This three-room display explores the work of Sigmar Polke, one of the most important living German artists. The works in this room represent Polke’s wittily subversive commentary on consumer society.

Polke was twelve when his family left the Socialist austerity of East Germany to settle in the West, where the post-war consumer boom was just beginning. During the 1960s he studied at the Düsseldorf Academy. It was a time when young German artists were seeking their own particular form of expression, influenced by both American art and the anarchic tactics of the avant-garde Fluxus group. Polke, along with young contemporaries Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg initiated the ironically-titled ‘Capitalist Realism’ movement, a response to both ‘Socialist Realism’ (the official art doctrine of the Soviet Union) and the consumer capitalism of the West.

Using low grade techniques and materials, such as ballpoint or felt-tip pens, and stationery paper, Polke created deliberately simplified drawings that parodied the glamorous representation of consumer goods. He often incorporated clichés from the popular press and advertising slogans, such as ‘Winter Holidays for All’, or ‘Sparkling Wine for Everyone’, underlining the reality that these commodities and leisure activities were still beyond the means of most people. This ironic gap between the promises of capitalism and the reality of post-war Germany is clearly exposed by Polke in his seemingly crude and naïve doodles.

Sigmar Polke was born in 1941 in Silesia, then part of Germany. He lives and works in Germany.

Texts by Juliet Bingham and Simon Bolitho

This display includes generous loans from the Froehlich Foundation, Stuttgart, with which Tate has a special relationship.