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Preview image of work. polaroid on paper,  Sittings (Patterson Sims) 36666

2018.10.289

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Sittings (Patterson Sims)

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Artist

Lucas Samaras (Loukas Damianou Samaras) (Kastoria, Greece, 9/14/1936 - )

Title

Sittings (Patterson Sims)

Creation Date

1980

Century

late 20th century

Dimensions

32 1/8 x 21 5/8 in. (81.6 x 54.93 cm)

Classification

Photographs

Creation Place

North America, United States

Medium and Support

polaroid on paper

Credit Line

Archival Collection of Marion Boulton Stroud and Acadia Summer Arts Program, Mt. Desert Island, Maine. Gift from the Marion Boulton "Kippy" Stroud Foundation

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

Accession Number

2018.10.289

In working with the 20 x 24 inch polaroid camera, Lucas Samaras brought a technological behemoth into his studio. He set up colorful lights, draperies, and a kitchen chair, before exposing his sitters and himself to the dispassionate eye of the camera. The resulting oversized color prints are confounding—a glimpse into an instantaneous artistic transformation witnessed by the artist and revealed in great detail to the viewer. This and other large-scale polaroids of the series anticipate the intrusion of communication technology into the most personal aspects of people’s lives. While they might be less delirious and intimate than Samaras’s earlier photographic self-portraits—he had worked with smaller-format polaroids for a decade before the 20 x 24 became available, often collaging and physically manipulating the images—the luscious, larger works preserve the experience of a sensual encounter between man and machine. Joachim Homann, Ph.D., Curator