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| 20 x 24 POLAROID / In the 1970s the Polaroid Corporation designed and built a 700-pound 20 x 24 in. instant camera which, because of its size, was strictly for studio use. Within that context they invited artists to their Cambridge studio to experiment with the camera. The artists generally stayed three to five days and were provided an assistant for technical help. The results were impressive given the parameters of the project, and amazingly diverse work was produced by the seventeen artists initially invited [among them Andy Warhol and Lucas Samaras]. My curiosity landed on the remnants of my own setups, setups made to be dismantled and photographed in the process. – WL
Immune to the obvious allure of intensely saturated hues that the new camera offered, Larson chose instead a color palette of black, white, and gray, a monochromatic scheme he enlivened only with touches of primary color found in pieces of tape, a faded cord, plant leaves, and his ubiquitous Kodak color scales. This highly conceptual color scheme enabled him to metaphorically enclose black and white within color photography, while symbolically including all colors in the images in the process. – Paula Marincola, curator, from her exhibition catalogue essay “William Larson Ex Machina” for “William Larson: Photographs 1969-1985,” Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, 1985 |