Getty Museum
Photo-Transformation, July 6, 1975
Creator
Lucas SamarasAmerican Photographer · 1936–2024
All works by this person →Lucas Samaras was already known as a sculptor, painter, and performance artist when he began experimenting with photography. In his early work, which includes multi-media assemblages, he often included images of himself. The persistent use of himself as a subject has led one critic to remark that "Samaras's almost obsessional self-observation extends past narcissism toward a physical understanding
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- July 6, 1975
- Medium
- Polaroid SX-70 dye diffusion print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
In this self-portrait Lucas Samaras explicitly portrays himself in both roles, as artist and as subject. On the left, he appears dressed and seated behind the camera, in the guise of an artist. In the center, as the subject, his distorted, naked body floats above a black-and-white checkerboard floor. A picture of a life-size skeletal human is the third figure in the composition. Samaras's self-portraits are psychologically complex images that challenge viewers and defy any single interpretation. One analysis of this image could be that Samaras is asking the audience to recognize him as an artist and as an individual concerned with both interior and exterior dimensions of mind, body, and soul.
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