Book with pins, table knife, scissors, razor blade, metal foil, piece of glass and plastic rod
In 1960 Samaras began a series of Surrealist-inspired boxes filled with personal materials that he encrusted in needles, mirrors, shards of glass, and brightly colored beads. The boxes were followed by room–sized installations and subversive Polaroid self–portraits. Like Samaras's boxes, Book 4 is a multifaceted object and a miniature world in itself. Although it includes eight fictional narratives written by the artist between 1959 and 1967, it is not a storybook. Each thick amoeba–shaped page contains surprises, such as pop–ups, pockets, interlocking layers, foldouts, and hidden pamphlets. Samaras's working maquette for Book 4 offers a glimpse of the handcrafted origin of this sculptural book.
Book/Shelf, March 26–July 7, 2008.
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The Art of Assemblage
Gallery 408Everyday objects, popular consumer products, and other nontraditional materials had become, Seitz wrote, “the language for impatient, hypercritical, and anarchistic young artists,” who sought to create an art that—in its subject matter, materials, and making—was closely intertwined with life.
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