Polke & Co. We Petty Bourgeois! Comrades and Contemporaries. «Documentation of an exhibition at the Hamburger Kunsthalle»

Finissage of the exhibition in three parts «Sigmar Polke. We Petty Bourgeois!\nComrades and Contemporaries», 13th March 2009 – 17th January 2010\n\nSigmar Polke in his multilayered art – employing painting, drawing,\nphotography, and collage among other things – has been analysing contemporary\nmedia societies. It is lesser known that since the late 1960s the artist has\npersistently been producing films and videos which are adding up to a vast\naudiovisual diary, an archive that is up to today largely unedited.\n\nOn occasion of the finissage of the exhibition in three parts «Sigmar Polke.\nWe Petty Bourgeois! Comrades and Contemporaries» this one-day workshop will\nscreen selected rare examples of 16 mm-films dating from the 1970s. Footage\nfrom Afghanistan and Sao Paulo as well as imagery from the context of the\nHamburg Art Academy Lerchenfeld was shot 1973-1979 while the artist was\nworking on well known large-scale photoworks. However, the emphasis of the\nprogram is placed on Polke’s living environment: The subculture of Zurich\nwith its legendary figures «Looser» and «Lady Shiva» as well as the farm\nGaspelshof in Willich, an open house in the Lower Rhine region near\nDüsseldorf, where the artist lived and worked with many friends. Additionally\nvideos by artist Ernst Mitzka will be on show that document appearances by\nPolke & Co. Further films by Rebecca Horn and Klaus Mettig help to gain\ninsights into the according group dynamics.