Preview: Lucas Samaras Photoshops the Art World
By
October 27, 2010
Artist Lucas Samaras has never been shy about photographing himself in unflattering positions, or about using treatments in the darkroom to exaggerate and warp his features. With his new exhibition, opening November 9 at Pace Gallery’s new 25th Street location, the notoriously elusive 74-year-old artist shares his wily view of the world with about 75 others from among his friends and the art-world community. He’s created portraits of each (among them collector Agnes Gund, David Byrne, Glenn Lowry, Jasper Johns, Alex Katz, Pace’s Nicola Vassell and Interview‘s Alex Gartenfeld), lit most often from below and then filtered and re-fangled with Photoshop. The results are diverse: Gund, for her part, gets a gauzy glow; while Katz is turned inside-out and rendered abject. Together, the series, “Poses,” is a monument to Samaras’ idiosyncratic but open approach to expressionism, his efforts to de-stabilize beauty with technology, and his hostile criticism of the petty favoritism of art and photography.
THE PACE GALLERY IS LOCATED AT 534 WEST 25 STREET, NEW YORK.
