The German artist Sigmar Polke, who died in 2010, has never had the name recognition of his peer Gerhard Richter, but a blockbuster at MOMA, opening on April 19, could change that. With more than three hundred figurative and abstract works, straddling painting, photography, printmaking, drawing, cinema, and sculpture, “Alibis: Sigmar Polke, 1963-2010” encapsulates, to the extent that it’s possible, the quicksilver career of the reclusive titan, whose oeuvre was one long experiment. Arsenic, snail slime, and pulverized meteorites were just some of the materials Polke used on canvas, in addition to paint. But for all his forward thinking, Polke was steeped in history, lifting motifs from Goya and Hogarth, referencing the French Revolution, and revisiting Renaissance-era alchemical processes. While his images could be unnerving (notably, spectral paintings of concentration-camp watchtowers), Polke was often hilarious. In cahoots with Richter during the early sixties, the East German-born artist founded “capitalist realism,” taking the piss out of Soviet socialist realism while spoofing American Pop. Warhol silk-screened “Triple Elvis”; Polke painted three mismatched socks. Polke’s irreverence and relentless innovation made him a hero to generations of artists, as reflected in the show’s catalogue, which includes contributions from the artists Paul Chan, Tacita Dean, and Jutta Koether.
During the third “Frieze New York” art fair, May 9-12, seven artists install special projects (and lend the commercial affair a nonprofit gloss). For those who like their art 24/7, the veteran Conceptualist Al Ruppersberg is running an on-site, two-room hotel. Who knows what to expect from the young gun Darren Bader? One recent show of his featured two goats. A more reverent atmosphere attends “Lost Kingdoms of Early Southeast Asia,” at the Met, opening April 14, an exhibition of Hindu and Buddhist sculptures made from stone and bronze during the second half of the first millennium, on loan from Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Myanmar. ♦
