Shiny Matters in/and 1960s Sculptured Figurations
Abstract
In 1964, Lucas Samaras (*1936) created—among other things—an aquarium-like transparent box containing a body fragmented into sensory organs. Eyeballs, ears, fingers are surrounded by shimmering colorful materials and matters like distorting foils, needles, a sphere made out of glass and simulated water drops. Taking this object as a starting point, my talk will focus on Samaras’ shiny, glittering and even liquid surfaces as part of a sculptural production in the 1960s that reconfigured the human subject in a milieu where information technologies came into power. This paper will explore how Samaras’ anti-technological sculptures activate sensory moments that lead away from the body as substance to surfaces, trespassing the boundaries between gendered bodies and between subjects and objects alike.
About Antje Krause-Wahl
Antje Krause-Wahl is an art historian who currently teaches at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. She has been accepted to the Heisenberg Program (DFG) with her research project that investigates the reconfiguration of the subject within artistic practices in the 1960s and 1970s (“Räume der Berührung—Subjektkonfigurationen und Gemeinschaftsbildung in der Kunst der 1960er und 1970er Jahre”). “Shine On! Materials, Practices and Politics of Shine in Modern Art and Popular Culture” (ed. with Änne Söll, Petra Löffler) will appear with Bloomsbury in 2021.