Nov 13, 2001 - Sale 1915

Sale 1915 - Lot 38

Unsold
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
LUCAS SAMARAS
Auto-Polaroid.<>

Assemblage with 12 unique Polaroid photographs, 1971. Each measuring 95x70mm; 3 3/4x2 3/4 inches. Comprising 6 color and 6 black-and-white prints; with a Pace Gallery label on the obverse of the frame.

Lucas Samaras was one of the first male artists to photographically explore his body. From 1968-71 he created a series of collages and individual studies he called "autoportraits" with an easy-to-use Polaroid camera, which provided instant gratification and feedback for Samaras, who enjoyed working alone in the wee hours of the night or early morning.

Samaras's photographs often relied on erotic imagery set in banal, everyday contexts. In this collage, he alternates b & w close-ups of his face and genital area (seen in a bathtub), with color photographs of a rose in the landscape or his hand testing the water temperature. He wrote of this body of work: "These photographs are a way of studying my Polaroided self as an abstraction or translation for esthetic speculation, psychological perspicacity, sensual subtlety, and warm embarassment. Or they are a method for declassifying hush-hushed feelings. Or they are a stylized pretension of emotion -- acting. Or they are a working of the form of the self-portrait. . ."
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details