimentation. In the Prado exhibition, his works are hung with a multitude of materials, such as gouache, acrylic, ballpoint pen, printed fabric, lacquer, synthetic resin, tracing paper or lapis lazuli.
Interest in the magical and the paranormal
The work of the Aragonese that impressed him the most, The ancients or Time (1810-1812), is not in Spain, but at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, which loaned the work to be exhibited in this current exhibition. Polke traveled to France twice to photograph the painting and requested an X-ray of it. “It appealed to him in a special way by connecting to his interest in the magical and the paranormal, close to his symbology. The way of working with the ghostly combined with humor is found throughout the exhibition,” explains Moure, who is also the author of the book Sigmar Polke. Paintings, photographs and films (2005). Skulls, the devil in the shape of a goat, ghosts, disturbing faces and death are in paintings like Ashes on ashes (1992), white obelisk (1968), Spirit (1967) or Paganini (1981-1983).
But the German was not only surprised by the content of The eldersbut also by discovering, thanks to the x-ray he requested, that it had been made on a reused canvas which already contained another composition of a resurrection. “Using the same fabrics was normal at the time for reasons of economy, but Polke thought there was something more, because before there was a resurrection and in the new painting he explains how the duration of life of the two protagonists of the painting is running out, details the commissioner Polke stopped on certain fragments of canvas which he photographed then enlarged into photocopies which he modified by drawing on them, many of which are available in the. exposure.
There are other pieces in the exhibition in which Polke worked directly on fabrics printed with Goya paintings, such as Here’s how to sit correctly (1982), made from the engraving Caprice 26 (1799). He was also interested in the figure of Saturn in the painting to which the Aragonese returned so much – see Saturn devouring his son (1820-1823) – and which he interprets in his own way with Mephisto (1988). Also present is Polke, more abstract and experimental, which earned him the nickname The Alchemist using meteorite powder, snail slime, soot or silver nitrate. Lapis Lazuli II (1994) and Disaster Theories II (1983) are the best examples.
Sigmar Polke. Affinities revealed This is the second exhibition that El Prado dedicates to a contemporary artist, after that of Fernando Zóbel in an individual exhibition in 2022. The director of the institution, Miguel Falomir, clarified that the museum is not dedicated to the art of our time, but that “it cannot ignore contemporary artists for whom it has been decisive for their artistic efforts”.
