Lucas SamarasBox #61 1967

Inside this box is a photograph of the artist's face with pins stuck at regular intervals along the contours of his cheek, moustache and mouth. According to Samaras ‘the pins are lines, marks and dots, they create a net pattern which gives a strange illusion’. For Samaras, the box represents an equivalent to the human body. He sees making one of his boxes as a series of ‘erotic gestures. In Greece, where I was born, the words for lick and sculpt are the same.’