Auto Polaroid
Lucas Samaras
American, born Greece. 1936–2024
1969-71
A small black-and-white Polaroid self-portrait in which the artist compresses hand and torso into a claustrophobic, tactile study of his own body.
At first glance you notice how deep shadow and a single sharp light sculpt the hand and ribs into an almost abstract, three-dimensional form, the instant print’s grain and sheen making the skin feel insistently present and immediate.
Part of Samaras’s Auto-Polaroid series, this work helped reconceive the Polaroid as a site for intimate, performative self-portraiture and for physically manipulating the photographic surface to probe identity and corporeality.
Medium
Black and white instant print (Polapan)
Dimensions
3 3/4 × 2 15/16" (9.5 × 7.4 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Robert and Gayle Greenhill
Accession
54.1992
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
