Nine Polaroid Photographs of a Mirror
Anastasi's conceptual exercise-the gradual covering and replacement of a mirror by pictures of itself-allegorizes the transformation in the status of the photographic image in the 1960s. Only possible with the invention of the instant print camera, the artist's process involves photographing the mirror, attaching the print to the surface, and photographing the mirror again until the surface is covered. Anastasi's gesture problematizes what was once a direct, unmediated perception of the real with an endless labyrinth of recycled images. Like Andy Warhol's Brillo boxes and Jasper Johns' flags and targets, the perceptual gap in these works between the thing itself and what is literally depicted has been all but erased. The exponentially multiplying self-referentiality of Nine Polaroid Portraits of a Mirror constitutes one of the ways in which artists of the 1960s parodied the interiority and introspection of their immediate predecessors, the Abstract Expressionists.
Artwork Details
- Title: Nine Polaroid Photographs of a Mirror
- Artist: William Anastasi (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1933–2023 New York)
- Date: 1967
- Medium: Instant diffusion transfer prints
- Dimensions: 36.8 x 28.6 cm (14 1/2 x 11 1/4 in.)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Purchase, Barbara and Eugene Schwartz Gift and The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1994
- Object Number: 1994.316a–j
- Rights and Reproduction: © William Anastasi
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
More Artwork
A slider containing 5 items.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
William Anastasi
1979
William Anastasi
1987
William Anastasi
1967–77
Man Ray
1920
Man Ray
1923
Research Resources
The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.