2018.10.289
Sittings (Patterson Sims)
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
