Achsenzeit Axial Age

New book, never used. Axial Age is the title of a series of seven paintings completed by the influential German artist Sigmar Polke between 2005 and 2007. With his camera, Polke created a fascinating photo documentary of the painting process, including 187 images specially selected by the artist to be featured in this book. Each image is reproduced as a high-quality, full-page color plate. By revealing the materiality and structural complexity of the works from a variety of perspectives and under different lighting conditions, Polke provides the reader with analogies to his oeuvre that are as explicit as they are unique. The title Axial Age is a reference to the term coined by Karl Jaspers to describe the period between 800 BC and 200 BC, during which the world was reinvented based on the principle of transcendence–a concept that finds full expression in this series of paintings. Polke makes use of a broad range of materials in his work, including varnishes and pigments, photographic chemicals, gold and silver, lapis lazuli and malachite–all references to alchemistic processes of transformation. Indeed, with these extensions of painterly techniques, the artist undermines the picture itself, for any shift in perspective or lighting is accompanied by a change in the painting’s appearance.