Polaroid photography is one of those pieces of analog life that Gen Z decided to embrace, despite the fact that it wasn’t very good. Like wired headphones, the technology was impressive when it first started, but unlike vinyl records, there are more drawbacks than benefits. What’s important to remember, too, is that when your favorite artists used Polaroids, they did so because they saw the medium as the future. Andy Warhol would tour parties with his Big Shot, too Diary he had a woman in 1980 who asked him, “When are you going to Xerox me, honey?”
“Lucas Samaras: Sitting, Standing, Walking, Looking” at the Art Institute of Chicago makes the case for Samaras (1936-2024) as one of the many inventors of Polaroid art converters. Largely drawn from the museum’s own collection, with the addition of recent gifts from the Samaras area, the exhibition includes more than 40 works, with photographs displayed alongside sculptures, paintings and drawings. It also spans the arc from his early AutoPolaroids of 1969-70 to the large Sitting tableaux of the late 1970s and his cropped Panoramas of the mid-1980s.
The standout piece from the show is the Samaras grid AutoPolaroids (1969/70). These are the prequels to Cindy Sherman Untitled Movie Songs (1977) in good jeans and are seen as an influence, sharing their playful exploration of identity as the singer wears wigs, makeup, expressions and accessories to bring together a multitude of diverse characters in black and white. But Polaroid offers a different flavor from Film songs. Those were more concerned with photography, said to have been shot by the likes of Richard Prince and Robert Longo, and included a Hollywood-style set and frame. Samaras are big on that crazy feeling in your house alone.
Like AutoPolaroids, his Image Modification 11/6/73 (1973) emphasized the power of language. Here, Samaras uses 20 layers on a piece of Polaroid film with his fingers or a stylus in a process that produces something powerful, distorted and surreal in a perfect way.
But New Yorkers are just as passionate about real estate as we are. In Still Life (1978), the artist photographs the cluttered kitchen table in his studio. Paint brushes meet Café Bustelo, plants and the editorial image of the finished image we are now looking at. This clip just followed Polaroid’s invitation to test the new 8×10 camera. This larger format meant that he could not use emulsion as he did with the SX-70 prints, so Samaras had to make the conversion happen in front of the camera rather than on the print. The result is a split head that seems to roar, a brutal piece of clutter among all the others vying for your attention. No wonder Peter Schjeldahl called him “the master benefactor of narcissism.”
“Lucas Samaras: Sitting, Standing, Walking, Looking” is on view at the Art Institute of Chicago through July 20, 2026.
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