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From: jj
Category: Exhibitions
Date: 08 March 2001
When I was 18 Polke was one of the few artists I liked. His pictures seemed funny and clever. They seemed to show it was possible to be an intelligent painter. The dotty newsprint bits gave you an image to look at but you could also appreciate the splashy bits as painty painting. Historical and cultural references were made in an ironic way that could also be read as profound. My very small collection of art books included two books on him. That was long ago. I walked into D'Offays ( might as well be Selfridges, Harrods, or Jerry's Homestore) slightly excited to see the work of my old idol. Behold more of the same, framed up big, churned out for higher profit margins on paper, the same trick over and over again. Robocop in dots, against some messy paint. Does it depress Polke, or his assistants, to have to keep making this stuff, or have they convinced themselves it really is important to say the same thing again and again? Does it depress Polke, or his assistants, to have to keep making this stuff, or have they convinced themselves it really is important to say the same thing again and again? Does it depress Polke, or his assistants, to have to keep making this stuff, or have they convinced themselves it really is important to say the same thing again and again? In D'Offays 2 and 3, were some old drawings and sketchbooks from the 60s I think. Maybe Polke really has got bored and has decided to sell off the old stuff to provide his pension. It looked to me like he had cleaned out his cupboards, found some old sketchbooks, dismembered them, and had them placed reverently in glass cases. However apparently they are actually an historically important drawing project. They are better than the paintings, funnier and lighter, silly collages, pretty little felt-tip abstracts on crappy paper, things you can't help liking. I don't know. Polke's not that bad nor that good either.He's just one of the stages you go through when you're growing up.
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