SIGMAR POLKE: THE PHOTOGRAPHS FOR VENICE BIENNALE 1986 at Spazio Ravà, Venice

Forty years after the celebrated presentation of Sigmar Polke’s installation Athanor at the 42nd Biennale di Venezia, the exhibition Sigmar Polke: The Photographs for Venice Biennale 1986 at Spazio Ravà presents a comprehensive body of unique photographic works. The photographs document the creation process of the legendary pavilion project Athanor and expand upon its artistic context.

When Sigmar Polke travelled to Venice in January 1986 with his partner Britta Zoellner to explore the German Pavilion, he used photography not merely for straightforward documentation of the space. Rather, the camera lens served him as a medium of spatial appropriation and as a starting point for photochemical experiments. The silver gelatin prints on baryta paper shown in the exhibition initially functioned as an empirical test series for the subsequent painterly experiment: they made visible incidences of light, shadows, and structures that remained imperceptible to the naked eye.

Polke’s process of appropriation, however, did not end with the act of taking the photograph. Through double exposures, solarisation, and chemical manipulation in the darkroom, Polke transformed his motifs into autonomous, almost spiritistic visual worlds that consolidated his reputation as a visionary figure operating between photography and painting. In doing so, the artist largely relinquished mechanical control over the development process, conceiving of himself as a “helmsman of chance” who allowed chemical processes and experiments with light to unfold freely. Each photograph on display is unique as a result of its individual treatment in the darkroom. A group of 26 works further connects the pavilion photographs with images of Salvador Dalí and his Manifeste Mystique of 1951, creating an additional reference to theories of the dissolution of matter and metaphysical concepts.

The exhibition at Spazio Ravà comprises a selection from the world’s largest holdings of these Venice photographs. It highlights Polke’s reputation as an “anti-photographer” who deliberately used technical “errors” as artistic devices to push the boundaries of the medium. The exhibition is curated by Dierk Dierking and Gerald Winckler.

A comprehensive catalogue is published to accompany the exhibition, edited by the curators and comprising 180 pages with 106 illustrations. In addition to a foreword by art historian Dr. Nina Zenker, the publication offers in-depth analyses by art historian and renowned specialist in German post-war modernism Hubertus Butin, as well as by the renowned art critic and curator Laszlo Glozer.

Both the publication and the exhibition form part of the project Athanor NOW by the Anna Polke Foundation, Cologne, which examines the now-iconic body of work from a multifaceted prism of contemporary artistic and scholarly perspectives.

SIGMAR POLKE: THE PHOTOGRAPHS FOR VENICE BIENNALE 1986
Curated and conceived by Dierk Dierking and Gerald Winckler
Spazio Ravà, San Polo 1100, 30125 Venice
2 May – 2 August 2026, 11:00 – 19:00 (closed Mondays)