Sigmar Polke
Sigmar Polke
Sigmar Polkewas a German painter and photographer...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth13 February 1941
CountryGermany
dots love
I love all dots. I am married to many of them. I want all dots to be happy. Dots are my brothers. I am a dot myself.
advertising agency both occupies operating painted picasso portrait properties
By making pictures, you learn the many different properties of photography. I use those properties differently than, say, an advertising agency would, but we're both operating in the same reality. A face painted by Picasso occupies the same reality as a portrait by Stieglitz.
interested people pictures seem understand useful
I've never been interested in philosophy, but some of Jung's ideas seem useful in helping people understand pictures and so forth.
mostly red
Light is a metaphoric thing. There is green light and red light. Then there is black light, which is mostly danger.
art horrible people places word
People expect things from art that are horrible for us who make it! They put the things we make in these restrictive places called 'museums,' then don't want to hear another word from us.
believer born conditions family home lost luck opportunity poor prove provide social suppose war
We were very poor and my family lost everything during the war - our home and our identity. But I'm a believer in luck and think the social conditions you're born into provide the opportunity for you to prove your luck. And I suppose I've been lucky.
interest
What interests me is the unforeseeable.
procedures interest
It's the procedures in and for themselves that interest me. The picture isn't really necessary.
photography mean differences
I don't see a big difference between painting and photography. Moreover, such distinctions mean nothing to me.
drawing sketchbooks not-sure
Mostly, drawings are things I make for myself - I do them in sketchbooks. They are mental experiments - private inner thoughts when I'm not sure what will come out.
negative finished
A negative is never finished.
photography art children
I began drawing as a very young child and had a grandfather who experimented with photography, so those things constituted my first exposure to art.
risk elements risk-taking
There has to be an element of risk-taking for me in my work.
came saw time west
When I came to the West, I saw many, many things for the first time. But I also saw the prosperity of the West critically. It wasn't really Heaven.