As Polaroid Remains in Limbo, an Elegy for Instant Photography
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Beleaguered Polaroid, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last December, is finding that selling its assets is anything but instant. Its latest proposed sale—for $56.3 million to two liquidation firms—was nixed in bankruptcy court yesterday after a rival bidder filed papers requesting that the auction be reopened—again. Private equity firm Patriarch Partners, which was previously chosen to buy Polaroid before a snafu derailed the deal last month, requested the chance to up its offer, which it argues is better because it’s not a brand-devaluing liquidation scheme that would fire Polaroid employees and halt innovation at the 72-year-old company. Another auction is set for Thursday.
Meanwhile, longtime Polaroid fans such as artist Chuck Close and photographer Elsa Dorfman are still coming to grips with last year’s announcement that Polaroid was discontinuing almost all of its instant film products. In creating the giant, soulful painted portraits for which he is best known, Close often works from photographs taken by the 20×24 Polaroid camera that he began using in the ’70s. “There’s so much more information embedded in it than can be seen with the naked eye—unbelievable detail and a real physicality,” he told Art & Antiques recently. “It is a unique product.” And a tricky one. Artist and photographer John Reuter describes instant photography as “part-miracle and part-voodoo, besides science. A lot can influence it and make it go wrong.”
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