Gallery Poll

The Galerie Poll is a 1968 by Eva and Lothar C. Poll in West Berlin Gallery, founded in contemporary art . Realistic and figurative art of the present since 1960 form the program focus of the gallery. The focus is on painting and sculpture , but the gallery also forms a forum for drawing and photography .

Founding years

Lothar C. Poll and Peter Sorge in the gallery on Kurfürstendamm , Berlin 1975

Billy Wilder visits the Galerie am Lützowplatz , Berlin 1989. From left: Annette Tietenberg , Billy Wilder, Eva Poll

Eva Poll , Berlin 2009

Nana Poll, Berlin 2014

After the Wall was erected in 1961, a special cultural climate developed in West Berlin . It was about the self-assertion of a metropolis cut off from the surrounding area and in need of support. The city was supported by subsidies, and the Americans set up the Artists-in-Residence program . The island location of West Berlin attracted artists from all over the world to stay for a shorter or longer period of time. In addition to the long-established Rudolf Springer , Galerie Nierendorf , Galerie Schüler and Pels-Leusden galleries , Michael Wewerka, Mike Cullen, René Block and Georg Nothelfer opened new exhibition spaces. Eva and Lothar C. Poll came to West Berlin in 1963: “At the beginning of the 1960s there was a lot of creative movement in the suburb, taking advantage of the standstill after the fencing. It was not so much the events that celebrated Berlin in Charlottenburg Palace as a “place of freedom for art”, but rather the lone fighters who shaped the atmosphere of those years in the city: actors like Günter Meisner , who ran the Diogenes gallery on Bleibtreustraße opened or the Living Theater from New York, ousted from the freest city in the world, which was a guest at the Akademie der Künste for months . ”From 1966 Lothar C. Poll was honorary managing director of the artists' cooperative Großgörschen 35 , which had been founded two years earlier and named after the Address of the rented factory space in the Schöneberg district . Sixteen young artists came together to form an exhibition group in the producers' gallery, including Peter Sorge , Karl Horst Hödicke , Wolfgang Petrick , Markus Lüpertz , Hans Jürgen Diehl and Lambert Maria Wintersberger . In 1968, differences of opinion within the artist group led to the gallery being dissolved. The artists that emerged from it split into critical realists and expressive painters. The dissolution of the artist group led to the establishment of the Poll Gallery. Eva Poll took over the successor to the exhibition community and assembled a young group of artists committed to realism in her gallery .

Gallery locations

The gallery was opened on October 8, 1968 in an old building at Niebuhrstrasse 77 in Charlottenburg with an exhibition by Peter Sorge . In 1971 the gallery moved to Kurfürstendamm 185. From 1979 to 2009 it was based at Lützowplatz 7 near the Bauhaus Archive . At the same time, Polls ran the POLL Studio at Köpenicker Strasse 194 in Berlin-Kreuzberg , where they showed exhibitions of young artists and photography, including a solo exhibition by Michael Schmidt in 1983 . In 2009 the sole proprietorship Galerie Eva Poll was transferred to the POLL Galerie + Kunsthandel in Berlin GmbH. From 2009 to summer 2015 the gallery in Anna-Louisa-Karsch-Straße 9 near Museum Island in Mitte was operated in the former rectory of the garrison church . In summer 2015 the gallery moved to Gipsstrasse 3. The Poll Art Foundation, founded in 1986, works in the same building . The company's joint location with a Schaulager offers a total of around 350 m² of exhibition space. The ensemble of buildings at Gipsstrasse 3 was expanded into an art and studio house at the end of the 1990s according to the designs of the architect Jürgen Pleuser .

Collaboration with Nana Poll

The daughter Nana Poll, born in West Berlin in 1966, has been working in the gallery since autumn 2012. Nana Poll studied journalism and art history at the Free University of Berlin . In her master's thesis she dealt with the topic of “Art criticism and the art business. Art criticism in daily and weekly newspapers in the Federal Republic of Germany. Tasks and problems of current art mediation with a review of the history of the origins of this journalistic form ”. From 1996 to 2001 she was in charge of press and public relations work for the millennium program “Das Neue Berlin 99/01” at the Berliner Festspiele . From October 2001 to April 2012 she was a consultant at the Schloss Neuhardenberg Foundation, responsible for communication and press. From 2009 to 2012 she was at the exhibition “Good Business. Art trade in Berlin 1933–1945 ”of the Active Museum with various stations in Berlin.

program

In addition to the early artists Hermann Albert , Bettina von Arnim , Ulrich Baehr , Harald Duwe , Herbert Kaufmann, Maina-Miriam Munsky , Wolfgang Petrick and Peter Sorge , painters such as Peter Herrmann , Maxim Kantor , Ralf Kerbach , Dieter Kraemer , Reinhard Lange are regulars , Thomas Lange , Jan Schüler , Volker Stelzmann , Norbert Wagenbrett , Lambert Maria Wintersberger and the sculptors Sabina Grzimek , Waldemar Grzimek , Emerita Pansowová , Hans Scheib , Joachim Schmettau and Jenny Mucchi-Wiegmann . Drawers like Danja Akulin, Martina Altschäfer or Matthias Beckmann and photographers like Gundula Schulze Eldowy , Jenö Gindl, Richard Thieler or Erhard Wehrmann are also part of the gallery program.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the gallery exhibited artistic positions from Spain, Greece, France, Italy and Venezuela with Rafael Canogar , Equipo Cronica, Vlassis Caniaris , Eduardo Arroyo , Erró and Jacques Monory, Jean Hélion , Mario Schifano, Gabriele Mucchi and Jacobo Borges in front. In 1988 the gallery showed works by Svetlana Kopystiansky , Igor Kopystiansky, Maxim Kantor and Igor Ganikowskij with the exhibition “Szene Moskau” and presented Moscow artists for the first time in West Berlin. Since 1969 the gallery has participated in numerous national and international art fairs such as Art Cologne , Art Basel , Art Karlsruhe and art fairs in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Barcelona, ​​Madrid, Paris and Los Angeles. Eva Poll was the curator of numerous exhibitions in museums in Germany and other European countries as well as in international Goethe Institutes . So she organized u. a. the exhibition “Principle Realism”, which wandered through German and European cities from 1972 to 1974, and in 1977/1978, in collaboration with Künstlerhaus Bethanien, the exhibition “Aspect Big City” at Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin, Kunstverein Hannover , Kunstverein Frankfurt , Kunstverein Munich , Talbot Rice Art Center in Edinburgh and the Round House Gallery in London. In 1982/1983 Eva Poll worked on the first presentation of West German art in the Soviet Union and was responsible for the selection and organization of the Berlin contribution to the exhibition “Man and Landscape in Contemporary Painting and Graphics” in Moscow.

In addition to the exhibitions, the gallery publishes catalogs, work directories and reading books (POLLeditions). In addition, numerous original graphics by the artists represented by the Poll Gallery have appeared since the 1960s.

Galerie Poll is a member of the Federal Association of German Galleries and Art Dealers (BVDG) and of the State Association of Berlin Galleries (lvbg), of which it is one of the founding members as well as one of the founding members of its predecessor, the Berlin Art Dealers Association (IBK) founded in 1968, chaired by Eva Poll held from 1976 to 1982. Part of the extensive archive of the Poll Gallery has been in the Central Archive of the International Art Trade (ZADIK) since 2009 .

Publications (selection)

• Peter worry . Catalog raisonné of the etchings, lithographs and hand drawings 1963–1979 . Galerie Poll, Berlin 1979, ISBN 3-931759-08-3 .
• Homage to Max Beckmann . POLLeditions Volume 4, Berlin 1984.
• Positions of Realism 1967–1972–1987 . With texts by Günter Grass , Uwe M. Schneede and Bernhard Schulz . POLLeditions Volume 10, Berlin 1987.
• Scene Moscow 1988. Four painters – four positions . Igor Ganikowsky , Maxim Kantor , Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky. POLLeditions Volume 16, Berlin 1988.
• Lots of crocodiles - 25 years of art in Berlin . Documentation on the 25th anniversary of the gallery. With contributions by Heinz Ohff , Lucius Grisebach , Werner Hofmann, Harald Duwe and Wieland Schmied . POLLeditions Volume 39, Berlin 1993.
• Gall is sweet, my love! Press photography and critical realism . With a supplement to the catalog raisonné of etchings and hand drawings by Peter Sorge 1979–1998. Edited by Lothar C. Poll and Jörg Probst. Kerber Verlag, Berlin / Bielefeld 2003. ISBN 3-936646-48-1 .
• Herbert Kaufmann . Principle collage. Work 1956–1998 . Verlag der Galerie Poll, Berlin 2004, ISBN 978-3-931759-01-8 .
• Forensics. Between figuration and abstraction .; Pictures and drawings by Hermann Kirchberger , Christel Poll and Becky Sandstede . Galerie Poll, Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-931759-02-5 .
• Great art. Another point of view. 15 positions from the 70s and 80s . Poll, Galerie + Kunsthandel, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-931759-22-3 .
• Maina-Miriam Munsky . See the cold light of the world. Work 1967–1992 . POLLeditions, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-931759-07-0 .
• Topicality as a raw material. Peter Sorge , prints 1964–1997 . Poll, Galerie + Kunsthandel, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-931759-26-1 .
• Moments. 40 years of photography at Poll . Poll, Galerie + Kunsthandel, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-931759-27-8 .
• Realism as a method. Six Berlin sculptors . Poll, Galerie + Kunsthandel, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-931759-31-5 .
• Thomas Lange . Working since the 1970s until today. 1974–2011 , Galerie Poll, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-931759-29-2 .
• No pictures without love. Kerbach & students in his class , Gallery Poll, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-931759-32-2 .
• Bettina von Arnim . The cyborgs and their tracks. Painting, drawings and etchings 1968–1983 . POLLeditions, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-931759-38-4 .
• Adventure art. 50 years of Galerie Poll . With texts by Eva and Lothar C. Poll , Lucius Grisebach , Christos M. Joachimides , Heinz Ohff . Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-931759-40-7 .

literature

• Heinz Ohff : More than a principle. Exhibition for the 10th anniversary of the Poll gallery . In: Der Tagesspiegel , November 24, 1978.
• Michael Nungesser , 15 years at Galerie Poll – 15 years principle of realism . In: Kunstforum International , Volume 66, 1983, p. 154.
• Heinz Ohff: A gallery for all seasons. Eva Poll on the 25th anniversary . In: Lots of crocodiles. 25 Years of Art in Berlin, Volume 39 of the POLLeditions for the 25th anniversary of the gallery, Berlin 1993, p. 7 ff.
• Andreas Quappe: Realism is not a thing of the past. The Berlin gallery owner Eva Poll receives a medal for her commitment . In: Berliner Zeitung , May 7, 1993.
• Annette Tietenberg : October 68. 30 years of the Poll Gallery . Text about the exhibition in the invitation leaflet, Galerie Poll 1998.
• Veit Stiller: Political thinking remains. The Eva Poll gallery is an institution beyond Berlin . In: Die Welt , July 14, 2006.
• Anna Corves: Departure to Museum Island. The Poll gallery is leaving its traditional rooms on Lützowplatz . In: Der Tagesspiegel , April 5, 2009.
• Ingeborg Ruhte: The poll position. When moving from Lützowplatz to Mitte, gallery owner Eva Poll relies on the real thing . In: Berliner Zeitung , August 25, 2009.
• Interview with Eva Poll. In: Morgenstern-Journal , 1/2010.
• Kolja Reichert: The wild guys. Everyone knows Rudi Dutschke and Kommune 1. But the art of the APO era is largely forgotten today. Anyone who travels back in time to West Berlin in the sixties comes across wondrous scenes full of smoke and anarchy . In: Weltkunst , April 13, 2013.
• Christiane Meixner: Quietly, wisely. The Berlin gallery owner Eva Poll turns 75 . In: Der Tagesspiegel , August 10, 2013.
• Ingeborg Ruthe, very relaxed. With her gallery, founded in 1968, Eva Poll undeterred wrote Berlin art history. She is now 75 . In: Berliner Zeitung , 10./11. August 2013.
• Großgörschen 35th departure for the art city Berlin 1964 . With texts by Barbara Esch Marowski, Lothar C. Poll , Eckhart Gillen . Haus am Kleistpark in cooperation with the Poll Art Foundation, Berlin 2014.
• Christiane Meixner: Because they believe in artists. The Poll gallery has been around for almost 50 years and is now a generation project: a conversation about the situation in Berlin . In: Der Tagesspiegel , September 10, 2016, p. 29.

Web links

• Literature from and about Galerie Poll in the catalog of the German National Library
• Gallery Poll website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See: Lucie Schauer , Ende und Wende. Art landscape Berlin from 1945 to today , Verlag Lindinger + Schmid , Regensburg 1999, pp. 17–19, ISBN 3-929970-39-2 .
2. ^ Eva and Lothar C. Poll, in: Maina-Miriam Munsky . Paint away the fear. Inventory of paintings and drawings 1964–1998. Verlag Kettler, Bönen 2013, ISBN 978-3-86206-292-8 , p. 6.
3. ↑ Eckhart Gillen , The Lessons of Cold. Maina-Miriam Munsky's contribution to the search for the reality of West Berlin In: Maina-Miriam Munsky . Paint away the fear. Inventory of paintings and drawings 1964–1998. Verlag Kettler, Bönen 2013, ISBN 978-3-86206-292-8 , p. 60.
4. ↑ Jan Schüler , Painting away fear. About birth, death and the change in life. In: Maina-Miriam Munsky . Paint away the fear. Inventory of paintings and drawings 1964–1998. Verlag Kettler, Bönen 2013, ISBN 978-3-86206-292-8 , p. 26.
5. ↑ Michael Nungesser , 15 years of the Poll Gallery - 15 years of the principle of realism . In: Kunstforum International , Volume 66, 1983, p. 154.
6. ↑ Principle of realism. Painting plastic graphics. Exhibition catalog. Ed. by the German Academic Exchange Service , Goethe-Institut Munich, Gallery Poll, Berlin 1972.
7. ↑ Aspect big city. Exhibition catalog. Künstlerhaus Bethanien / aspect group, Berlin 1977.