Andy Warhol - Still-life Polaroids (1977-83)

“Warhol used photography as an integral part of his art-making process. He referred to his Polaroid Big Shot camera as his ‘pencil and paper’. His Polaroid prints, instantaneously tangible records of the transitory, served as subjects for his drawings, silkscreens and paintings.

Meticulous arrays of bananas, knives and crosses contrast with jumbled assemblages of shoes and other commercial products. In other compositions, such as a single gray human heart presented on a vibrant red plate, individual subjects in the picture frame gain potency in isolation.

Recurrent themes of desire, consumption and mortality run throughout.

The rarity of these works coupled with the dwindling production of Polaroid flim capture both a specific time in both Warhol’s practice and in the history of photography.”