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.

Photographer Bill Diodato‘s first monograph, “C/O Ward 81,” is a hauntingly beautiful photographic tribute to the demise of The Oregon State Mental Asylum’s Ward 81. Opened in the late 1800s, Ward 81 was established to provide women with psychiatric needs help and isolation. The Salem-based asylum was also the famous setting for the 1976 movie, “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.”

As Diodato writes in the book’s introduction, “Ward 81 is gone, and metaphorically so are the stereotypes associated with women who are afflicted with mental illness. My intention in publishing these images is to present the physical crumbling and decaying cells, which represent the end of old, corrupt, poorly-run asylums and bring about a sense of closure for the women of Ward 81.”

During 2005, when the entire site was being redeveloped, the Oregon State Legislature authorized Diodato to photograph – and thus document – the cremated remains of some 3500 deceased patients of the “Asylum” which, in one final act of inhumanity, had been cremated buried and exhumed. During this very moving project, Warden Marvin Fickle also granted Diodato access to the infamous closed-off Ward 81. Knowing that he’d be the last person to document the ward, Diodato felt a sense of responsibility to remember the women who inhabited this extraordinary place.

Famed photographer Mary Ellen Mark, who herself spent more than six weeks living with and photographing a woman’s ward at the same hospital in 1976, penned the book’s forward. In it, she writes:

“It’s painful for me to look at these pictures. They evoke feelings of life and death. I can hear the sounds of women running through hallways and someone shouting, ‘Meds, meds, come and get your meds.’ I can hear the crying of a woman being locked down in restraints. I can hear the music of the jukebox at the once-a-week dance with the women of Ward 81. Bill’s book brings me back to the haunted cell in which I slept in a deserted ward right next to Ward 81. I swear I heard people walking above me all night. Bill’s images confirm the feeling that I always had—that Ward 81 was and still is inhabited by many ghosts.”

There is immense sadness in Diodato’s series to be sure – undeniably, this crumbling space witnessed unthinkable pain and desperation. But there are also surprising elements that suggest the possibility of joy. Faded specimens of patients’ artwork and scabbing, once brightly colored paint on the walls can, at times, evoke an unanticipated and bittersweet sense of lost home.

In Diodato’s words: “…. Entering Ward 81, I found each room vibrated with pastel colors, some walls even adorned with curiously upbeat art from the patients. All this beauty was contrasted with a dense chalky air, earthy odor and constant crackling of debris beneath my feet….In the end, I can’t say where exactly the many sleepless nights I spent pondering what happened to the women of Ward 81 have taken me. I simply do not know. If, by chance, it helps even just one woman and her family, I rest my head with a renewed sense of hope.”

“Care Of Ward 81″ is the first of two limited-edition Diodato books focusing on “the demise of institutional services.” The second is slated for a 2011 release.

“Care of Ward 81″ is available in a first edition of 1,000 copies (200 are still available for $50); in a signed, numbered and slipcased edition of 100 with both the book and the slipcase bound in Japanese Saifu cloth ($250), and as a deluxe edition of 50, numbered and signed by Bill Diodato and Mary Ellen Mark, slipcase bound in Japanese Saifu Cloth, which comes with a print. The deluxe edition print of 50 included with the Deluxe Edition is a pigment print on the archival Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta paper. This image is printed with the finest archival inks available on the market today. Each print is signed and numbered by the artist. ($500) To purchase, click here

To learn more about Bill Diodato, visit his blog or billdiodato.com.
Diodato is represented by Marge Casey + Associates: 212-929-3757; info@margecasey.com

Care of Ward 81
Photographs and text by Bill Diodato.
Foreword by Mary Ellen Mark.
Golden Section Publishing, 2010.
64 pp., 46 color and black & white illustrations., 10×6½”.

*All images courtesy of Bill Diodato.