ABOUT

This small, thick and astonishing 2008-page tome features precisely 1000 color Polaroids by the important American contemporary photographer of 'fictionalized documentary,' Philip-Lorca diCorcia. For diCorcia, who most often works in themed series just the right size for a monograph, the sheer volume of this material, which spans over 20 years of personal and artistic creation, was its central challenge. The final selection's heft defied context and narrative so resolutely that in the end diCorcia enlisted a computer to randomize the layout sequence according to restrictions that he set up. Flipping through the pages of 1000 Polaroids does not offer a retrospective or a summation; it displays an exercise in chance and the construction of memory. An unwashed pan soaking in the sink precedes an unknown woman resembling an odalisque; the familiar linoleum aisles of a supermarket give way to a verdant swatch of lawn. These images are at once alien and deeply familiar. And just as one moment in our lives may recall another, these photographs echo among one another-within the book, within the canon of diCorcia's work, and within each reader's personal experience. The Polaroid proves to be the perfect souvenir, unique and subject to reinterpretation, like memory itself.