1962 Building

The Albright-Knox acquired Lucas Samaras’s groundbreaking Mirrored Room in 1966, the same year it was created. Mirrored Room was one of the earliest installation artworks designed for viewers to enter, rather than simply look at, and it was the first such immersive environment to become part of a museum collection. Almost 50 years later, the Mirrored Room remains a treasured example of the Albright-Knox’s long tradition of acquiring challenging new work by emerging artists. Presented alongside this famously disorienting room, Lucas Samaras: Reflections comprised a selection of Samaras’s prints, sculpture, photographs, and a painting, all drawn from the museum’s collection. These works, spanning more than 40 years, demonstrate how persistently Samaras takes on common things—such as boxes, fabric, furniture, and the human body—only to alter and reinvent them. Here, reflected back to viewers, are Samaras’s visions of a familiar world forever transformed.

This exhibition was organized by Curator Cathleen Chaffee.