Les infamies photographiques de Sigmar Polke

“A picture is and is not a key, a key is chemistry, no key is chemistry, chemistry is poison, poison is risk, risk is poison, risk is painting, painting is hiding, in hiding new colors emerge, new colors are new dangers, dangers are desires, desires are keys (…)” – Extract from Malva Alcea (Sigmar’s Mallow) by Harald Szeemann

Published by LE BAL on the occasion of the exhibition, this publication displays a collection of never-seen-before photographs which all belong to the artist’s son, Georg Polke. Designed by Roger Willems (ROMA), the book highlights the jubilant and almost cheeky relationship that the artist had with the photographic medium during a key creative period : 1970-1986.
Page by page, the many photographic genres and experiments usual to Polke’s practice reveal themselves, creating a body of work partly family album, partly road movie. The book also insists on the important place the chemical and photographic experiments held in the painter’s practice.

Produced in a small edition of 600 copies, the book also contains a rare 1985 interview of the artist by Bice Curiger as well as texts by Bernard Marcadé, Bice Curiger, Fritz Emslander and Harald Szeemann. A key publication on the photographic practice of Polke and a treasure trove archive of rare images!