“Polaroid and the Photo-backdrop Survey.”
In the early to mid-1980s I became interested in photographs of people posed in front of the large painted scenes on cloth, canvas, or muslin called photo backdrops.
At first, I explored some conceptual ideas about backdrops in my own mixed-media photographic work as an artist. When I embarked on my career as a curator, I happened to come into contact with a lot of work, historical and contemporary, global in scope, where hand-painted backdrops functioned as an expressive device in the photographic image. Over the years my interest in the material grew.
I began to develop an idea for an exhibition to focus on, or “foreground,” hand-painted backdrops from around the world used by itinerant and studio photographers in their portrait work. In addition, the photographs made by these photographers were to be displayed along with the backdrops. When I was coordinating the Exhibitions Program at Visual Studies Workshop (1987-1997) I was provided the freedom and encouragement to develop this idea. I began to more thoroughly research what I perceived to be a global, pervasive, but somewhat overlooked phenomenon in the history of photography; and the project grew and evolved.
Beaumont Newhall, "Photographer's Studio, Guatemala"
One of the underlying themes developed in the project concerned the impact and influence this vernacular tradition has had on contemporary art practice, just as it had inspired, however naively, my own creative work earlier. I wanted to create a new kind of exhibition experience; one where gallery and museum visitors were encouraged to make their own images utilizing the many backdrops and props on display and hopefully exhibit their own photographs — make their own mark, tell their own story — on-site within the exhibition.
Ann Parker, Guatemalan family in front of angel backdrop
In those days, Polaroid photographs were the obvious, most accessible, solution. At the time, I was only peripherally aware of the Polaroid Corporation’s demonstrated commitment to practicing artists and photography education. But that soon changed.
The project developed over the next few years, during which time Sam Yanes and some others at Polaroid Corporation became very interested in the multi-faceted ideas and the potential of the project as an exhibition. Polaroid ultimately provided the support that enabled a fledgling idea to become a major, groundbreaking exhibition and publication, referred to by some as “pioneering.” What a joy to hear Sam remark to me on many occasions how the project was his “favorite project” with which Polaroid was involved. Whether or not this was true, it certainly provided all the more motivation, and the input and feedback further fueled my ambitions and expectations for the exhibition.
Painter James Whitfield with Malcolm X backdrop, photo by Kenneth Willis
The project, now titled “From the Background to the Foreground: The Photo Backdrop and Cultural Expression” grew in its cultural breadth and depth: backdrops and photographs from all over the world, including the U.S., Sierra Leone, Guatemala, Mexico, China, Tibet, and more, were brought to together to explore aspects of what is arguably photography’s most pervasive form — the human portrait. The project touched many lives as it toured the U.S., and Polaroid’s support made this possible, too. As the exhibition traveled to venues across the U.S., gallery and museum visitors made their own photographs in front of the many backdrops and props on display, using instant Polaroid cameras and film provided on-site.
At the time, this kind of interactive experience as an interpretive strategy was rare in the context of a museum experience. I loved this about the exhibition. For instance, one of James VanDerZee’s studio backdrops was included in the exhibition. To make one’s own picture in front of the same backdrop that VanDerZee utilized to make so many iconic portraits was a rare experience indeed. Also on view were pictures of VanDerZee’s studio showing the backdrop in situ, as well as some of the portraits he made, with that backdrop, of notable figures and celebrities such as Bill Cosby.
Bill Cosby by James VanDerZee
Artists were also invited to come into the exhibition to make new work. William Wegman made a series of photographs with his dogs in front of the backdrops when the exhibition was on view at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, MA. (If memory serves me, I believe Polaroid brought a 20×24” camera into the galleries for Wegman’s use.) These photographs have since been published in some of Wegman’s books.
In this way, the exhibition continues to have a kind of life beyond the experience of direct encounter, through the continued exhibitions and publications of work by artists, and the presence of their own self-portraits in the homes of countless individuals who visited the show and took advantage of the available backdrops, cameras, and film. How many thousands of Polaroid photographs are now in the homes of people who viewed and experienced the exhibition? What kind of impact has this experience made on the ways in which people create, interpret, and value their own photographs, their own family photographic heritage?
I just wanted to share with you a little about the project because I think it speaks to an all-too-rare corporate culture that Polaroid fostered: One that has had an immeasurable, positive impact on contemporary practice as well as new scholarly work. I was a young and a rather untested curator at the time, and Polaroid’s support of the project, not only in word but in material and crucial funding, provided me with an opportunity that few receive. I remain very grateful for this experience and I am still touched by the chance Polaroid took with me.
As a side note: During my research for this project many Mexican and, to a lesser degree, Guatemalan itinerant photographers expressed to me how the advent of cameras like the SX-70 negatively impacted their trade in relation to tourists. Polaroid cameras in the hands of economically mobile tourists visiting pilgrimage sites throughout Mexico and Guatemala were perceived as competition by the itinerants, who used brightly painted backdrops to entice tourists to have portraits made by them. These “5-minute photographers,” as they called themselves, would make a portrait and develop the print while the customer waited. I remember conversations with colleagues at Polaroid about how they loved the idea of supporting a project like the exhibition, because it was a way to subsidize such itinerants today. (Itinerant photographers, as well as the backdrop painters, were provided fees, and were well-compensated for their work included, and their time involved, in the exhibition).
James B. Wyman
Exhibition/publication info:
From the Background to the Foreground: The Photo Backdrop and Cultural Expression, curated, edited, and with an introduction by James B. Wyman. Afterimage 24:5 (March/April 1997), special full-color issue.
A major traveling exhibition and publication of hand-painted itinerant and studio photography backdrops, related contemporary art and folk art, portraits, props, photographic apparatus, audio and video from the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia. The first major exhibition and publication to consider this world-wide phenomenon and its effects on understandings of photographic and cultural representation as well as its influences on and immersion in contemporary art practice. Contributing essayists include Arjun Appadurai, Lucy Lippard, Sonia Iglesias y Cabrera and Maria del Carmen León, and Avon Neal.
— James B. Wyman
Text copyright © 2009 by James B. Wyman. All rights reserved. Published by permission of the author. Photographs courtesy of James B. Wyman, copyright © by the photographers. To contact James Wyman, email him at james [DOT] wyman [AT] mac [DOT] com.
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