Polke on Drawing

Sigmar Polke has said he relies on drawing "to fix an idea."


"Mostly drawings are things I make for myself — I do them in sketchbooks... They are mental experiments — private inner thoughts when I'm not sure what will come out." 

"Why Can't I Stop Smoking?" 1964

66 15/16" x 47 7/16", dispersion and charcoal on canvas

These last two images are very large works on paper (gouache and acrylic) that Polke created during the 1970s, when he was a part of a satiric movement in Germany called "Capitalist Realism." Many of these drawings are like overlapped transparencies on spot color fields, and are a commentary on consumerism, politics in postwar Europe, and conventions in artmaking (because art is always about art, but I repeat myself). David Salle capitalized on this technique in many of his classic paintings: