A recent article in the Palo Alto Weekly tells about a new exhibition at the Palo Alto Art Center called “Romancing the Shadows,” described as “an exhibit of alternative photography progresses including tintypes, daguerreotypes and Van Dyke prints.”

The exhibition also includes some adapted photobooth photos in the work of artist Kimberly Austin. Her set titled Adam & Edna features photobooth photos of her grandparents in the pieces “Yippie!” and “Never Forget,“ seen above. The photos, enlarged to 8 1/2” x 11″, are Van Dyke prints mounted on wood.

More information and images at SFCamerawork.org and Braunstein/Quay Gallery.

This weekend’s trip to Pittsburgh yielded a photobooth, photobooth art, photobooth as publicity, and a photobooth photo as official street signage. On a sunny Saturday afternoon, I visited the Warhol Museum, home to an excellent Auto-Photo Model 14C in the basement.

The booth, nestled under the stairs at the far end of the lower level, provides nice, crisp, high-contrast photos, with a very white background. Both sides are open, and the booth is set a foot or so away from the wall, allowing for a little room on the far side for a number of people to gather in the booth at one time; our record for identifiable people was six in one shot. Across the hall from the booth is a marker denoting the high-water mark during a recent flood; apparently, the booth was damaged but the Warhol either repaired it or got a new (old) one. I’d love to hear the full story.

On the first floor, I enjoyed three works by Warhol that began as photobooth photos: silkscreened portraits of Ethel Scull (1963), Judith Green (1963–64), and Bobby Short (1963):



After viewing the museum’s seven fascinating floors, I headed down to the basement to use the photobooth, and checked out the “Weekend Factory,” described on the Warhol’s website as a “lively studio program where museum visitors can create art while exploring Andy Warhol’s artistic practice.” I took the photostrip I’d just taken, photocopied it, took some highlighters to it, and made a Pop button out of it for a mere 50 cents. What a bargain!

While I was in the “Factory,” I also spotted the Warhol’s Education Programs pamphlet, which features eight photostrips on the front and back cover. Very nice.

As I headed out Sandusky Street and over the 7th Street Bridge to get a view of the skyline and ballparks, I noticed that the bridge had been officially re-named the Andy Warhol Bridge, complete with colorful signs taken from his photobooth self-portraits. I’d venture that this is the only example of a photobooth photo used in an official city sign. But I’d be happy to hear otherwise. With such a ripe climate, all I need is to find some more photobooths in the Pittsburgh area. This can’t be the only one.

It’s time for a new category here on Photobooth.net: poetry. This week I came across the first example I’ve seen of poetry about the photobooth, a work called “Photomaton,” published online in the first issue of Elixir Magazine. The poem, by Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti, describes an experience with a “two euro” photobooth in a Paris Metro station. The poem has not shown up on Ranson-Polizzotti’s page of audio files of poems, but we’ll provide a link if it does. 

The latest edition of “eBay’s weird world of photobooth stuff” features half a photostrip of black and white shots purporting to depict Chicago stage actor Danny Belrose (not to be confused with Evangelist Danny Belrose, with his “Wrods of Guidance”). The description states that the photos were taken “sometime in the mid 90’s” and show Belrose “making out with some unknown snarler.” In a rhetorical leap, the description also boasts that the strip is “a well-preserved example of original, collectible American photobooth art.” Nice.

Another copy of the 2003 Billy Childish book “photo-booth” has been listed on eBay this week, with a starting bid of £50. The description for the item once again mentions Tracey Emin, the most well-known personality photographed in the book, as well as Sexton Ming, and describes the book as having “a very small press run of only 50 books.”

Another copy of the book was listed on eBay in mid-April and eventually sold for nearly £100. The current copy is a little different, with gallows woodcuts covering the front, and, as the description reads, this copy is “signed Billy 03 in red pencil on the back cover.”

Two oft-cited but hard to find photobooth art books are currently listed on eBay. The first is photo-booth, a zine-like photobooth pic book by Billy Childish (prolific rocker, poet, artist, author). It purports to be the artist’s personal copy, but my guess is that it probably isn’t Billy’s personal copy, rather one of a small number of Artist’s Proofs that were printed. Rare, nonetheless.

The second book, Andy Warhol Photobooth Pictures, is the exhibition catalog from the 1989 Andy Warhol photobooth exhibit at the Robert Miller Gallery in New York. I have never seen this book in person, but occasionally see it listed in online bookstores. It never lists for less than $250. Perhaps this is a chance to get it for cheap.

An Artdaily.com preview of the upcoming Christie’s New York Spring 2005 Photographs sale includes a mention of the well-known Holly Solomon photobooth photos. The set of six strips, taken at photobooths at 47th and Broadway in 1963 and 1964, is expected to fetch $40,000-$60,000 when the auction takes place April 26. The Warhol piece at right, a painting over silkscreened images, was adapted from one photo taken during Warhol and Solomon’s photobooth sessions. Asked about these sessions, Solomon, who died in 2002, said, “We went to Broadway and 47th Street, where they had this photobooth. Andy met me there, and we had a bunch of quarters. He was very particular about which booth. We tried a whole bunch of them… Actually, if you’re in a photobooth for a long time it gets pretty boring…” For more from Solomon on these photos, read this International Center of Photography article.

An Artnet article this week informs us that the Neue Galerie for German and Austrian art in New York has brought in a photobooth to complement their exhibition “Portraits of an Age: Photography in Germany and Austria, 1900–1938.” The $2 black-and-white booth “hails from New Jersey, however, not Weimar-era Germany.” The exhibition, which features more than 100 vintage photographs, runs through June 6, 2005.

Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules, boxes “filled with a staggering array of art works, source and publicity material, correspondence and memorabilia,” are set to go on display at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia this week. The exhibit, which naturally includes photobooth strips, has prompted an article entitled “Trash or treasure?” in Melbourne’s daily The Age.

Opening tonight at Seattle’s Soil Art Gallery is a new exhibition called “knock-off.” Based on a 2003 trip to Italy, the installation by Nina Zingale and Gina Rymarcsuk uses photobooth photographs of figurines of religious and historic figures bought on the street. As the description reads

This reference to “Fotobooth,” as though that’s a common name for something we all know, is somewhat misleading, and it seems clear from the small images available on the website that the images have been manipulated enough so as to be far from real photobooth photos anymore.