| Several works in this
exhibition reflect on the artist’s role as ‘seer’,
as well as more generally on the nature of sight: seeing, looking
and observing. Two major new machine paintings depict images
of men in hot air balloons taken from 19th century French and
German engravings. These images may suggest man’s desire
to take to the skies and to look down, God-like, on the world
below. The ability to see is equated with power and control.
But Polke gives this fantasy of omniscience
a sinister twist in two other Machine Paintings which depict
American satellite surveillance. The tiny images of three
Afghan horsemen are beamed down from a satellite to a computer
in mission control and then sent all over the world. Polke
contrasts the sophisticated technology of satellite surveillance
and the mass media with the almost medieval figures of the
horsemen who appear vulnerable and exposed. These works offer
a complex reflection on the analogy between a camera and a
gun: here ‘shooting pictures’ poses the real threat
of instant annihilation. |
