Kathreiner's Morning Wood (Kathreiners Morgenlatte), a work by Sigman Polke

Sigmar Polke takes images from the mass media and prints them onto various elaborate combinations of cloth.

Over a dull domestic interior, the word Kathreiner, taken from a wooden crate, refers to a well-known brand of malt coffee that was drunk in Germany during the years of the economic miracle.

There is another element of the work that draws the eye. This is a framed collage containing a newspaper cutting and a book cover, with the author’s name intentionally hidden.

To emphasize his postmodern ideas, Polke savagely criticizes the artistic tradition by inverting his own name...

...and signing as “Henri Matisse” in the bottom left corner. He ironizes in this way on the need for an artwork to be signed in order to guarantee its authenticity and therefore its value.

Sigmar Polke
Kathreiner's Morning Wood (Kathreiners Morgenlatte), 1969–79
Acrylic, wood, mixed media, and framed collage on canvas and fabric
235 x 305 cm
Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa