Cologne Beggars II (Kölner Bettler II) 1972

Sigmar Polke made this photogravure, Cologne Beggars II, and it's all about the way an image comes into being, the marks of its making. The gray scale is so subtle, it's like the image is barely there, like a ghost of something seen or remembered. I love the way the surface texture becomes part of the image itself. It’s like Polke is saying, "Hey, this isn't just about the figures, it's about the process, the grit, the physicality of art making." See how the horizontal lines run through the whole image, connecting everything. It's like the whole scene is caught in a kind of web or screen. Polke reminds me a bit of Gerhard Richter, another German artist who messes with photography and painting. But where Richter is smooth, Polke is rough. He embraces the mistakes, the accidents, the things that other artists might try to hide. For Polke, art is a conversation, a messy, beautiful, and ultimately human thing.