![\"The](\"http:\/\/74.220.207.133\/~nearbyca\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/cover_va_polaroid_book_25_0803271125_id_1327034-253x300.jpg\" "\\"cover_va_polaroid_book_25_0803271125_id_132703\\"")
<\/a>The Polaroid Book, Taschen, 2005<\/p><\/div>\n
Certainly no one expected any corner of the photo world to become entangled in the elaborate, byzantine schemes that have made headline news recently and brought down investment scammers such as the visibly non-archival\u00a0Bernie Madoff, who, like the arch-villain The Penguin in the “Batman” saga, just got sent off to permanent cold storage. But that’s exactly what’s happened to the Polaroid Collection, which now faces a distinctly uncertain fate. (Subscriber\u00a0Barbara Alper<\/a> asked me to open a discussion of this situation.\u00a0She herself has work in the collection, hence her particular interest.)<\/p>\n Assembled over decades by Polaroid founder Edwin H. Land and designated in-house curators, the collection includes some 16,000 one-of-a-kind images made on assorted Polaroid materials by everyone from Ansel Adams (who, with Land, inaugurated the collection, which holds some 600 works of his) to Andy Warhol. David Hockney, Helmut Newton, Jeanloup Sieff, and Robert Rauschenberg are just a few of the hundreds of names represented. In addition to the images, the collection includes correspondence from the artists and other documentation of their involvement with Polaroid.\u00a0You’ll find Polaroid’s list of the photographers included in the collection included in this court document<\/a>.<\/p>\n In most cases the images entered the collection as part of a barter arrangement with their makers, who received in return free film and cameras (or, in the case of the Polaroid 20×24″ camera<\/a> and an even larger 40×80″ model, access to the camera in the studio and technical assistance in making images with it). Few if any of the images were actually purchased by the corporation, virtually none at market value. Numerous books and exhibitions have drawn on the collection over the years.<\/p>\n Tom Petters mug shot, October 2008<\/p><\/div>\n Valued at an estimated $7-11 million, it’s the largest single accumulation of Polaroid images in existence, and the most comprehensive in terms of the number and diversity of picture-makers represented. Now it’s caught up in the international fiscal crisis \u2014 because Polaroid’s assets were purchased in 2004 by alleged Minnesota Ponzi schemer Tom Petters, presently in jail and awaiting trial on these charges in September 2009. Under these circumstances, title to ownership of the works isn’t clear; it seems likely the Petters fraud case will drag on for years, leaving the collection in limbo until it concludes.<\/p>\n Petters’s scam totaled a mere $3.5 billion, small potatoes when measured on the now-standard Madoff Scale. However, as part of it Petters International bought Polaroid for $426 million, then in desperation sold it for $85.9 million in a St. Paul auction in April of this year\u00a0\u2014 with the new owners acquiring all assets except<\/em> the photo collection, which presumably still belongs to Petters. Or, more precisely, to his investors\/creditors, as the court will determine. (For an excellent report on the situation, see Jennifer Bjorhus\u2019s April 24, 2009 account for the\u00a0Minneapolis Star-Tribune<\/em>,\u00a0\u201cPolaroid art has price but no place.\u201d<\/a> This is the only account of the collection’s status I’ve found online.)<\/p>\n Petters moved the company to Minnetonka, MN, hence the Twin Cities focus of this narrative. The collection itself remains mostly housed in an office building in Somerville, Mass., just across the Charles River from Boston, Polaroid Corp.’s original home. According to Bjorhus\u2019s account, “Thousands of pieces are currently on loan to the Mus\u00e9e de L’Elys\u00e9e<\/a>,” a prestigious European photo museum located in Lausanne, Switzerland.<\/p>\n SX-70 Art, Lustrum Press, 1979<\/p><\/div>\n In the worst-case scenario, a unique collection that reflects the ways in which picture-makers experimented for six decades with a distinctive cluster of tools, materials, and processes produced by a single company would get broken up and dispersed among creditors or else go on the auction block item by item. That would be a great loss to scholarship. I hope a way will emerge to avoid that outcome and keep this obviously integral collection intact, properly conserved, and housed within a repository that can make it available to researchers and to the public at large. I can think of only a few institutions in the U.S. with the physical space and archiving expertise required to absorb a trove this size: the J. Paul Getty Museum<\/a> in Brentwood, CA; the National Gallery of Art<\/a> in Washington; the Library of Congress<\/a>, also in DC; the Harry Ransom Center<\/a> at the University of Texas, Austin; and the Center for Creative Photography<\/a> in Tucson, AZ. I’d put the Getty and the NGA at the top of the list.<\/p>\n Public discussion of the uniqueness and importance of the Polaroid Collection, and public expression of concern regarding its future, can only help the Minnesota courts in weighing the options for disposition of this tangible asset. Possibly a petition’s in order; if so, I can host it here. I’d like to hear from readers of this blog as to what they’d recommend in this situation. I’d especially welcome instructive comments from anyone who has helped wage a public campaign in any way analogous to what preservation of the Polaroid Collection intact and its placement in an appropriate environment would involve.<\/p>\n KATALOG 10.2 (Denmark), cover<\/p><\/div>\n It’s not clear from the Bjorhus story\u00a0whether the imperiled works represent just the Polaroid U.S.A. collection or also include what Polaroid calls its International collection. (Originally known as the “Europa” collection, comprising works primarily by European picture-makers such as Josef Sudek and David Bailey, this was curated separately, and stored in western Europe.) Polaroid’s own website indicates that the two collections total 22,000 pieces, which leaves 6,000 of them unaccounted for in the Petters lot.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve uploaded a 1998 article I published originally in the Danish journal\u00a0Katalog<\/em>,\u00a0\u201cPolaroid: What Price Largesse?\u201d<\/a> This essay reconsiders a 1980 essay of mine; in both I ponder the Polaroid Corporation\u2019s patronage \u2014\u00a0its effect on the field and on the work produced under such sponsorship. The original 1980 essay, commissioned by the editor of Polaroid’s in-house magazine, Close-Up<\/em>, raised some pointed questions about the influence of that corporate support on the art that resulted. To their credit, all involved at Polaroid approved this public challenge \u2014 admirable then, and memorable (at least to me) still.<\/p>\n \u2022<\/p>\n![\"Tom](\"http:\/\/74.220.207.133\/~nearbyca\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/20081008_petters_mug_334-239x300.jpg\" "\\"20081008_petters_mug_33\\"")
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<\/a>![\"KATALOG](\"http:\/\/74.220.207.133\/~nearbyca\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/KATALOG-10.2-cover14-225x300.jpg\" "\\"KATALOG_cover\\"")
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