Sigmar Polke

Sigmar Polke was a German painter and photographer during the 1970’s all the way into the beginning of the 2000’s. He made many pieces making statements about society, especially in reference to Nazi propaganda (such as scattered swastikas) for a large portion of his career due to the guilt put on his country for the actions of some of their people and ancestors during World War II.

One of his works, Potato House, inspired conversation due to its simple structure, a latticework house with potatoes nailed to it. It was used to show how he could transform mundane materials into something bigger or totally different. On other occasions he made things like palm trees or used materials like measuring sticks, always trying to be innovative and out of the ordinary with his structures, almost poking fun of himself for the many times he claimed he wasn’t a sculptor.

Another set of his works focused on watchtowers to emphasize the surveillance of Nazi Concentration camps but left this ambiguous enough for them to resemble just the average watchtower found on the sides of German roads for hunting. Anyone who knows Polke’s work however, knows that they are making reference to the Nazi era. He made stencils of the watchtower and plastered it all over works between 1984 to 1988 and entire collections have be comprised of these pieces.