Sigmar Polke: Alibis 1963-2010

This year’s Sigmar Polke retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, the first full-scale evaluative look at this German artist since his death in 2010, was one of the outstanding solo shows of the year. The catalog is fully up to the occasion, a fitting souvenir of an artist who, in our era of look-at-me objects and brand-name painting, stayed mercurial, slippery, slef-mocking and signature-free. With the market being the luxe-item operation it is, you can easily imagine Polke’s recessive reputation going into temporary eclipse. So grab the book now. It’s a keeper. (Holland Cotter The New York Times)

Surelly on of the towering figures of postwar art, Polke (1941- 2010) is feted here in a major retrospective, spanning nearly five decades of his prodigious output from his days as cofounder of Capitalist Realism (along with Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg) until his death three years ago. (Howard Halle Time Out New York)

Polke (1941-2010) is feted here in a major retrospective, spanning nearly five decades of his prodigious output- from his days as cofounder of Capitalist Realism (along with Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg) until his death three years ago. (Howard Halle Time Out New York)

The Museum of Modern Art has now brought together, in one of the largest shows it has assembled, the most complete overview of Polke’s art that any museum has attempted. It is a remarkable and challenging event. Polke was funnier, brainier, and more ferocious in his need to experiment than, it can seem, many artists are… The present show, organized by Kathy Halbreich, who began working with the artist on it in 2008 (and has contributed a probing and sensitive essay in the catalog), underscores the multifariousness of Polke’s art by presenting aspects of seemingly everything he did. (Sanford Schwartz The New York Review of Books)