Lot Essay
With The Revenge of the Kanakas, Polke presents a tripartite image of stunning monumentality. Like a Renaissance triptych, the work induces an atmosphere of sacred awe, with the central image thrust forward in all its stark poignancy.
Through Polke's quintessential use of benday dots in the righthand panel of the work, a reference is made to the modern post-industrial world of mass-media, benday dots being the feature through which our video and television screens, and our magazine and newspaper print is composed. However, the benday dot, existing as a symbol for the cold, objective world of mass-production, here stands in a position of self-referential contradiction, precisely because Polke has not used a ready-made fabric, but had used the mechanical process of silkscreen-printing to create the dots himself.
The use of fabric rather than canvas as a support for the work, again relates it to the contemporary world of mass-production. Polke here, with a touch of the tongue-in-cheek, shows how the painter's support belongs just as much to this world, as to the domain of the artist. This is again emphasised by the fact that the print of the fabrics on the left and central panels have been created with the same techniques of mass-production as those that have given rise to the benday dot. Traditional hierarchies of represented image, medium and support, are also eliminated in Polke's inclusion of the support as representative of the ideology behind the work. In this way the artist fuses the low art of the mass-produced image with the high art created by the artist.
The designs used in the left-hand and centre panels are typical of modern central African fabrics and textiles and contain the deep colours and exotic imagery of these ethnic regions. The fabrics that Polke uses in this work are specifically Nigersunan and contrast with the monotone colour and flawless regularity of the black dots of the right-hand panel. This aspect is highlighted through the shapes created by tree branches, which the artist has placed over the two flanking panels and outlined with spray-paint. The remnants of these vegetal, organic forms bring to the work the warm imagery of the African landscape.
Revenge of the Kanakas may be seen as self-questioning in its complexity, Polke literally opposing imagery which can be considered as representing East and West, Modernist and Traditional. The fabric of the right-hand panel, covered with the benday dots of city billboards and multi-media expansion, is in literal contrast to the fabric of the left-hand panel, which has been composed with the yellow pineapples, sunburnt leaves, and vivid green foliage of the central African terrain.
Within this, the monumental central panel, decorated with its primitive sexual symbolism, makes the strongest impact. Its form relates to traditional African fertility symbols, and to the signs present in Middle Eastern culture - a talisman against the "evil eye", warding off malevolent spirits. However, the symbol can also be seen to bare a kinship with the austere forms of pagan or early Anglo-Christian imagery, sharing the mysticism, spontaneity and candid effects of these native forms. The fabric on which it has been printed is again composed of a traditional Nigersunan design. Placed in the centre of the work the image relates directly to the human spirit, and may be seen to be a unifying factor, representing universal themes common to man across the globe.
Through Polke's quintessential use of benday dots in the righthand panel of the work, a reference is made to the modern post-industrial world of mass-media, benday dots being the feature through which our video and television screens, and our magazine and newspaper print is composed. However, the benday dot, existing as a symbol for the cold, objective world of mass-production, here stands in a position of self-referential contradiction, precisely because Polke has not used a ready-made fabric, but had used the mechanical process of silkscreen-printing to create the dots himself.
The use of fabric rather than canvas as a support for the work, again relates it to the contemporary world of mass-production. Polke here, with a touch of the tongue-in-cheek, shows how the painter's support belongs just as much to this world, as to the domain of the artist. This is again emphasised by the fact that the print of the fabrics on the left and central panels have been created with the same techniques of mass-production as those that have given rise to the benday dot. Traditional hierarchies of represented image, medium and support, are also eliminated in Polke's inclusion of the support as representative of the ideology behind the work. In this way the artist fuses the low art of the mass-produced image with the high art created by the artist.
The designs used in the left-hand and centre panels are typical of modern central African fabrics and textiles and contain the deep colours and exotic imagery of these ethnic regions. The fabrics that Polke uses in this work are specifically Nigersunan and contrast with the monotone colour and flawless regularity of the black dots of the right-hand panel. This aspect is highlighted through the shapes created by tree branches, which the artist has placed over the two flanking panels and outlined with spray-paint. The remnants of these vegetal, organic forms bring to the work the warm imagery of the African landscape.
Revenge of the Kanakas may be seen as self-questioning in its complexity, Polke literally opposing imagery which can be considered as representing East and West, Modernist and Traditional. The fabric of the right-hand panel, covered with the benday dots of city billboards and multi-media expansion, is in literal contrast to the fabric of the left-hand panel, which has been composed with the yellow pineapples, sunburnt leaves, and vivid green foliage of the central African terrain.
Within this, the monumental central panel, decorated with its primitive sexual symbolism, makes the strongest impact. Its form relates to traditional African fertility symbols, and to the signs present in Middle Eastern culture - a talisman against the "evil eye", warding off malevolent spirits. However, the symbol can also be seen to bare a kinship with the austere forms of pagan or early Anglo-Christian imagery, sharing the mysticism, spontaneity and candid effects of these native forms. The fabric on which it has been printed is again composed of a traditional Nigersunan design. Placed in the centre of the work the image relates directly to the human spirit, and may be seen to be a unifying factor, representing universal themes common to man across the globe.