The numerous Polaroid portraits of Warhol testify to the evolution of his public persona. Changing his style as fashions come and go, he moves from an underground wardrobe of the 1960s to a preppy style mimicking the bourgeoisification of his clientele and activities in the 1970s, and finally to the dark and sober attire of the last decade of his life, even as he takes a retrospective look at his work and surrounds himself with emerging young artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. This collection of clichés demonstrates Warhol's ability to adapt his image to his time and his interlocutors. Aware of his era's fascination with the celebrity individual and their image, he understands the commercial effectiveness of fame. In this logic, he constructs an ambiguous public persona, revealing as much as he conceals. Hidden under a wig since the early 1950s, he responds in a fragmented manner to the numerous interviews he grants throughout his life, frequently appearing in public and allowing images and gossip about him to circulate, and there is no such thing as bad publicity. Moreover, he feeds the obsession of his time with images by generating them in large quantities.
This game of cross-dressing is evident in the Polaroid series created in collaboration with photographer Christopher Makos from 1980 to 1982, in which Warhol hides behind as many feminine appearances as there are snapshots. The wigs and makeup with which the assistants visible in the gelatin-silver print on display here dress him give rise to new avatars. In 1966, Warhol told Gretchen Berg in an interview for The East Village Other, "I never take the time to think about the real Andy Warhol, we're too busy here."
In the 1986 Polaroid portraits, he appears stoic, hidden behind his black glasses, under his famous "fright wig." These photos will give rise to the artist's last series of silkscreen self-portraits, a year before his passing. Then weakened, Warhol suffers but says nothing. His phobic fear of hospitals drives him to ignore his doctor's advice, who urges him to undergo the benign gallbladder operation. On February 21, 1987, he finally agrees to the operation and enters New York Hospital. The operation was successful, but Warhol passed away the following day. The severe consequences left by the assassination attempt with a pistol by the author-activist Valérie Solanas in 1968 and the amphetamines and slimming pills he had consumed throughout his life had contributed to his fragility. Ultimately uncomfortable in front of the camera, the one who had meticulously controlled his image throughout his career had also paradoxically always preferred to turn the spotlight towards others, attentively observing the theatre of his time.
