Sigmar Polke

Spanning more than three decades, the exhibition reveals Sigmar Polke’s exceptional ability to interweave precision and play, control and chance, colour and form. Painting emerges here as an open, experimental and continually evolving practice. Polke paid close attention to what happens when materials become contaminated, deteriorate or change form. Driven by an almost alchemical curiosity, he experimented with unorthodox pigments and substances. This way of working, in which the process is as important as the final result, has been a significant source of inspiration for many fellow artists.

The works in the exhibition mark a crucial turning point in Sigmar Polke’s oeuvre. Polke’s experiences while travelling in the early 1980s, including in Southeast Asia, changed the way he thought about colour and about the contexts in which colour acquires meaning. The impact of these experiences became visible in 1986 at the Venice Biennale, where Polke presented his installation Athanor in the German Pavilion, for which he was awarded the Golden Lion. With this installation, named after the alchemical furnace, he literally transformed the pavilion into a ‘furnace’.

The works from this period and the years that followed are characterised by the pouring, scattering, blowing and spreading of lacquers, pigments and resins onto transparent or semi-transparent supports, fabrics and canvases. They range from entirely abstract Farbproben (colour samples), monochrome Farbtafeln (colour panels), and lacquer and poured paintings to works featuring recognisable figures and forms. Polke drew these from historical visual sources, as in the four-part work Hermes Trismegistos.

In this way, the emphasis shifts from the artist’s hand to the behaviour of the materials themselves. Even after they have been applied to the canvas, these materials continue to react to some extent, as though leading a life of their own. Their interactions and historical resonances reveal connections between cultural history, natural history and art history.

For the first time, the most important ensembles of Polke’s work from Dutch museum collections are brought together within this experimental perspective. The exhibition reveals just how rich and multilayered the ‘Collectie Nederland’ can be around the work of a single artist. Among the works brought together are the eight-part series Farbtafeln (1986/87 and 1992) and Radioaktiver Abfall (1992) from the collection of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; the monumental Werkgruppe I: Das war schon immer so!, Werkgruppe II: Das haben wir noch nie so gemacht! and Werkgruppe III: Da könnte ja jeder kommen! (1982) from the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam; Goldklumpen(1982) from the collection of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven; and the four-part series Hermes Trismegistos I–IV(1995) from the collection of De Pont Museum in Tilburg.

The exhibition forms part of the Anna Polke Foundation’s international research and education project Sigmar Polke: Athanor NOW. Forty years after Polke’s presentation at the Venice Biennale, this crucial phase of his work is being revisited through exhibitions, presentations, research, workshops and lectures. The exhibition Sigmar Polke – The Knowledge of Colours at De Pont Museum is the project’s central and most extensive component.

Sigmar Polke – The Knowledge of Colours is a joint exhibition by De Pont Museum and the Anna Polke Foundation. Curators: Kathrin Barutzki (Anna Polke Foundation), Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen and Maria Schnyder (De Pont Museum). The exhibition is part of the project Sigmar Polke: Athanor NOW, organised by the Anna Polke Foundation with financial support from the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation, Zurich.

All works of Sigmar Polke:

© The Estate of Sigmar Polke, Cologne / Pictoright Amsterdam, 2026