Schimpftuch | Scandal
The artist wearing the art, 1976.
Sigmar Polke
1968, tar on cotton sheeting, ca 400 x 445 cm
"... All works in the series portray the artist in staged, comedic situations with mock-serious captions that reinforce the humor already carried by the images themselves. In all all instances, however, the site for the images' creation would seem to be either the privacy of the studio or, at their most "public", an outdoor action with few or no spectators besides the camera operator...
As Anne Erfle has pointed out, the comedic effect of such images by Polke is impish. She writes of the Schimpftuch photograph that Polke "conveys himself again with this ambivalence of earnestness and enigmatic, 'lovable,' mischievous playfulness, which keeps him from being seriously harmful."
Laughter in Spite of History
DD