time capsule

"The artist intended his Polaroids to serve as time-capsule glimpses of a specific era -- namely, the '70s and early '80s when he was at the height of his fame. The fact that Polaroid recently discontinued its line of signature cameras renders these photographs doubly historic -- a long-gone era as captured by a dead technology."

LA Times article here

#Life Savings

Lately I have been very interested in Warhol's Polaroids, particularly his portraits and still-life subjects. I decided, thanks to the inevitable forum of artistic debate around these, to try my hand at my own point-and-shoot venture, in true Warhol production. My own attempts show how simple it really is to shoot still-life. using ordinary household objects, just like Warhol did in the 1970's, I have arranged a collection of subjects in front of a plain white background. this emphasizes both the mundanity and formal interest of each object. you can decide - are they ordinary or spectacular?


Figure #1:  life savings. Samsung. ISO 400. 2010.

of lobsters and shaving razors

Andy Warhol and the power of immediacy brings us to this collection of his early Polaroids from between 1977 and 1983, sourced at hypebeast.com. The still-life Polaroids, most of which were never exhibited during Warhol's lifetime, were displayed through January 2009 at the Paul Kasmin Gallery, 511 27th Street New York, New York.

There's been a spate of critical comment about this exhibition. Some have raved, some have slated the artists and his pretty Polaroids as 'amateurish' and 'pseudo-artistic.' Despite this, it is pretty clear that the popular still-life Polaroid-style subjects making waves in the contemporary art/photog community (worldwide) have been influenced heavily by Warhol's experimental (and often, in true hipster inclination, ironic) photographic subjects.

                                     Think soup cans.