Lucas Samaras

To this day, Samaras is most associated with his distorted Polaroid self-portraits from the 1970s, achieved by softening developing photo emulsion with hot water, then using his fingers or sharp instruments to manipulate the images. But this postmodern trickster employed a wide variety of mediums, including painting and installation. One of the latter here involves an mirrored room originally conceived in 1966. It’s joined by 700 photos that, like his previous “Photo-Transformations,” are altered, this time digitally. As usual, Samaras’s own self is the subject, though he also delves into his family history.