A short while ago, I was contacted by Polaroid to see if I would be interesting in creating art for a very special group exhibition in NYC entitled, “Made in Polaroid”. The first thing that made this special was that the show would consist of 50 artists’ works made from Polaroid prints using their new GL10 printer (very cool!). The second special thing was that this show was conceived under the auspices of the new official/unofficial Creative Director of Polaroid, Lady Gaga.
Each of the selected artists were sent the new GL10 Haus of Gaga Polaroid printer. This thing is amazing. You basically hook it up to your printer and bam! You’re ready to make anything you want into a Polaroid print. The output, using Polaroid’s special paper, are beautifully authentic Polaroids. Complete with irregular blue tinges and “exposed” results, they immediately strike a nostalgic chord with every Polaroid fan. Sheer genius! And man, is it fun to play with. It’s downright addicting.
After obsessively experimenting (which still has NOT ended!) and somewhat disastrous results involving me taking photos (oops) I opted to return to my first instinct, and that was to make tiled mosaics of my art. I first made a 25 panel piece highlighting past and brand new mixed media (mostly screen printed) works. The work needed a friend so I did the exact same thing only with tiling my paintings. My sister/agent, Vandana Taxali, told me that it would be a fun idea to do another. She suggested that it would be nice to do a trio and create another 25 paneled piece using my black and white ink drawings. At first I resisted because she’s my sister and it’s my job to contradict her, but then I relented and was glad I did. Please don’t tell her she ended up being right because I’ll just deny it.
Next week, the show opens on Sept 14th at the Phillips de Pury and Company in NYC during Fashion Week. Due to a large media and press opening reception, it is an invitation-only event but will be open to the general public the next day onwards. A portion of the sales from the art will go to Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation. I will be at the event signing my new book, “I Love You, OK?”. In addition, Polaroid has asked me to be one of their tweeters so you can follow Polaroid on Twitter to read my updates! That will take place on Sept 12th so please tune it!