In 1971 Polaroid introduced the enormous Shot camera; featuring an integrated flash,viewfinder and fixed focus lens, it was aimed at shooting portraits - and was enthusiastically taken up by artist Andy Warhol. The camera was discontinued in 1973 but Warhol kept using it until his death in 1987, or capturing shots of actors,artists, politicians, and clubbers,and Factory hangers-on. He also used it to photograph himself, creating a self-portrait in 1979 in what he called his "fright wig" that measures a whopping 81.3cm x 55.9cm.
BASTIAN gallery is showing this enormous self-portrait in an exhibition of over 60 of Warhol's Polaroids, and highlighting "the artist’s prolific capacity as a chronicler of his time". "Alongside other friends,clients and Studio 54 dwellers, these photographs - initially preparatory works for Warhol’s iconic silkscreen portraits - reveal a lack of pathos or individuation, or underlining the artist’s notion of an era where 'everybody looks alike and acts alike,and we’re getting more and more that way'," states the gallery.
Source: bjp-online.com