Within the framework of the seminar Tyrian Purple, Meteorites, and Schnapps. An Experimental Art History of Polke’s Athanor, questions about experimentation in the artist’s work will be explored from a historical-critical perspective and through practical material experiments. The seminar aims to analyze the intersections between scientific and artistic practice.
Tyrian Purple, Meteorites, and Schnapps
Tyrian Purple, Meteorites, and Schnapps.
An Experimental Art History of Polke’s Athanor
In the first phase of the seminar at Universität zu Köln, the historical and theoretical foundations of experimental art history will be conveyed. Such an art history can draw on artists like Allan Kaprow, Pinot Gallizio, and George Brecht, who described themselves as experimenters and their artistic work as a form of experimental practice. In some cases, they even worked as actual scientists in laboratories. In addition, we will consider practices of artistic research and forms of experimental design which have strongly influenced the field of artistic education in recent years. At these various intersections of art and science, the seminar raises questions about the contemporary relevance of the experimental, especially in the context of the reception of Sigmar Polke’s work.
In the second phase of the seminar at TU Dortmund, participants will quite literally enter the realm of the experimental. Under the guidance of experts, they will test experimental work processes that make Polke’s artistic methods more comprehensible while simultaneously opening up new perspectives on the interplay of material and technique. To deepen this material-technical examination, conservators who have already intensively engaged with the material properties of Polke’s works will be invited to share insights. From this perspective, the project positions itself within a recent turn in technical art history that has been established through research initiatives such as the Making and Knowing Lab (Columbia University, New York) and the Art Lab (Utrecht University).
The teaching and research project opens up an innovative approach to Polke’s work by productively linking theoretical reflection and experimental practice in an interdisciplinary setting. In methodological terms, the seminar tests a novel teaching format that not only familiarizes students with the historicity of artistic experiments but also gives them the opportunity to experience them practically in a university context. This synthesis of theoretical and practice-based forms of knowledge aims to create new stimuli and pathways for researching, teaching, and communicating the material, processual, and conceptual dimensions of Sigmar Polke’s work.
Tyrian Purple, Meteorites, and Schnapps. An Experimental Art History of Polke’s Athanor
Seminar, led by Kathrin Borgers and Dirk Hildebrandt, 1 January–30 June 2026, Universität zu Köln; TU Dortmund