Issue No. 28 – Control

What is the nature of control? The desire for it—and to be free of it—are essential parts of both life and art.

6 Artists to Watch This April

The artist Sigmar Polke

SIGMAR POLKE MoMA, April 19August 3

Brace yourselves: this month the stately Modern is about to morph into a scandalous hotbed of drugs, sex, crime (mostly theft), altered-consciousnesses, jokes, intergalactic exploration, and crackpot science. The first career-spanning retrospective of the late German artist Sigmar Polke promises all that and more, bringing out the full spectrum of his often psilocybin-enhanced investigations of the nature of art across the mediums of painting, printmaking, film, sculpture, and drawing. One of the largest exhibitions MoMA has ever lavished on an artist, the Polke show—titled "Alibis"—will serve as a vital introduction to his work (which most Americans have only seen in dribs and drabs) and help viewers understand how his early importation of Pop techniques helped shape the work of KippenbergerOehlen, and the other standard-bearers of visionary postwar German painting.

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