Cool Hunting

by Tamara Warren

Andy Warhol understood the power of immediacy, and the Polaroid Big Shot camera he purchased in 1970 became his favorite tool to capture the heat of the momentous life he lived. The exhibition Big Shots: Andy Warhol Polaroids at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University features nearly 250 Polaroids and 75 black and white prints of the images taken by Warhol from 1970 to 1987.

Touching on how Warhol experimented with photography, the exhibit includes his films from the 1960s, in addition to thousands of Polaroids featuring celebrity confidantes such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Truman Capote, Dorothy Hamill, Bianca Jagger, Grace Jones, Jack Nicklaus and former Cars vocalist Rick Ocasek, which he used as studies for his silkscreen paintings.

Adding local context to the North Carolina-based exhibit are canvas portraits of Patsy, Andrea, Joan and Nancy Nasher, the wife and daughters of the late Raymond D. Nasher—the museum’s namesake—accompanied by corresponding Polaroid photos.

Big Shots: Andy Warhol Polaroids
12 November - 21 February 2009
Nasher Museum of Art
2001 Campus Drive
Durham, North Carolina 27705 map
tel. +1 919 684 5135

Credit for photos at the top: Andy Warhol, "Grace Jones," 1984. Polacolor ER. Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Gift of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. © 2009 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Andy Warhol, “Jean-Michel,” 1982. Polacolor ER. Weatherspoon Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Gift of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, 2008. © 2009 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.