What would it be like to see through the eyes of a pop art icon? ‘Polaroids 1958-1987’ has the answers and gives us a glimpse into the revered and chaotic world of the godfather of contemporary art, Andy Warhol.
By Natalie Trevis
Andy Warhol in Munich in 1971. Photography by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
The hedonistic eras spanning the Sixties, Seventies and early Eighties may have been largely devoid of the now ubiquitous selfie, but many an Instagram-worthy moment was nonetheless captured on the polaroid camera of Andy Warhol. Famed for carrying his camera with him everywhere, intimate portraits of his many famous friends and patrons, including Mick Jagger, Liza Minelli and Audrey Hepburn have been collated chronologically in a photography tome published by Taschen and authored by Richard B. Woodward (arts critic at The New York Times since 1995). Candid shots of Jack Nicholson, Angelica Houston and Yves Saint Laurent document Warhol’s exclusive social circle. From his Factory days in the Sixties to hobnobbing with the society jet set during the power-crazed Eighties, the beauty of these images is in their rawness. No filters, no post-production and no endless re-takes – just an instant caught on Warhol’s unwieldy but trusty Polaroid camera – the images often give more of an insight into some of popular culture’s famous faces than the most in-depth character interview ever could. A uniformity emerges in the collection, hinting at a form of obsession and perhaps a relentless thirst to capture the essence of others.
Certainly Warhol was onto something, a prescient journey into the future of self-documentation that now surrounds us at every turn. Indeed Warhol turned the camera on himself on numerous occasions. In the words of the man himself, ‘a picture means I know where I was every minute. That’s why I take pictures. It’s a visual diary.’
