Day by Day They Take Some Brain Away

This artists' newspaper was issued to mark Sigmar Polke's participation in the 13th Bienal de Sao Paulo, where he represented West Germany with Georg Baselitz and Blinky Palermo. The printed yellow band was created after publication at the request of the Brazilian government.The title Day by Day They Take Some Brain Away derives from a line in 'All the Madmen,' a song by David Bowie from his 1970 album The Man Who Sold the World. In Alibis, the catalogue that accompanied Polke's 2014 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Jutta Koether writes about this publication: 'He had decided to produce a sort of magazine that would illustrate his relation, rife with contradictions, to the world, to society, and to West German culture, and his discontent with the contribution he himself had made up to that point.'

In 1976, to commemorate the West German pavilion at the previous year's Bienal São Paulo, the Bonner Kunstverein at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum staged an exhibition titled Baselitz, Palermo, Polke, Beitrag der Bundesrepublik Deutschland zur Biennial São Paulo, 1975. For this occasion, some remaining uncirculated copies of Day by Day… were issued in a printed cardboard folder with the catalogues by Georg Baselitz and Blinky Palermo.

First edition, one of 800 copies; tabloid (417 x 296 mm, 16½ x 11¾ in); colour and black-and-white photographs, drawings, and newspaper clippings printed in offset, edited and with an introductory essay by Evelyn Weiss in German and Portuguese, design by Sigmar Polke, Achim Duchow et al.; 14 loose folded sheets, newspaper folded horizontally as issued, minor wear to spine at fold, yellow printed wraparound band with the circular sticker, near-fine; [28]pp. In a lightly worn printed folder with the Georg Baselitz and Blinky Palermo catalogues.

Sigmar Polke Catalogue Raisonné 46; Alibis pp188–195; Artists Who Make Books pp218–221.