The future of a major collection of Polaroid photographs has been secured by Vienna’s WestLicht Museum of Photography. The Museum and its owner – Peter Coeln – have announced the purchase of the International Polaroid Collection, as well as plans to share it with the public in an exhibition running June through August 2011 at the Museum.

The acquisition ensures the continued existence of the collection, which was at risk of being broken up for sale at auction after being placed on the market by liquidators dealing with the Polaroid company. The collection-which, since 1990, had been housed at the Swiss Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne-consists of 4.400 artworks from 800 artists, including the likes of Peter Beard, Robert Mapplethorpe, Minor White, Ansel Adams, Sally Mann, and Andy Warhol. It was compiled by the company between 1970 and 1990.

Physicist and Polaroid founder Edwin Herbert Land invented the instant film process in the late 1940s, and from the beginning invited famous artists to experiment with the material. Prior to its insolvency, the company had two major collections – one based in Europe and the other in the U.S. Rarities from the American collection were sold at auction by Sotheby’s in New York in 2010.

The WestLicht has also joined forces with the Impossible Project, which saved the last existing Polaroid film factory in Enchede, Netherlands, and is developing new film material for traditional Polaroid cameras. In the spirit of Polaroid’s collaborative history, Impossible also invites artists to work with the new film. Some of the resulting works will be included in the June exhibition.

Check out images from the International Polaroid Collection, courtesy of the WestLicht Museum, below. For more information on the collection, visit the WestLicht Museum site.

*above: Mary Ellen Mark 1990, 9,5 x 7,5 cm (3 3/4 x 3 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: Robert Mapplethorpe 1979, 11,5 x 9 cm (4 1/2 x 8 1/2 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: Yousuf Karsh, Marshall McLuhan, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto 1974, 33 x 25 cm (13 x 10 1/4 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: Marina Abramović & Ulay 1990, 72 x 56 cm (28 x 22 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: Peter Beard 1987, 70,5 x 55 cm (27 3/4 x 22 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: Lucien Clergue, Le Cerf Volant, Bretagne 1984, 42 x 40 cm (16 3/4 x 16 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: William Wegman 1987, 76 x 55 cm (30 x 22 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: Oliviero Toscani, Andy Warhol 1975, 7,5 x 9,5 cm (3 x 3 3/4 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: Sally Mann, Composition II 1985, 64 x 56 cm (25 1/4 x 22 in.) /WestLicht Collection

*above: Ansel Adams, Yosemite Falls & Flowers 1979, 8 x 8 cm (3 1/4 x 3 1/4 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*All images courtesy of the WestLicht Museum.

This year, Dom Pérignon pays tribute to Andy Warhol with a collection of three beautiful bottles. Inspired by Warhol’s legendary iconic representations and his playful use of codes and color, Dom Pérignon commissioned the Design Laboratory at Central Saint Martin’s School of Art & Design to reinterpret its timeless bottle. The resulting set, each with a distinct label in red, blue or yellow, pays homage to Warhol’s iconic color games.

Interestingly, Andy Warhol’s relationship with Dom Pérignon goes back some time, as evidenced by this entry from his diary on March 8th, 1981, after returning to New York from a show in Munich:

“Went to the gallery where they were having a little exhibition of the glittery Shoes, and had to do interviews and pics for the German newspaper and then we had to go back to the hotel and be picked up by the “2,000” people – it’s a club of twenty guys who got together and they’re going to buy 2,000 bottles of Dom Pérignon which they will put in a sealed room until the year 2,000 and then open it up and drink it and so the running joke is who will be around and who won’t…”

Images below…

*above: Dom Pérignon’s Warhol-inspired tribute collection.

*above: portrait of Andy Warhol.

*All images courtesy of and © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

NOW SHOWING: Andy Warhol: The Last Decade
by Matt Mulholland

It’s hard to believe that an artist as celebrated as Andy Warhol has not had a major show in New York in over twenty years. The Brooklyn Museum has put an end to that absurd drought and is currently hosting the first United States museum exhibition of Warhol’s late works. The exhibit is a massive two-floor survey, consisting of nearly fifty paintings created between 1977-87, Warhol’s last and perhaps most prolific decade. During this stretch, Warhol produced a substantial number of series and large scale works. His last decade was one of significant development and production, marked by a transformation of style and a drive to solidify his art world legacy.

In the late 1970s, Warhol began to move away from the Pop Art style of the 1960s. Drawing upon new techniques, Warhol produced provocative, abstract works such as the Oxidation series, in which he used urine and metallic pigment as components. He also explored the figurative in his collaborative works with friends and fellow art superstars Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francisco Clemente, and Keith Haring. Working alongside the 80s luminary Basquiat, Warhol returned to using brush and paint on canvas for the first time since the 1960s. Four of their collaborative works are on display here, highlighting Basquiat’s distinct style, while Warhol’s contribution acts more as a stamp of a approval, a passing of the torch on canvas.

The exhibit is a prodigious examination of an incredible end to a forty-year career. It showcases Warhol’s works that went beyond his iconic portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Campbell’s soup cans. The most outstanding pieces on display are the atypically large scale works. The Yarn series (a direct nod to the paintings of Jackson Pollock), enormous Rorschach paintings (towering over ten feet high), and his Double $5/Weightlifter are all dramatic works that must be seen in person. Also on display are several monumental examples from the Last Supper paintings, which injected Warhol’s pop flair into the iconic frescos of Leonardo da Vinci. The series is the largest Warhol produced in his entire career- a testament to his surprising devout Catholicism.

In addition to his works on canvas, the exhibit includes several of Warhol’s video pieces and rooms lined with portraits of celebrities like Debbie Harry, Mick Jagger, Truman Capote and Dolly Parton. There is also a wall of Interview magazine covers and a table showcasing a catalog of the magazine, which Warhol founded in 1969, and remained involved in until the end of his life.

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade will be at the Brooklyn Museum from now until September 12, 2010. Entry is $10, $6 for students and seniors. After the Brooklyn showing, it will move onto its last stop at the Baltimore Museum of Art, from October 17, 2010- January 9, 2011.

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11238-6099
(718) 638-5000

Story by Matt Mulholland, ArtSlope contributing writer & photographer.
*All photos by Matt Mulholland, courtesy of the artist.

A 20-foot tall “Andy Warhol Dessert Pinata” – created by Jennifer Rubell as part of an interactive dining experience for April 22nd’s Brooklyn Museum Gala – is on display now at the Museum’s Rubin Pavilion.

The iconic face is linked to the Museum’s upcoming June Warhol exhibit. “Andy Warhol: The Last Decade” is the first U.S. museum survey to examine Warhol’s late work, presenting nearly fifty works. During his final decade, Warhol revealed a renewed spirit of experimentation, and produced more works (in a considerable number of series and on a vastly larger scale) than at any other point in his forty-year career. It was a decade of major artistic development for him, during which a dramatic transformation of his style took place alongside the introduction of new techniques.

Warhol continued to expand upon his artistic and business ventures with commissioned portraits, print series, television productions, and fashion projects, but he also reengaged with painting. In the late 1970s, he developed a new interest in abstraction, first with his Oxidations and Shadows series and later with his Yarn, Rorschach, and Camouflage paintings. His return to the hand-painted image in the 1980s was inspired by collaborations with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente, and Keith Haring. The exhibition concludes with Warhol’s variations on Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, one of the largest series of his career. Together, these works provide an important framework for understanding Warhol’s late career by looking at how he simultaneously incorporated the screened image and pursued a reinvention of painting.

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade
June 18th–September 12, 2010

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, New York 11238-6052
(718) 638-5000

*Images courtesy of Brooklyn Museum. Photographs by Adam Husted.