Athanor NOW

Higher Beings Command: Make a Work for Athanor
Workshop for children, tbd, Mineralien-Museum, Essen-Kupferdreh 

Polke was an artist who enjoyed researching and experimenting. In Venice, he worked with pigments that changed color depending on humidity and light. He named his work for the German Pavilion after the alchemists’ furnace, the Athanor. What would your own Athanor for the Mineralien-Museum look like? Here, everything is about stones, which we will explore in experiments, reinterpret, and prepare in relation to Polke’s themes. We’ll paint with pigments, grow crystals, and make stones foam along the way. We’ll let ourselves drift and see what happens.
For children aged 8 and up.

Image: Mineralien-Museum, Essen-Kupferdreh

Spot on: Sigmar Polke, Untitled, 2003–The Magic of Materials
Public Program, tbd, SFMOMA San Francisco

Spot on: Sigmar Polke, Untitled, 2003. In 2026, SFMOMA will devote special attention to this painting by Polke, which will be presented in a new light thanks to the new collection presentation. Taking Athanor as a starting point, a public program will explore questions about experiment and transformation, material and magic.

Image: Sigmar Polke, Untitled, 2003

Polke’s Alchemical Spaces. A Radical Pedagogical Project in the Form of a Research Seminar
Seminar, October 2026–May 2027, Universiteit Gent

This research project will be devoted to an interdisciplinary master seminar year with students from the Department of Art History, Musicology and Theatre Sciences and the Department of Architecture & Urban Planning of Ghent University. In the first semester of the academic year 2026/27, the students will pursue archival and textual research on Polke’s 1986 Athanor and explore the enriching implications of the artist’s remarkable installation.

Image: Yves Coussement, P.A.S.T.

Sigmar Polke’s Wachturm III: Painting Between Experiment and Transformation
Guided Tour, tbd, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Sigmar Polke’s painting Wachturm III (1984–85) (Watchtower III) is among the key works in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart’s collection—and a highlight of his oeuvre. In this public tour, we will offer insights into the creation of works that change over time and shed light on Polke’s experimental approach to materials and techniques. Special attention will be paid to conservational questions.

Image: Sigmar Polke, Wachturm III, 1984–85

The Biennale Cycle by Sigmar Polke at Museum Abteiberg
Short Guided Tour, eight dates, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

This short tour with UIrike Engelke at Museum Abteiberg offers an overview of the large-format series of six artificial resin paintings that Sigmar Polke created as part of the Athanor ensemble for the Federal Republic of Germany’s pavilion at the 42nd Venice Biennale in 1986. The paintings are among the highlights of Museum Abteiberg’s collection.
Further dates: 01/04; 02/01; 03/01; 05/03; 06/07; 09/06; 11/01; 12/06/2026

Image: Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

Ulrike Arnold, Skyfall (WT)
Exhibition, Public Program, tbd, San Diego Museum of Art; Palomar Observatory, San Diego (US)

Ulrike Arnold paints with earth, sand, stone, and meteorite dust—materials from our planet’s origins, accumulated in remote places around the world. Like Sigmar Polke, she sees matter as a living agent of history and transformation. The public program of this collaboration between the San Diego Museum of Art and the Palomar Observatory puts Arnold’s work in dialogue with Polke’s artistic practice, once again emphasizing the synergies between art and science.

Image: Ulrike Arnold, Untitled (Circle 1), 2014

Art and Transformation: Myriam Black Tattoos Dürer and Polke
Action, 21–24 May 2026, Albrecht-Dürer-Haus, Nuremberg

Art lives from art. In his multilayered oeuvre, Sigmar Polke repeatedly referenced Albrecht Dürer. Tattoo artist Myriam Black (Bristol) likewise takes individual motifs from Dürer’s visual stockpile which Polke cited and transforms them into tattoos. These transformative artistic quotations come to life on human bodies: adults can get a tattoo based on designs by Dürer and Polke at the museum.

Image: Maud Dardeau, Tattoo (after Albrecht Dürer)

Contaminated Art? From Polke’s Material Politics to Danger as an Artistic Strategy
Study day, 25 and 26 March 2026, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich and online

The study day examines current evocations of danger through art by drawing on Polke’s ironic material politics. It focuses on continuities and ruptures from the 1960s to the present day with regard to the aesthetic and ‘political’ needs of an audience attuned to experiential aesthetics. How marketable are the effects of danger? What distinguishes art that claims to contaminate? How is art reflected that contaminates not an audience but other artworks?

Image: Study Day, ZI Munich

The Biennale Cycle by Sigmar Polke at Museum Abteiberg
Short Guided Tour, eight dates, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

This short tour with UIrike Engelke at Museum Abteiberg offers an overview of the large-format series of six artificial resin paintings that Sigmar Polke created as part of the Athanor ensemble for the Federal Republic of Germany’s pavilion at the 42nd Venice Biennale in 1986. The paintings are among the highlights of Museum Abteiberg’s collection.
Further dates: 01/04; 02/01; 03/01; 05/03; 06/07; 09/06; 11/01; 12/06/2026

Image: Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

“A Question of Feedback”: Technology and Umwelt in Sigmar Polke’s Athanor installation
Seminar, 1 October 2026–31 March 2027, TU Berlin; Universität Bielefeld; Universität der Künste Berlin

Given his early interest in information theory, Polke's Athanor installation can be seen as a multilayered example of the artist’s evolving environmental thinking. There, artistic production emerges as a complex feedback mechanism between humans, nature, culture, and technology. In this interdisciplinary seminar, led by Daniela Doutch and Aurea Klarskov, the participants’ exploration into the history of technology, ecology, and materiality will be made available to the public via a digital archive using multimedia formats.

Image: Floor plan of Sigmar Polke’s installation in the German Pavilion, 1986

"The wall paints itself". Athanor Now: Image Processes between Experiment and Ecology
Talk, October 2026 (tbd), C/O Berlin Amerika Haus, Berlin

Athanor—the title of Sigmar Polke’s installation in the German pavilion for the 1986 Biennale—transformed the exhibition building, erected in 1909 and renovated in 1938, into an alchemical “furnace.” Inside, pictorial processes took place as a material reaction between the painting surface and its surroundings. On two evenings at C/O Berlin, the ideas and concepts behind Polke’s Athanor will be related to contemporary photography from an artistic and scientific perspective.

Image: Susanne Kriemann, Lupin, fougère, genêt, 2014

The Biennale Cycle by Sigmar Polke at Museum Abteiberg
Short Guided Tour, eight dates, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

This short tour with UIrike Engelke at Museum Abteiberg offers an overview of the large-format series of six artificial resin paintings that Sigmar Polke created as part of the Athanor ensemble for the Federal Republic of Germany’s pavilion at the 42nd Venice Biennale in 1986. The paintings are among the highlights of Museum Abteiberg’s collection.
Further dates: 01/04; 02/01; 03/01; 05/03; 06/07; 09/06; 11/01; 12/06/2026

Image: Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

Sigmar Polke: The Knowledge of Colors
Exhibition, 19 September 2026–28 February 2027, De Pont Museum, Tilburg

Based on Polke’s color experiments of the 1980s, the exhibition takes a look at his captivatingly beautiful, color-intensive paintings and the material transformations involved. The exhibits cover three decades of his work and testify to a precise yet playful approach to colors and forms. This multi-layered creative process showcases Polke’s profound understanding of painting as an open, permeable artistic practice.

Image: Sigmar Polke, Hermes Trismegistos III and IV, 1995

Visual Media Resonances: Sigmar Polke’s Biennale Photographs as a Node of Synergetic Image Production 
Lecture, 28 April 2026, Museum Ludwig, Cologne

The lecture focuses on the photographs Sigmar Polke took in the run-up to his presentation at the German Pavilion for the Venice Biennale. Based on these works, the possible synergy effects of his photographic image production on other artistic media will be outlined and discussed.
The event is part of the KunstBewusst lecture series organized by the Freunde des Wallraf-Richartz-Museum und des Museum Ludwig e.V.

Image: Sigmar Polke, Pavillon Biennale Venedig, 1986

Fluid Experiments: Artist Talk by Evelyn Möcking
Talk, tbd, Mineralien-Museum, Essen-Kupferdreh

In this artist talk, Evelyn Möcking explores, among other things, how pigments, light, and moisture interact on stone paper. Momentary observations and live demonstrations will reveal how natural processes inform color, texture, and composition. Much like Sigmar Polke’s Athanor, Möcking’s practice embraces chance and transformation, invites nature to act as a co-creator, and merges human gesture and material agency into a fluid, evolving artwork.

Image: Evelyn Möcking, Photo: Gregor Guski

POLKE SALON 14: Athanor and the Anthropology of Material
Talk, 23 April 2026, 7 pm, Anna Polke Foundation, Cologne

Christian Spies (Professor of Art History, University of Cologne) in conversation with Gökcan Demirkazik (PhD candidate, UCLA and Anna Polke Foundation Fellow 2024) about materials, transformation, and alterity in Sigmar Polke’s Athanor.
Sigmar Polke’s 1986 Biennale installation was marked above all by his command of unconventional materials. The body of work on display at the West German Pavilion was the culmination of several years of experimentation in the wake of his travels to Australasia around 1980–81. This POLKE SALON will investigate the place of peripheral or extinct cultures, transformative processes, and anthropology in Polke’s art, and contextualize it within a network of contemporaries preoccupied with the relationship between Otherness and visuality.

The conversation will be held mainly in English. Please RSVP: mail@anna-polke-stiftung.com

Image: Sigmar Polke, Athanor, Biennale di Venezia 1986

Alchemical Experiment—Outcome Unknown. The Biennale Cycle by Sigmar Polke
Guided Tour, 15 February and 15 November 2026, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 

The guided tour with UIrike Engelke at Museum Abteiberg offers an overview of the large-format series of six artificial resin paintings that Sigmar Polke created as part of the Athanor ensemble for the Federal Republic of Germany’s pavilion at the 42nd Venice Biennale in 1986. The paintings are among the highlights of Museum Abteiberg’s collection.

Image: Sigmar Polke, Lackbilder, 1986

Contaminations: Experimenting with and against the Material, from Polke to the Present Day
Seminar, 13 April–24 July 2026, Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln, Cologne

Polke’s conception of his artistic process and his method of inscribing it in various image carriers and recording media were informed by real-time observations of contamination and toxicity, as well as an alchemical interest in experimenting with and against physical and chemical modes of decay and transformation. It was an approach that went on to inspire many artists. The seminar, led by Lilian Haberer, examines and reflects on these diversified approaches, modes of experimentation, and artistic actualizations via theoretical and performative interventions.

Image: KHM

The Myth and Knowledge of Materials—On the Transformation of Materials in Sigmar Polke’s Work with a View to Art History and the Present
International Summer School, 21–27 September 2026, Universität zu Köln; Anna Polke-Stiftung, Cologne; Stiftung Findeisen, Cologne; De Pont Museum, Tilburg

The countless complex material transformations in Sigmar Polke’s work serve as the starting point for this international summer school. Embedded in current discourses and informed by artistic positions before and after Polke, it raises questions about the physical and conceptual properties of the selected materials. The various substances are understood as carriers of knowledge that invite reflection while transmitting their own histories, myths, and codes.

Image: Sigmar Polke, Mural Painting (detail), Biennale di Venezia 1986

The Biennale Cycle by Sigmar Polke at Museum Abteiberg
Short Guided Tour, eight dates, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

This short tour with UIrike Engelke at Museum Abteiberg offers an overview of the large-format series of six artificial resin paintings that Sigmar Polke created as part of the Athanor ensemble for the Federal Republic of Germany’s pavilion at the 42nd Venice Biennale in 1986. The paintings are among the highlights of Museum Abteiberg’s collection.
Further dates: 01/04; 02/01; 03/01; 05/03; 06/07; 09/06; 11/01; 12/06/2026

Image: Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

Light Up and Extinguish, Entangle and Untangle: Art Education and Artistic Exploration
Seminar, 12 October 2026–2 February 2027, Universität Bielefeld

Based on the material experiments in Sigmar Polke’s Athanor installation, this seminar led by Katja Hoffmann will deal with investigative and exploratory methods in artistic practices, both theoretically and practically within the framework of independently developed art education settings. The goal is to conduct explorative artistic work with children using various transformative materials within the Art Education Lab of the Department of Art Education at Universität Bielefed and to link this to current social issues like the Sustainable Development Goals.

Image: Katja Hoffmann, Light Up and Extinguish

Berit Schneidereit, Entangled Lines–Durch Räume und Zeiten in die Zukunft
Exhibition, October 2026–January 2027 (tbd), Kunsthaus NRW Kornelimünster

Entangled Lines–Durch Räume und Zeiten in die Zukunft (Through Space and Time into the Future) explores the transformation of unstable light-sensitive materials. Inspired by Sigmar Polke’s Dürerschleifen (Dürer Loops), a visual language unfolds that seems to follow invisible energies and is reflected in plant forms. The work with grapevines (1986) opens up new perspectives on the interrelationships between nature, humans, and technology, allowing artistic processes to be experienced as a reflection of change and regeneration.

Image: Berit Schneidereit, Entangled Lines, 2025

Troubling Pigments (After Polke)
Seminar, 1 February–30 June 2026, Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Troubling Pigments (after Polke) explores the ecological, colonial, and social histories of pigments. Taking as its point of departure the eight pigments used in the eight monochrome paintings of the Farbtafeln (Color Panels, 1986–92), part of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam’s collection, the project brings together a group of alumni from the Rijksakademie and Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou (curator, lecturer and researcher, art history & environmental humanities, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) to examine pigments as part of larger stories of trade, illness, colonialism, and environmental violence. The project will culminate in a public presentation at the Rijksakademie.

Image: Oscar Mallitte

Living Colors: Plant-Based Experiments with Evelyn Möcking
Workshop, tbd, Mineralien-Museum, Essen-Kupferdreh

In this workshop, the artist builds on her own artistic research with plant-based dyes and translates it into an experimental, participatory format. As in Sigmar Polke’s Athanor, the focus is on the interplay of material, transformation, chance, and observation—here with an emphasis on colorants derived from plants. The aim is to sensitize participants to material aesthetics, organic color processes, and artistic research as an open experimental framework.

 Image: Evelyn Möcking, Alchemie

The Quartz Crystal and Meteorite Speak of their Trip to Venice
Writing workshop for children, tbd, Mineralien-Museum, Essen-Kupferdreh

In this creative writing workshop, quartz crystals and meteorites serve as sources of inspiration. At the Mineralien-Museum Essen, young students can discover these exhibits alongside other exciting ones and invent their own stories, be they thrilling, funny, or mysterious. Nature meets imagination—and stones begin to speak.
For children aged 11 and up.

Image: Mineralien-Museum, Essen-Kupferdreh

Sigmar Polke—Experiments in Paint: From the Perspectives of Art, Art History, and Conservation
Seminar, 1 April–30 September 2026, Universität Siegen

The seminar offered by the Institute for Art History and Art Education at Universität Siegen and led by Christian Berger and Christian Freudenberger brings together professorships of art history and painting to explore Sigmar Polke’s painterly experiments from artistic, conservational, and art-historical perspectives. Particular emphasis will be placed on works from the collection of the Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Siegen, the exhibition Sigmar Polke. The Knowledge of Colors, and the collection of the Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven (including an excursion).

Image: Studio view, department of art, Universität Siegen

Philip Samartzis, For the Alchemist: A Composition of Debris, Metal, and Dust
Sound performance, 22 and 23 October 2026, Grossmünster Zürich

For the Alchemist: A Composition of Debris, Metal, and Dust is a multichannel sound work exploring transformation and elemental interaction through sound. Drawing on fieldwork in Antarctica, Western Australia, and the Swiss Alps, it links the German Pavilion in Venice with Zurich’s Grossmünster through spatial composition, text, and performance to evoke material, architectural, and atmospheric change.

Image: Philip Samartzis, Metallurgy Study, 2025

Reflections and Fluidities: On Material and Process Based on Polke’s Biennale Cycle
Forum, 7 November 2026, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

The foregrounding of material processes influenced by moisture and heat was a central feature of Polke’s Biennale cycle. Today, this approach continues to be reflected in fluid exhibition designs and experiments in contemporary art as a vehicle for critical reflections on matter and ecology. The forum, organized in cooperation with the Anna Polke Foundation (Sophia Stang) and the Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln (Lilian Haberer), focuses on research into material and process as well as performative interventions. By drawing on Sigmar Polke’s artistic practice, participants will use the Museum Abteiberg as a site to explore the reflective and fluid aspects of materiality.

Image: Polke in his studio, 1988, Photo: Manfred Leve

Stefanie Pluta, Scenario for a Crystal
Exhibition, 10 July–November 2026 (tbd), Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Colonia

Scenario for a Crystal takes up Polke’s interest in minerals and natural processes some 40 years after his Athanor exhibition. The starting point is the story of the Indergand Crystal, a smoky quartz recovered from the Tiefen Glacier in 1946. Photographs, drawings, and display cases offer a way of approaching the crystal as an absent protagonist—between observation of nature, transformation, and museological presentation.

Image: Stefanie Pluta, Scenario for a Crystal, 2014

Tyrian Purple, Meteorites, and Schnapps: An Experimental Art History of Polke’s Athanor
Seminar, 1 January–30 June 2026, Universität zu Köln; TU Dortmund

This interdisciplinary seminar led by Kathrin Borgers and Dirk Hildebrandt will explore new perspectives on Sigmar Polke’s work at the intersection of artistic and scientific practice. The material and technical experiments that Polke conducted in the context of his Athanor installation (1986) will serve as the starting point for these reflections.

Image: Rock crystal, pyrite, agate, malachite, azurite, cinnabar, sulfur, lapis lazuli

Pigments in Motion
Workshop, 28 November 2026, 2–5pm, Kunsthalle Bielefeld

Let's discover Sigmar Polke's artwork Negativwert (Negative Value), 1982, together. His art continues to fascinate today and opens up space for exciting experiments. Immerse yourself in his artistic work and let yourself be inspired: swing your brush, move the pigments, and let something magical emerge in the process of discovery. So put on your art smocks and get ready for: Pigments in Motion.
Workshop for children and teens up to 16 years of age.

Image: Zuhal Özbey

The Biennale Cycle by Sigmar Polke at Museum Abteiberg
Short Guided Tour, eight dates, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

This short tour with UIrike Engelke at Museum Abteiberg offers an overview of the large-format series of six artificial resin paintings that Sigmar Polke created as part of the Athanor ensemble for the Federal Republic of Germany’s pavilion at the 42nd Venice Biennale in 1986. The paintings are among the highlights of Museum Abteiberg’s collection.
Further dates: 01/04; 02/01; 03/01; 05/03; 06/07; 09/06; 11/01; 12/06/2026

Image: Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

Zoom In: Sigmar Polke
Public Program, tbd, Kunstmuseum Bonn

Starting July 2026, Kunstmuseum Bonn will present a representative selection of works by Sigmar Polke from its extensive holdings: unconventional paintings as well as prints and sketchbooks—all of which testify to his boundless spirit of experimentation and the subtle irony with which the artist responded to the ideological conflicts of postwar Germany. An accompanying program is being planned as part of Sigmar Polke: Athanor NOW.

Image: Kunstmuseum Bonn

The Artist as Alchemist, part of Collection in Motion – 15 Rooms, 15 Stories
Exhibition, 4 December 2025–December 2026, Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld

Everything that exists is mutable, including human beings themselves—this central idea has shaped alchemical thinking for centuries and continues to inspire artists to this day. Examples include Sigmar Polke, Yves Klein, and Joseph Beuys, who used it as a poetic and philosophical tool to visualize change, energy, and mental processes. The Kunstmuseen Krefeld is dedicating a cabinet exhibition to this theme, featuring major works from its own collection.

Image: KWM

Treasure Hunting in the Dark at the Mineralien-Museum
Workshop for Families, tbd, Mineralien-Museum, Essen-Kupferdreh 

During this guided tour in the dark, participants won’t just use flashlights to discover the Mineralien-Museum’s collection, but also the artworks by Evelyn Möcking currently on display. The tour will take us through eerily beautiful encounters that shed a different light on the collection’s treasures and the artist’s works.
For families with children aged 6 and up.

Image: Mineralien-Museum, Essen-Kupferdreh

The Biennale Cycle by Sigmar Polke at Museum Abteiberg
Short Guided Tour, eight dates, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

This short tour with UIrike Engelke at Museum Abteiberg offers an overview of the large-format series of six artificial resin paintings that Sigmar Polke created as part of the Athanor ensemble for the Federal Republic of Germany’s pavilion at the 42nd Venice Biennale in 1986. The paintings are among the highlights of Museum Abteiberg’s collection.
Further dates: 01/04; 02/01; 03/01; 05/03; 06/07; 09/06; 11/01; 12/06/2026

Image: Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

The Biennale Cycle by Sigmar Polke at Museum Abteiberg
Short Guided Tour, eight dates, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

This short tour with UIrike Engelke at Museum Abteiberg offers an overview of the large-format series of six artificial resin paintings that Sigmar Polke created as part of the Athanor ensemble for the Federal Republic of Germany’s pavilion at the 42nd Venice Biennale in 1986. The paintings are among the highlights of Museum Abteiberg’s collection.
Further dates: 01/04; 02/01; 03/01; 05/03; 06/07; 09/06; 11/01; 12/06/2026

Image: Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

Sigmar Polke—65 Athanor Photos (WT)
Exhibition, May–July 2026, Venice (tbd)

For the 2026 Biennale di Venezia, Gerald Winckler and Dierk Dierking will present 65 Biennale photographs by Sigmar Polke in Venice for the first time. The images are captivating for both their artistic quality and originality. This collection vividly illustrates Polke’s approach to the German Pavilion and his intensive engagement with the site. It also includes largely unknown variations on key motifs. The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication.

Image: Sigmar Polke, Pavillon Biennale Venedig, 1986

Art and Politics at the Venice Biennale
Excursion, 06.–10.09.2026, Venice

With his contribution to the 1986 Biennale, Sigmar Polke explicitly transformed the German pavilion into a giant Athanor, which allowed the substances involved to continuously take on new appearances, as though in an alchemical furnace. In citing this major tool of the alchemists, Polke deliberately invoked the art of transformation. But how does the transformative potential of art manifest itself in the context of a national pavilion? How far does it extend into society?
Organized by Ulli Seegers as part of the Master’s program in Art Education and Cultural Management at Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf.

Image: Students in front of the German Pavilion in Venice

Conversations on Polke’s Athanor Photographs
Talk, Spring 2026 (tbd), Sammlung Hoffmann, Berlin

Polke’s Athanor photographs will be discussed in relation to the themes of Snap Out of Numbness, the current presentation at Sammlung Hoffmann.

Image: Sigmar Polke, Pavillon Biennale Venedig, 1986

Polke Literature Evening: A Collaboration with Theater Oberhausen
Guided Tour and Reading, Fall 2026 (tbd), Schaudepot des Ruhr Museums auf Zollverein, Essen or Mineralien-Museum, Essen-Kupferdreh

Reading with texts by Arthur C. Clarke, Thomas Mann, Jürgen Dahl, Heinrich Hauser, Christian Morgenstern, and, of course, Sigmar Polke—about time and space, higher beings and alien worlds, the transformation of matter and traces of life, the search for the philosopher’s stone (and how Polke’s art might finally be explained). Accompanied by curatorial notes on selected exhibits prepared by Achim Reisdorf, curator of natural science collections, Stiftung Ruhr Museum.

Readers: Anna Polke and others as well as actors from Theater Oberhausen and Ulrike Stottrop, geologist, Essen.

Image: Schaudepot of the Ruhr Museum, Essen

Mark Aerial Waller, Reflections in Motion: Temporal Experiments After Polke’s Athanor
Exhibition, tbd

A cinematic and somatic exploration of memory, perception, and embodied archival entanglement. A new moving image and live event by artist Mark Aerial Waller engages with Sigmar Polke’s 1986 Athanor exhibition to explore how personal and historical forces shape perception. Using Systemic Constellations, the project maps relational dynamics across time, through archives, embodiment, and intergenerational entanglement. 

Image: Gold leaf, Athanor catalogue

The Biennale Cycle by Sigmar Polke at Museum Abteiberg
Short Guided Tour, eight dates, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

This short tour with UIrike Engelke at Museum Abteiberg offers an overview of the large-format series of six artificial resin paintings that Sigmar Polke created as part of the Athanor ensemble for the Federal Republic of Germany’s pavilion at the 42nd Venice Biennale in 1986. The paintings are among the highlights of Museum Abteiberg’s collection.
Further dates: 01/04; 02/01; 03/01; 05/03; 06/07; 09/06; 11/01; 12/06/2026

Image: Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

Polkean Scenography, from Venice to Paris
Lecture, tbd, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

Polkean Scenography, from Venice to Paris considers two exhibitions where Sigmar Polke staged materials responsive to the locales’ indoor and outdoor ecologies: Athanor (1986), and the monographic show Sigmar Polke at the Musee d’art moderne de la ville de Paris (1988). Drawing on archival research, the project attends to the dispositif of scenography, framing the Polkean exhibition space as a stage of material transformation.
A research project by Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Image: Sigmar Polke, Paris 1988

Creative Activity Booklet for Children
Publication, tbd, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

For the anniversary of Polke’s Biennale installation, Elena Thißen (text) and Sinikka Krüder (illustrations) are developing a creative activity book that invites children aged 7 and up to discover Polke’s six synthetic resin paintings at the Museum Abteiberg in a playful way. The free activity booklet is expected to be available for young museum visitors at the ticket office from April 2026.

Image: Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

Grids, Reproductions, Reactions
Guided Tour and Workshop, 16 May 2026, 11am–4pm, Museum Folkwang, Essen

Polke’s work combines painting, photography, and printmaking techniques in an open-ended way. Grid structures, altered source materials, copying processes, chemical reactions, and transparent layers make the creative process itself visible. After a collective viewing of the work, the four-hour workshop explores how Copy Art can be combined with experimental printing techniques. Participants will create their own works using copiers, manual transfer methods, and unusual materials.

Image: Museum Folkwang, Essen

Nico Joana Weber, Meteorite and Quartz Crystal (WT)
Exhibition, 9 October–4 December 2026, Schaudepot des Ruhr Museums auf Zollverein, Essen

For the third floor of the exhibition depot, artist Nico Joana Weber is developing a site-specific installation and a new body of work. She is investigating the history surrounding the loan of the meteorite and rock crystal that Sigmar Polke integrated into his installation in Venice, which came from the former Ruhrland Museum, as well as the artist’s intense preoccupation with minerals and natural pigments that runs through his work.

Image: Quartz Crystal, 2025

Raewyn Martyn, Petrified Paintings
Exhibition, August 2026–August 2027, Cockburn Geological Museum, University of Edinburgh

Under the title Petrified Paintings, a series of transparent geomorphological paintings are installed in the foyer and windows of the museum corridor, accompanied by an experimental anthropogenic tufa stone fresco. Both the paintings and the fresco are made of a bio-based material and pigments related to the Cockburn collection and the ongoing anthropogenic geological processes in the city and nearby post-industrial sites. The project will be presented in two phases: the paintings in the corridorand foyer will be installed in early 2026, the time-based 3D fresco will be created in the second half of the year.

Image: Raewyn Martyn, Windows, Cockburn Museum Courtyard, 2025

Polke Loops
Talk, Guided Tour, 30 April 2026, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich

Sigmar Polke’s Dürerschleifen (Dürer Loops) for the German Pavilion at the 1986 Venice Biennale and the preliminary photographic studies for them will form the focus of an evening event featuring a guided tour, lecture, and panel discussion. The event explores questions of materiality and multiple layers of meaning.
With: Anna Polke, Dietmar Rübel, Michael Trier, Verena Hein, and Franziska Kunze.

Image: Sigmar Polke, Experientia/Solertia, 1986

Athanor's Scales of Time
Seminar, tbd, Université de Lausanne

This art-history block seminar led by Maria Stavrinaki draws on epistemological and philosophical perspectives to consider the theme of time in Polke’s work. The inscription of time into matter will be examined in relation to astronomy and geology, prehistory and art history in the longue durée, as well as meteorology. Taking Polke’s Athanor installation as a point of departure, modernity—the creator of acceleration and deep time—will be explored together with external researchers.

Image: Paul Cézanne, Dans la carrière de Bibémus, 1895

Alchemical Experiment—Outcome Unknown. The Biennale Cycle by Sigmar Polke
Guided Tour, 15 February and 15 November 2026, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 

The guided tour with UIrike Engelke at Museum Abteiberg offers an overview of the large-format series of six artificial resin paintings that Sigmar Polke created as part of the Athanor ensemble for the Federal Republic of Germany’s pavilion at the 42nd Venice Biennale in 1986. The paintings are among the highlights of Museum Abteiberg’s collection.

Image: Sigmar Polke, Lackbilder, 1986

From Infra- to Hyperobject. Sigmar Polke’s Psychedelic Ecology
Workshop, Lecture, Publication, January–October 2026, Monash University Melbourne; Melbourne Museum; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

This project will trace the development of Polke’s interest in ecology, from the late 1960s until Athanor. First findings presented to arts professionals at the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand 2025 conference will be further explored with students at Monash University through a workshop on mineral pigments at Melbourne Museum and shared with an international public through enhanced documentation of Meteor II (1988), a Polke painting in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
A research project by Luke Smythe.

Image: Luke Smythe, Art Association of Australia and New Zealand Conference, December 2025

Athanor—Restoration History and Art Technology
Guided Tour, 18 October 2026, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

In his works for the 1986 Biennale, Sigmar Polke combined painting, chemistry, and alchemy by using reactive materials such as lacquers, metal pigments, and photochemical substances as active components of his images. This experimental choice of materials means that the perception of the works changes over time, but it also poses major challenges for conservation, as light, humidity, and temperature continuously alter their appearance.
Christine Adolphs, restorer at the Museum Abteiberg, focuses on these aspects of the Biennale cycle in her guided tour of the originals. The tour will take place as part of International Restoration Day.

Image: Sigmar Polke, Lackbild (detail), 1986

The Spirits I Summoned…
Seminar, January–July 2026, Kunsthochschule Mainz

The Spirits I Summoned... is an experimental artistic exploration of Sigmar Polke’s Athanor series of works, initiated for the photography class at Kunsthochschule Mainz. The starting point is a reflection on space inspired by Polke’s photographic practice. In a workshop, experimental darkroom works will be created and documented in a collective print and digital zine.

Image: Berit Schneidereit

Evelyn Möcking, Fluides Gestein. Himmlische Funken (Fluid Stone, Heavenly Spark)
Exhibition, tbd, Mineralien-Museum, Essen-Kupferdreh

Fluides Gestein. Himmlische Funken (Fluid Stone, Heavenly Sparks) is an exhibition by artist Evelyn Möcking at the Mineralien Museum, Essen-Kupferdreh, that combines glass and plexiglass objects, 3D sculptures, and sound collages. The works engage directly with the collection, respond to objects, shift perception, and expand the exhibition. The project references Sigmar Polke’s Athanor installation (1986) and explores materiality, process, and transformation in a contemporary context.

Image: Evelyn Möcking, Overlapping Templates, 2025

Stones, Stones, Stones, No Stone like the Other
Workshop with tools for kids, tbd, Mineralien-Museum, Essen-Kupferdreh

Isn’t it pretty? A silvery stone makes red marks? So round, so colorful! The little stone is heavy, the big one is light? It feels good to the touch and makes special sounds. There are so many different stones. Children explore them and sort them according to their own ideas. We’ll provide a variety of stones for their research, which they can distinguish by taste, shape, or sound. There will also be tools: magnifying glasses, scratchboards, tuning forks, vinegar. The children will put together a sample case.
For children aged 5 and up.

Image: Mineralien-Museum, Essen-Kupferdreh

Moving Colors—Colorful Sounds. Stop-motion Animation, Painting, and Sound
Workshop, 19 March 2026, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach

In this workshop with artist Kai Welf Hoyme, the interrelationships and transformation processes between abstract painting, stop-motion animation, and sound will be explored. Inspired by Sigmar Polke’s Biennale cycle at the museum, participants will experiment with a variety of materials and media with the goal of producing short stop-motion animations.
Participants from age 16 or over.

Image: Lucie Gorzolka