ARTICLES

'The History of Everything, Sigmar Polke'

Tate Modern, London
2003

By Selina Apostol
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There was certainly nothing 'everything' about its scope; use of the word 'history' only made sense in the way the works seemed dated. There isn't much you could say about the paintings themselves, and this was reflected in the commentary, in the hint of desperation at the end of one paragraph:
"notions of perception...and the boundaries between abstraction and figuration are also explored throughout the exhibition."

The whole exhibition is an exercise in complacency; the artist has kept on making art, but has stopped working.

Complacency is found not just in the work. A real issue here was: how could such a feeble show have achieved such high attendance levels?

The answer, obviously, is art students.

My friend and I are both art students. She is a Tate Member, and got in for free. I paid the still rather steep student concession. This is loaded with meaning. Becoming a member and paying the steep (but slightly less so) annual fee certainly makes more sense if entry to every major show is going
to cost what it does now. But the thing is, if you really think about it, both options could be regarded as unacceptable.

Only, simply not going seems even more unacceptable.

Why? Because every art student feels the duty to go to all the major shows; this sense of duty is inculcated at art school. And every museum knows this. Art students, whether or not they will actually end up putting out their own art, are a major part of what keeps the art economy going. This is only natural, of course, and there shouldn't be anything sinister about it.

Only, it looks as though a feeble show could also be a successful one precisely because every art student feels the duty to go to every major show, feels that high entrance fees are justified, if it is a major show. And most of all, because every museum knows about this sense of duty. Quality, therefore, does not always have to be a consideration - one only has to market an exhibition as a major one.

This is nothing new. Everybody knows about this, but what is being done? Perhaps free entry to all art exhibitions is still a way away, but fee levels could be better regulated if museums thought that alongside every art student's sense of duty was being inculcated an equally deep understanding of the concept of boycott.

Funny enough, the spirit of Sigmar Polke's earlier work seemed more present in the neighbouring exhibition, "Common Wealth". Not even necessarily in terms of content but in the way that Common Wealth uses a more democratic model by allowing free entry once a week. With pressure from the audience, such a model could easily become standard. Paying a membership fee, or paying the ordinary entrance fee, or not going, need not be the only options.

That the Sigmar Polke show does not provide for a fourth option, and that Common Wealth does, turned out to be the really interesting thing about the Polke show. There are probably times when the context of an exhibition can be ignored, but with respect to Polke, and with respect to the fact that
some of his paintings purport to address some topical issue or current event, context should matter deeply.