Sies + Höke

About the Presentation
Sies + Höke will present a selection of Sigmar Polke’s lesser-known photographs as well as his 1969 sculpture Potato Machine – Apparatus Whereby One Potato Can Orbit Another, which will be activated at the fair. The German artist discovered the medium of photography in the mid-1960s and his early works from the period were inspired by objects found in his immediate surroundings. The images are characterized by irony and mysticism, evoking intangible messages and supernatural tableaux. In the 1970s, the darkroom became Polke’s laboratory, where he experimented with distortion effects that challenged the photographs’ fidelity to reality, their authenticity and authorship. His 1980s works adopted a more painterly style, foregrounding the development process with hand-painted additions and inviting a dialogue between abstract and representational forms. Potato Machine, a wooden bar stool with a switch mechanism that swings one attached potato around another, epitomizes Polke’s absurdist approach to art.

About the Gallery
Sies + Höke has opened its doors as a contemporary art gallery in 1999 and has been home to exhibitions across a variety of media and genres since. Showing the work of established and emerging artists from Europe, the United States and Latin America, the gallery also maintains an ambitious publishing program to produce exhibition catalogues, monographs, and artist’s books.

Sies + Höke has helped foster the careers of its represented artists, including Marcel Dzama and Federico Herrero, who had their debut exhibitions at the gallery in the early 2000s, and has maintained long-term representation of an international group of artists such as Julius von Bismarck, Julian Charrière, Talia Chetrit, João Maria Gusmão, Jonathan Meese and Claudia Wieser. Over the years, more artists joined the gallery program, such as Ajay Kurian, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Sophie von Hellermann, Andi Fischer and Peppi Bottrop.

Periodically, Sies + Höke also presents well-researched investigations of historical positions, showcasing work by artists such as Blinky Palermo, Gerhard Richter or Sigmar Polke and highlighting aspects of their practise in solo exhibitions like "Gerhard Richter | Overpainted Photographs" (2023), "Gerhard Richter | Drawings 1963-2020" (2022) or "Blinky Palermo" (2020), or thematic group shows like “Strand” (2020, with Isa Genzken, Blinky Palermo, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter and Thomas Schütte) or “Living Sculptures” (2018, with Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Konrad Lueg and Gilbert & George). These exhibitions are usually accompanied by extensive publications that include texts by renowned scholars.

Caprii is the newest exhibition programme, located in the historic Orangeriestrasse 6.

Emerging from the adjacent gallery Sies + Höke, Caprii offers experimental, dynamic formats and an alternative exhibition model—with an emphasis on playful collaboration and spontaneity towards enlivening relations between and beyond the local artistic scene and generations.