"Artists Fight..." ("Künstler kämpfen...")
Sigmar Polke
German, 1941–2010
1979
This photolithograph assembles clipped photographs, headlines, and drawings into a satirical collage in which Polke layers mass‑media scraps to unsettle and mock cultural and art‑world spectacle.
What hits you first is the tabloid‑like chaos — upside‑down interiors, severed ears and isolated eyes, ransom‑note text fragments, and a staged scene of a bound woman confronted by masked figures with pistols — all jostling like a printed nightmare of humor and menace.
The work exemplifies Polke’s use of photomechanical reproduction and appropriation to blur high and low imagery, offering a witty, critical response to media, consumer culture, and the theatricality of the art market that influenced late‑20th‑century image‑based critique.
Medium
Photolithograph
Dimensions
composition: 11 7/8 x 16 3/4" (30.2 x 42.5 cm); sheet: 11 13/16 x 16 3/4" (30 x 42.5 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Joshua Mack
Accession
645.1990
Palette
Exhibitions
