Coinciding with Frieze London, Simon Lee Gallery is proud to announce a presentation of ‘Schüttbilder’, or ‘Pour Paintings’ by influential German artist, Sigmar Polke (1941-2010).
Amongst the most significant figures in the artistic landscape of post-war Germany, Polke was renowned for an experimental approach to painting that pushed the boundaries of both medium and material. The pursuit of chance operation and an irreverent wit are hallmarks of a career that staunchly resisted easy categorisation or alignment with any specific movement or genre. While his multidisciplinary practice encompassed innovations across photography, film, print, drawing, sculpture and performance, it was as a painter that he most thoroughly tested aesthetic convention. Polke’s interrogation of the formal and material traditions of paint led to the invention of alchemical processes and a use of unorthodox substances, which created a constant dialogue between order and disorder, chaos and control, all the while addressing the cultural and historical impact of an abstract practice in two dimensions.
