The impossible Polaroid?

A posting from Poetry Café

20 years ago the “Polaroid Collection” was a loan to the Musée Elysée (Lausanne) – needless to say that the museum was very proud about that. After Polaroid went bankrupt the plan was to sell the collection via Sotheby’s. Of course artists and museums were not too happy about that. The Viennese Gallery “WestLicht” succeeded in buying the European part of the Polaroid Collection which includes more than 4.400 photos of over 800 artists. The rest of the collection (1.200 photos of 400 artists) was auctioned at Sothebys for over 12 million €

Oliviero Toscani, Andy Warhol 1975 / Collection WestLicht

Starting from June 17th WestLicht presents the first exhibition with selected photos which will include polaroids of Ansel Adams, Helmut Newton, Mary Ellen Mark or Andy Warhol. In addition visitors will also see newer works of artists like Nobuyoshi Araki or Stefanie Schneider which were originated in a cooporation with “Impossible”. In October 2008 The Impossible Project saved the last Polaroid production plant for integral instant film in Enschede (NL) and started to invent and produce totally new instant film materials for traditional Polaroid cameras.