In his experimental self-portraits, Lucas Samaras explores complex themes such as identity and self-depiction. In doing so, the Greek-American painter and sculptor has developed versatile forms of expression that have opened him the door to the world's major galleries, museums and art fairs.
(...) Continue readingLucas Samaras - Art as an act of self-exploration
Lucas Samaras was born on 14th September 1936 in Kastoria, Greece. In 1948, he emigrated to the USA with his family and settled in New York, and went on to study art at Rutgers University under Allan Kaprow and George Segal. It was during this time that he became interested in Performance Art: he took part in Allan Kaprow's ‘Happenings’ and modelled for George Segal's highly acclaimed plaster sculptures, and also met Roy Lichtenstein. He later continued his studies with Meyer Schapiro at Columbia University. Samaras saw his artistic activity as an act also of self-exploration: he painted several self-portraits, for which he used a mirror so that he could also visualise and depict his back. In order to make rapid progress with his paintings, he tended to use pastel colours and focused on figurative and geometric forms, which he executed in rich colours and with lush textures.
A key figure in the Happenings
Lucas Samaras became an American citizen in 1955 and held his first small solo exhibition at the Reuben Gallery in New York in 1959. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was a key figure in the increasing number of Happenings organised by Claes Oldenburg, among others, who counted Samaras alongside Kaprow, Segal, Liechtenstein, Robert Watts, Robert Whiteman, Geoffrey Hendricks and George Brecht as part of the ‘Jersey School’. Samaras himself turned to objects, which he assembled from cutlery, mirrors, needles, razor blades, nails, coloured thread and feathers, bound into the form desired by the artist using liquid aluminium or plaster. Working with different materials remained a characteristic of Samaras' art for over six decades, whereby he always succeeded in maintaining his own expression that was independent of contemporary artistic trends. Through his exhibition activities and participation in Happenings, Samaras gained a great deal of attention and a network of influential personalities in the art scene, which ultimately led to his first major solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1969.
Photoshop as an artistic tool
Lucas Samaras was one of the first artists to incorporate his own person into his artistic work and to merge it introspectively with autobiographical elements. In his choice of diverse media, he left nothing to chance, instead focussing entirely on a clear concept. In doing so, photography played an increasingly important role: while Samaras initially worked artistically on the analogue Polaroid images that he used as the basis for his self-portraits during the lengthy development process, computer technology and digital photography opened up completely new possibilities for him, which he made active use of. In 1968, he took part in the 4th documenta in Kassel, in 1972 his works were shown in the Individual Mythologies section at documenta 5, in 1977 he participated in documenta 6 and in 2017 in documenta 14. In 2009, Lucas Samaras represented his native Greece at the 53rd Venice Biennale with the installation PARAXENA.
Lucas Samaras lives and works in New York.
Lucas Samaras - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz:
