Samaras was born in Greece in 1963, when he was a teenager he moved to the US and attended Rutgers University. What I love about Samaras is that he creates across all media, he paints, takes photographs, sculpts and performs in his pieces. In 2002 they had a show of his at the Whitney gallery. Although I am a huge fan of his experimental photographs, I am not as big of a fan of his still life paintings and sculptures. His photographs are stunning and uniquely his. He experiments with projection and performance throughout his works in a mind bending way. His paintings and sculpture lack the unity that his photographs have. He is a visionary who embodies the broad restrictions of contemporary art. Most of his work is based on himself: interviewing himself, photographing himself, sculpting himself, and decorating himself. But he is not necessarily a narcissist, more an ever changing image that he is trying to explore. Although not a household name, his art has been extremely influential. Even two years after his first show, the Museum of Modern Art bought two of his pieces. He has been innovative in all his media. With his polaroids, he realized how to manipulate them before the dye set. Samaras is best known for his piece titled "Auto Interviews." In this piece he interrogates himself (speaking to his dealer and friend), the images were computer drawings of chimerical creatures all made on his Mac. After this piece was shown, he showed at the Venice Biennale in 2009. There is a link at the bottom of his work at the Venice Biennale.
At the bottom of this page is the interview:
http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/lucas-samaras/#page2
Venice Biennale:
http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2009/06/venice-lucas-samaras-at-the-greek-pavilion/
http://whitney.org/Collection/LucasSamaras
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