Yes Sir, that’s my Baby!!

For many artists, U.S. pop culture of the 1960s and 70s presented an important starting point for their work. This also applies to self-taught Memphis Schulze (1944–2008) – after all, he was in his colleagues’ good book: he was in possession of a soon ­considered legendary comic and record collection, which he ­allowed everyone to use. This catalogue raisonné, submitted here by his sons Max and Pillip together with Katrin Menne, accomodates this practice and seizes the opportunity of
linking, in a wild scenery, the diversity of his œuvre with the documents of a very acute awareness of life. They all find their place here, appear ­almost as if in a live act in the immediate vicinity of Memphis Schulz’s paint­ing. The fact that this has not at all been assigned the attention it deserves, is outlined in the contributions by Polke specialists Petra Lange-Berndt and Dietmar Rübel. Already in 2009, in the exhibition »Sigmar Polke & Co. – the 1970s« at Hamburger Kunsthalle, much attention had been given to Dietmar Rübel’s elucidation of the social and aesthetic relationships within that scene.