Lot Details
Lot 250
Brigid Berlin Trio of double-exposure Polaroids depicting herself, Robert Heide, and Ron Link.
New York: late 1960s. Three color Polaroids by Brigid Berlin, each 3 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches (9 x 11 cm), depicting Berlin with Heide and Link, Robert Heide, and Robert Heide with Ron Link, curled as is common for Polaroids without backing from this period.
A trio of double-exposure Polaroids by Brigid Berlin, progenitor of this technique. Beginning in the late 1960s, Berlin double-exposed faces, objects and buildings into her Polaroids. At the time, the doubling effect of the images seemed reflective of the hazy drug culture of the day but in retrospect these are complicated images to read, as the layering affects how deeply and what a viewer can see in the picture.
These Polaroids were taken in the late 1960s at Sutter's Bakery, on the corner of 10th Street and Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich Village. The main image presents Brigid Berlin looming darkly between friends Robert Heide and Ron Link and begs the viewer to consider what is reflection versus what is layered. The other images present Heide and Link behind a starless American Flag, Link reading from a card wearing dark glasses, some illegible text from a newspaper peeking out from a corner over the half drunk cups of coffee. The final image is Heide alone, the grid of a tile floor or stone wall imposed before him. In this period, Warhol's filming of playwright Robert Heide's The Bed at Caffe Cino had found its way into Chelsea Girls. Caffe Cino director Ron Link, who offered an early role to Robert De Niro, was featured in Andy Warhol's 1965 film Batman Dracula.
For a brief article on Berlin's double-exposure Polaroids see Rachel Churner. Brigid Berlin, ArtForum review of the exhibition "It's All About Me" at Invisible Exports, New York, January 2016.
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