Call to Save the Polaroid Collection

[David A. Goldfarb]

If you have work in the Polaroid Collection, you may be interested in this post on A. D. Coleman's blog regarding the possible auctioning of the collection and the question of who actually owns the prints--

http://nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/?p=1194

 

[Bosaiya]

That's unfortunate. I have work in the collection, I wondered what would happen to it when things went bad.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Coleman's article has suggestions as to how you might try to reclaim your prints. It would be unfortunate, if the collection were broken up and the prints were auctioned to pay off the debts of some holding company that was running a ponzi scheme that destroyed Polaroid in the process. If the collection is dissolved, at least the photographers should be able to profit from the sale of their prints, particularly if the rights to the sale of the prints were never actually transferred to Polaroid, as may be the case.

 

[doughowk]

David, thanks for the link. I've avoided his writings after reading an exchange between he & Judy Siegel in Post-Factory Photography. But now I'm a subscriber to his blog.
Don't have anything in the collection, but its breakup would be a terrible disservice to the photo community.

 

[AgX]

That, aside from those legal issues concerning ownership, a collection as the Polaroid one does not necessarily has to be auctioned, can be seen with the case of the Agfa-Historama. This historic orientated collection made out of photos, papers, books and cameras was intented to be sold by Agfa just prior to the Agfa-Photo sale (seemingly a coincidence with the duration of a lease contract).
Whereas the camera collection was open to free sale, the photo collection had been designated a national heritage, which made it to be kept together and prohibited sale abroad.
In the end no free sale was done at all, but the Historama collection ended up in two public musea.