Polke's Prime

A German Meisterkünstler returns to New York

PAINTING

The crucial artists to emerge in Europe in the 1960s looked to America, took from America, and then made work that held a tarnished mirror to America's wants and ways. There was Godard, and the Beatles, and, among painters, a German named Sigmar Polke. His paintings—dissonant pop dissolves, mock-heroic abstractions, works that prefigure those of David Salle, among others—didn't reach our shores in numbers until the early 1980s. But Polke has since become the cult contemporary master in New York, and a celebrity in Europe. His show was the only must-see at last summer's Biennale in Venice, and with the death earlier this year of Joseph Beuys, he can be expected to assume the role of Deutsche Kunst Star—pranking, politicking, practicing the requisite weirdnesses of dress and locution. The Museum of Modem Art should and probably won't mount a Polke retrospective; a modest survey up this month at Mary Boone is to date the best glimpse of his paintings. See them and scratch up your taste. Mary Boone Gallery. New York. (11/1-29)

GERALD MARZORATI