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Samaras, Lucas (Artist/Photographer) & Schjeldahl, Peter (Contributor) : Lucas Samaras: The Pace/macgill Exhibition Catalog

Pace/Macgill Gallery, New York City, NY, 1991

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 22 pages. Exhibition Catalog. One of the most beautiful exhibition catalogs on the art of Lucas Samaras. The first and only edition. Published in tiny print run as a softcover original only. There is no ISBN. The Exhibition Catalog is now rare. Published on the occasion of the landmark exhibition held at Pace/MacGill Gallery New York City in 1991. Presents Lucas Samaras' new work following the immense controversy and success of his Whitney Museum of American Art splash. Samaras' focus is still himself, a vehement assertion, as Peter Schjeldahl notes in his Essay, that the only true subject (and the only reality) of the artist/photographer is oneself, whatever else he (or she) may be photographing. A painter and a sculptor before he turned full-time to photography, Samaras remains best-known for his Polaroid collages to this day: Elaborate, flamboyant, and daring self-portraits that are aggressively and uninhibitedly American despite their European roots. Samaras was not the first to create such a body of work. Pierre Molinier was. The difference is that Molinier did it for exclusively private reasons and kept his self-portraits hidden from view until the very end, when he killed himself. Samaras turned Molinier's private obsessions into a party, making auto-eroticism a central element of post-Modernist art (think of Robert Mapplethorpe and Cindy Sherman, to name only two very different descendants). "In his most profound achievement, he adopted one of photography's basic genres, portraiture, and used it as a basis for an inquiry into the self, which remains unmatched in its intensity and boundless in its ramifications. Samaras split himself into model, actor, director, audience, and critic. To each of these roles, he brought a skilled artist's hand and an eye deeply informed by the historical traditions and motifs of art. He became a rare figure in American art, not an artist who occasionally uses photography for tactical reasons, but an artist who made photography central to his aesthetic" (Ben Lifson). An absolute "must-have" title for Lucas Samaras collectors. This title is now collectible. As far as we know, this is the only copy of the Exhibition Catalog available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. A rare copy thus. 16 color plates. "Samaras Album: Autointerview, Autobiography, Autopolaroid" was selected as one of the "Seminal Photography Books" in "The Book of 101 Books". One of the greatest artist/photographers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER LUCAS SAMARAS TITLES IN OUR CATALOG).

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