Christie's Mayfair to open Polke/Richter-Richter/Polke show

KOLKATA: On 24 April 2014, Christie's Mayfair will open Polke/Richter-Richter/Polke, celebrating two giants of painting: Gerhard Richter (b.1932) and Sigmar Polke (1941-2010). The show brings together 65 works from 30 collections to create the artists' first joint show in almost 50 years, since their now legendary 1966 exhibition at Galerie h in Hanover. This show was a declaration of their intention to resurrect painting, a medium presumed dead, by deconstructing it and opening up new possibilities. Christie's Polke/Richter-Richter/Polke reunites two of the works from this show (Flemish Crown, by Richter and Bavarian by Polke), as well as others from the period, and then surveys the artists' careers since then, until Polke's death.

Francis Outred, Christie's head of Post-War & Contemporary Art, Europe, says in an email statement: ""Richter and Polke are the dynamic duo of German painting in the past 50 years. They became friends in the early '60s, seeking to reinvent painting by deconstructing it, mixing all the pieces together and putting it back together again to open up new possibilities, as witnessed in their landmark 1966 two-man show, Richter/Polke. We take this 1966 exhibition as a starting point for charting their work in the ensuing decades. While their friendship waned and they developed in different directions ­- Richter stayed close to home in Cologne, Polke wandered the world - both remained true to their shared belief in painting as an essential medium. Despite their divergent paths, their art and ideas overlap in interesting ways.""

Polke/Richter-Richter/Polke is co-curated by Christie's specialist Darren Leak and collector, curator and writer Kenny Schachter. It will span more than five decades of the artists' work and will bring Richter and Polke into an intimate dialogue once more.