Lea Bischofberger 1975

This small polaroid of Lea Bischofberger was taken by Andy Warhol sometime during his career. I look at this picture and I think about surface, because the genius of Warhol was to play with the surface of things, to make them iconic. He captures this child with a strange mix of detachment and intimacy. It’s like he’s archiving her, but also seeing something unique. The composition, the colors – that 70s orange - feel very deliberate. He is holding the camera, and the camera is documenting him documenting her. The way he uses the camera to flatten the image, to make it almost like a screenprint, connects with his broader practice of playing with repetition and reproduction. There is a strange intimacy that Warhol shares with his subjects, turning them into images, turning them into icons. It's as if he's asking us, "What do we see when we look at a face? What does it mean to capture someone's image?"