Instant Pop Art

In the age of high-quality digital cameras, Instagram filters and extinct film, few use Polaroid cameras anymore. Once, though, they were as ubiquitous as Facebook posts. In the drawers and half-forgotten storage places of countless Americans over a certain age, you’ll find faded Polaroid prints that capture the humble and often incredibly poignant moments that make up everyday lives. They’re a type of holy artifact: the incidental, spontaneous art of regular human beings. But high-octane professional artists used Polaroids, too. Andy Warhol shot tens of thousands of Polaroid images and utilized them as a sort of first draft toward clarifying the development process that went into his finished prints and paintings. Warhol, of course, wholly embraced the commercial and the instantly made. The Saint Louis University Museum of Art (3663 Lindell Boulevard; 314-977-3399 or sluma.slu.edu) was one of a select group of university institutions to receive a gift of Polaroids and black-and-white photos from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Take advantage of our town’s good luck and catch the exhibit, Warhol’s Polaroids: A Method, at its opening this evening at 5:30 p.m. Experience this rare glimpse into Warhol's process for free before its exit on June 10.
Wednesdays-Sundays. Starts: April 27. Continues through June 10, 2012