Painterly Polaroids

Miranda Lichtenstein’s new exhibition of Polaroids, currently on view in the top-floor rotunda of the Hermès store on Madison Avenue, offers a glimpse into the New York-based artist’s personal exploration of a vanishing medium. Hung chronologically, the exhibition takes viewers from Lichtenstein’s initial experiments during her 2002 residency at the Giverny gardens in France, where Monet painted his water lilies (and where Lichtenstein worked with a Linhof 4×5 inch camera gifted to her by the photographer Roe Ethridge), to her more recent work, which incorporates geometric, washi paper filters (a technique she first developed while living in Japan in 2003).

A collaboration between Lichtenstein and the gallery’s curator Cory Jacobs, the show highlights the craftsmanship integral to creating such delicate compositions using rudimentary equipment. “I find that the older I get, the more interested I am in controlling everything in the studio,” says Lichtenstein. “It wasn’t a conscious decision, but the more I shot in the studio, the more possibilities there seemed to be.”

“Miranda Lichtenstein: Polaroid” is on view through June 4 at La Foundation d’entreprise Hermès, at the Hermès store in New York, 691 Madison Ave.