I propose that the creation of a virtual version of the Polaroid Collection, in the form of a comprehensive annotated database of its contents placed online, should become a priority as we move inexorably toward some disposition of the collection that will certainly include sales of individual pieces (the auction), as well as sales or donations of chunks of the remainder to one or more institutions. This should start with the gathering together of existing databases and other annotated records cataloguing portions of the collection or its entirety. From the standpoint of the collection’s significance to the history of photography and our understanding of visual culture in the second half of the twentieth century, the production and availability of such a resource would go along way to making up for the dispersal of its analog contents. […]
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Artforum finally perked up its ears and noticed that something’s happening here (though they don’t know what it is). A brief notice in their March 15, 2010 online International News Digest, titled “SPECTACULAR POLAROID AUCTION PUT ON HOLD?” summarizes the situation in a lengthy paragraph. Another county heard from. ARTnews, meanwhile, notified me that they wouldn’t be interested in the story until it concluded — surely a notable position to take for a monthly magazine with “news” in its title. My, but the art press is all over this one . . . […] Continuing her detailed coverage of the crisis of the Polaroid Collection, Charlotte Burns in the April issue of The Art Newspaper reports that a considerable number of artists and photographers with work in the collection stand ready to participate in a legal effort to intervene in its imminent dismantling. In her article titled “Polaroid row hots up,” she specifically identifies Chuck Close as having committed himself to fighting the planned June 21-22 auction of the cream of the collection at Sotheby’s in New York. […] Even assuming the auction by Sotheby’s goes through as planned, it includes only 1260 works out of an inventoried total of 15,936. That leaves 14,676 still in the hands of the court-appointed trustee, John R. Stoebner, for disposition. So we need to turn some of our attention to alerting suitable repositories to the desirability and ongoing availability of the bulk of the collection, which remains a unique anthology of twentieth-century visual culture. In short, we need to help the trustee find this collection — complete as is, or minus the auction selection but otherwise intact — a good new home. […] |
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Polaroid Collection: Update 20
Sotheby’s auction of the Polaroid Collection will start tomorrow evening, Monday, June 21, following six days of previews. The auction will have four sessions: the first tomorrow, starting at 5 p.m., the remaining three on Tuesday, June 22. I hope it goes well — for the sake of Sotheby’s; for the sake of the creditors on whose behalf Trustee John R. Stoebner obtained the Minnesota Bankruptcy Court’s permission to hold the auction; and, most of all, for the market for photography. Poor results would serve no one’s interest, including mine. Indeed, I’d be delighted to see this sale set new records for some of the photographers involved. […]