Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

CHANDLER: Beloved Polaroid bows to digital

Mary Voelz Chandler

Published May 9, 2008 at 3 p.m.
Updated May 9, 2008 at 6:23 p.m.

Text size  

Related Links

Related Stories

More Art & Architecture

More stories »

If Xerox didn't manufacture copiers anymore, and Kleenex quit churning out tissues, I can't imagine how loud the reaction would be.

But Polaroid's decision to discontinue making instant film products is not just a shot to the chin for a well-worn word and the legacy of industrial innovator Edwin Land. It is a comment on how technology and economics continue to catch us all by surprise.

It also leaves in the lurch the many artists who have mined Polaroid technology to create a rich chapter in the history of photography.

Others certainly have used Polaroid film in their own professions, whether staging fashion shoots, for instance, or capturing the on-site damage of a car crash. But the loss of this technology again highlights one of the most endearing aspects of photography: It is the most democratic of mediums, where anyone who can hold a camera is part of a larger community.

When I began reading about the art community's response to this move by Polaroid (for several years now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Petters Group Worldwide), the first thing I did was be happy that the development of acrylic paint in the 1950s didn't spell the end of oil painting.

Then I turned to my photography books and pulled out the volumes on Robert Mapplethorpe. The artist, whose provocative and beyond-edgy work ranged from sensuous flowers to sexually charged nudes, was among the many fine art photographers to keep a Polaroid in the arsenal.

Chuck Close has used them in his extremely personal art. David Hockney has made giant photo works that reference collage and grid. William Wegman has employed a truly immense Polaroid camera to shoot his beloved Weimeraners. And photographers from Ansel Adams to Andre Kertesz took the cameras on a visual test drive, of sorts, courtesy of Polaroid staffers who figured artists were sure to find numerous applications and push the limits on what the camera and film could create.

But Mapplethorpe embraced the cheap and easy nature of the product to do his own kind of exploration into the meaning of "object." He used the plastic cassettes as mounts for his photographs to add meaning.

As noted by curator Richard Marshall in the catalog for a 1988 Mapplethorpe show at the Whitney Museum of American Art (a groundbreaking exhibition that set off a firestorm): "These works from the early seventies also reveal Mapplethorpe's desire to manipulate and alter the photographic image in an effort to expand the technical and aesthetic boundaries of traditional photography."

Sort of sums it up for everyone who's ever touched a Polaroid camera, whether an artist or just someone thrilled to see the faces and places he or she had just shot become real. And to hold the picture right now.

Fast forward 20 years, and the Whitney is doing another Mapplethorpe show, with an emphasis on his early works made with instant film and emblematic of the less-formal work for which he is known. The irony is that while a wave of photographers are exploring archival techniques, they are embracing digital, as was evident during the recent Month of Photography exhibitions. Cyanotypes, Van Dyke Brown, even the fruit juice-based anthotype-process were out there for viewing, as was groundbreaking digital work. It was great.

The only thing missing that month was a wake for the film that turned Polaroid into a household word.

Chandlerm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2677

Comments

  • May 9, 2008

    4:48 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    buffsblg writes:

    another passing to modern technology. I cannot comment on the art, but who cannot remember holding that square black sheet, smelling that chemical odor and then watching as the image slowly came into focus. It was as close to magic as a child could ever ask for.