Sigmar Polke

Reiner Speck

In Greek mythology, Daphne is the nymph who runs from Apollo's love, determined not to marry. She ends up a Laurel tree. In contemporary art mythology, Sigmar Polke is a magician who transforms seemingly unrelated imagery and techniques into whirlwind, idiosyncratic collages that astonish the expectant eye. And then there is this object, "Daphne," an artist's book created by Sigmar Polke. An oversize anthology of sources of visual inspiration, a photocopied book that paradoxically reveals the artist's hand, a sketchbook for the machine age--"Daphne" runs and runs, is caught by the photocopier, and runs some more, only to be bound in the end. Created directly by Polke himself, "Daphne" is a book with 23 chapters illustrated in large-format photocopies. Each "copy" of the book differs, as each has been photocopied and manipulated individually, pulled from the machine by the hand and watchful eye of the artist. Process is revealed, over and over again. Motifs accumulate page after page, as do small graphic cycles. The printed dot, the resolution, the subject, and the speed all determine and are determined by the apparently unpredictable and often impenetrable secret of a picture whose drafts are akin to the waste products of a copying machine. Even if the motifs in this book provide but a brief insight into the artist's hitherto secret files and archives, it is still a significant one. For the first time, we witness an artist's book with such an aura of authenticity that Walter Benjamin's seminal essay, "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," bears consequent re-reading. Produced in a limited edition of 1,000 "copies," each of which has been numbered and signed by Sigmar Polke.

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