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Sigmar Polke — ‘What exactly does it mean to be vulgar? Sticking your fingers up your nose? Farting? Doing something improper? Being poorly dressed or groomed? Not brushing your teeth? Words like “vulgar” don’t get us anywhere… There are many other miseries beside vulgarity.’ (S. Polke, Interview of Sigmar Polke by Bice Curiger, ‘La peinture est une ignominie’,
Sigmar Polke

‘What exactly does it mean to be vulgar? Sticking your fingers up your nose? Farting? Doing something improper? Being poorly dressed or groomed? Not brushing your teeth? Words like “vulgar” don’t get us anywhere… There are many other miseries beside vulgarity.’ (S. Polke, Interview of Sigmar Polke by Bice Curiger, ‘La peinture est une ignominie’,

This work on paper combines ink, acrylic, and watercolour in a characteristically irreverent meditation on social convention and language, with the unwieldy title itself functioning as both subject and provocation. Polke's meandering, interview-derived text challenges the arbitrary moral weight assigned to words like "vulgarity," dissolving the boundaries between high art discourse and everyday transgression. The layered, fluid mediums reflect his signature blending of the refined and the crude, undermining any clean separation between the two.

Medium
ink, acrylic, and watercolour on paper

🔨 Auction Lot

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale

June 28, 2016

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Spotted works by Sigmar Polke

About this work

Sigmar Polke, ‘What exactly does it mean to be vulgar? Sticking your fingers up your nose? Farting? Doing something improper? Being poorly dressed or groomed? Not brushing your teeth? Words like “vulgar” don’t get us anywhere… There are many other miseries beside vulgarity.’ (S. Polke, Interview of Sigmar Polke by Bice Curiger, ‘La peinture est une ignominie’,

This work on paper combines ink, acrylic, and watercolour in a characteristically irreverent meditation on social convention and language, with the unwieldy title itself functioning as both subject and provocation. Polke's meandering, interview-derived text challenges the arbitrary moral weight assigned to words like "vulgarity," dissolving the boundaries between high art discourse and everyday transgression. The layered, fluid mediums reflect his signature blending of the refined and the crude, undermining any clean separation between the two.

Medium
ink, acrylic, and watercolour on paper
Seen at
Phillips, New York, London, Hong Kong

Related themes

Conceptual, Text-Based, Philosophical, Provocative, German, Mixed Media on Paper, Colorful, Abstract, Ink And Acrylic, Contemporary, Post-Modern

More works by Sigmar Polke

Collected by

Art Institute of Chicago