Alibis: Sigmar Polke, 1963–2010
an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, April 19–August 3, 2014; Tate Modern, London, October 1, 2014–February 8, 2015; and Museum Ludwig, Cologne, March 14–July 5, 2015
Catalog of the exhibition edited by Kathy Halbreich with Mark Godfrey, Lanka Tattersall, and Magnus Schaefer Museum of Modern Art, 319 pp., $75.00
I remember quite well the first time I saw the paintings of Sigmar Polke. It was in 1982, a time when a new generation of American artists, and a generation concerned with painting—which had not been the case with young artists for years—was coming to the fore. The few paintings by Polke view at the Holly Solomon Gallery, then in SoHo, had a freakish power. Here was an only vaguely known, or…