HYLAND
Benjamin, who quoted Valery in the essay "The Work of
Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" called the
"aura" the unique presence transmitted by an original
work of art.
Four years later, in 1967, Polke was painting arithmetical
equations in lacquer on canvas, in a series entitled
Losungen (Solutions); the German
word is more suggestive than the
English of material dissolving. The
painted equations are all wrong:
"1 + 1 = 3" etc., suggesting a
departure from all orthodoxy, a new
interpretation of "correctness."
Solutions is an alibi that doesn't
hold water. From 1968 we see
Modern Art, a pastiche of the
conventions of abstraction,
especially Constructivism. Like
Lee Harvey Oswald, Polke's
almost parodic abstractions throw
into question Benjamin's "aura" as
it applies to modern art.
In the 1970s Polke famously—indeed rather notoriously—
made pilgrimages to distant lands, including Pakistan,
Raster Drawing (Portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald) (Rasterzeichnung
(Porträt Lee Harvey Oswald)), c. 1963, Gelatin silver print
© 2014 Estate of Sigmar Polke/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn; Photo: Wolfgang Morell, Bonn
