Sigmar Polke: Miracle of Siegen, The Lens Paintings/ Wunder Von Siegen, Die Linsenbilder (English and German Edition)

Sigmar Polke (born 1941) has been experimenting for more than 40 years with different styles and subject matter as well as with a variety of materials and techniques. His creative diversity is demonstrated powerfully in the new group of works presented in this book, the so-called ‘lenticular pictures’, or lens paintings. Polke applies a layer of structure gel, usually used to thicken acrylic paint, to a previously painted picture and then slides a saw-toothed scraper over the surface, to which he later adds more paint. The resulting works have an unexpected three-dimensional quality, providing the viewer with different images according to the angle from which the painting is viewed. Photographs showing the paintings in progress – all specially selected for the book by Polke – reveal the artist’s idiosyncratic use of surface, his application of colour and his subtly humorous way of combining abstraction and realism.