Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center opens The Polaroid Years: Instant Photography and Experimentation

Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center presents The Polaroid Years: Instant Photography and Experimentation an exhibition on view through April 12 through June 30.

To the public, it’s a reminder of a bygone era of instant color snapshots at millions of family gatherings. For historians, it’s an obvious precursor to today’s ubiquitous instant photos. But from the time Polaroid’s famed SX-70 camera was released in 1972, there were those who saw its ability to instantly produce color photos as an exciting new medium for fine art. From April 12 through June 30 the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center will present The Polaroid Years: Instant Photography and Experimentation, a groundbreaking survey exhibition organized by the museum that will bring together Polaroid pictures by 39 artists and collectives from 1972 through the present. Artists represented include such pioneers of instant photography as Ansel Adams, Ellen Carey, Chuck Close, Walker Evans, David Hockney, Robert Mapplethorpe, Joyce Neimanas, Andy Warhol, and William Wegman as well as a new generation of artists including Anne Collier, Bryan Graf, Catherine Opie, Lisa Oppenheim, Dash Snow, Mungo Thomson, and Grant Worth.

Several related events will be held, including an exhibition opening lecture by New York magazine senior editor Christopher Bonanos, author of the 2012 book Instant: The Story of Polaroid; a gallery talk by the curator; a campus series screening films about Polaroid photography or where it plays an important role; a program of child-friendly activities in the galleries; and the curator discussing the exhibition catalogue at the main branch of the New York Public Library. http://fllac.vassar.edu