Art Channel Gallery Caochangdi No. 255, Chaoyang District 100015 Beijing Chine
“Magic trick” features a collection of Polaroid images from the works of Chinese and European photographers who do not specialize in this medium, but rather, use it as a tool of experimentation in photography - an instantaneous and single take approach. The selection includes well established as well as anonymous artists and young photographers, chosen by l’Atelier, an art institution that supports emerging international photographers.
At a time when digital photography has become the choice means of expression for amateurs and professional photographers alike, when great numbers of images can be collected on a virtual support, allowing for “home-made” prints to be made in a instant, one cannot but compare this technology with Polaroid, which is both its genitor and its opposite – uniqueness and instantaneity revealed through the work of the artist.
The intimate, magical and singular characters of the process forcefully capture instants, and freeze them in a time capsule, suspended between past and future, and where incongruous and inadvertent details infuse the image with a timeless and poetic quality that often goes beyond the conjurer’s initial will.
This collection, presented as a “curios cabinet”, mixes the visions of both creators and anonymous photographers to delineate the contemporary panorama of Polaroid – in both its artistic and popular usages.
