Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany
2021–2022
November 12, 2021–June 3, 2022 To mark the 80th anniversary of Sigmar Polke’s birth, the Anna Polke Foundation and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf have joined to initiate an exhibition project, Productive Image Interference (2022). The project brings the prolific works of Sigmar Polke into dialogue with current artistic discourse and practices, juxtaposing his works with contemporary artists. Based on current research, the exhibition is the first to focus on a specific approach that characterizes Polke’s oeuvre: his use of appropriation and quotations of existing imagery. Polke’s technique, his handling of different media, contexts, and materials, relies on the potential of the supposedly flawed, blurred, and mutable. His works play with the pleasure of the illusion and in so doing question the effectiveness of (manipulated) images in different ways and various media. This productive interference of images is also a central strategy for the current generation of artists. The selected works by contemporary international artists show new techniques and methods that illustrate how forms of visual interference remain a productive starting point for creative work today in the negotiation of cultural and political issues. Participating artists: Kerstin Brätsch, Phoebe Collings-James, Raphael Hefti, Camille Henrot, Trevor Paglen, Sigmar Polke, Seth Price, Max Schulze, Avery Singer The exhibition is curated by Kathrin Barutzki and Nelly Gawellek (both from the Anna Polke Foundation) along with Gregor Jansen (Kunsthalle Düsseldorf). Learn more at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf.