Troubling Pigments (after Polke)

‘Troubling Pigments (after Polke)’ explores the ecological, colonial, and social histories of pigments. The starting point is the eight pigments used in Polke’s eight monochrome paintings of the ‘Farbtafeln’ (1986–1992), part of the collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. The project brings together Rijksakademie alumni Fransisca Angela, Juan Arturo García and Müge Yilmaz, and is initiated by Dr. Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou (curator, lecturer and researcher, art history & environmental humanities, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam). Together they examine pigments as part of larger stories of trade, illness, colonialism, and environmental violence.

The four-month artistic research project is a collaboration between the Vrije Universiteit, the Stedelijk Museum, the Anna Polke Foundation and the Rijksakademie paint workshop and will culminate in a public presentation at the Rijksakademie in June. It is part of the research project Sigmar Polke: Athanor NOW, initiated by the Anna Polke Foundation, which illuminates Polke's 1986 Venice Biennale installation from current artistic and scientific perspectives.

In 1986, Sigmar Polke exhibited his work 'Athanor' in the German pavilion at the Venice Biennale. In addition to a wall painting, a scroll of silk, a meteorite and the artist’s signature raster paintings, it included a series of four large-scale monochromes on canvas made from pure organic pigments, titled 'Farbtafeln'. Today, a second set of eight 'Farbtafeln' (1986-1987, 1992) are part of the permanent collection of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

The eight pigments used in the eight monochrome canvases – orpiment, malachite, copper oxide, realgar, red lead, azurite, cinnabar, and lapis lazuli – are extremely precious and rare. A lot of them were introduced in Europe, and subsequently in European painting, via colonial trading routes.

Others are notoriously toxic, like orpiment, and their synthetic replacements are not without their own problems; for instance, recent environmental studies have drawn attention to the detrimental effects of synthetic dye manufacturing. Polke was deeply attracted by the properties and histories of these pigments, and the works in the pavilion revealed a layered understanding of colour at the intersection of labour, science and material histories.

'Troubling Pigments (after Polke)' uses the Farbtafeln as a kernel to explore pigments as part of larger stories of trade, illness, colonialism, and environmental violence through artistic research. Merging environmental and materials histories with creative practice, a team of Rijksakademie alumni, in collaboration with Mavrokordopoulou, will study the transnational ecologies that allowed the arrival of these pigments in Europe. Building on and extending Polke’s complex grasp of pigment history, the project aims to create the conditions for a collective study of the cultural and eco-material preconditions of art making.

The research will unfold in collaboration with the paint workshop of the Rijksakademie. It includes readings, a lecture/screening, hands-on analysis of the paintings by a Stedelijk Museum conservator, and a museum excursion to the Old Holland paint factory, which holds one of the richest pigment and painting tools collections in the world.