CHICAGO, IL.- The Art Institute of Chicago announces Lucas Samaras: Sitting, Standing, Walking, Looking, on view January 31, 2026 through July 20, 2026. This exhibition focuses on Samaras’s innovative photographs—alongside select sculptures, drawings, and paintings—which unite his background in performance and his technical achievements with instant process film. The presentation is drawn from the Art Institute’s collection, including some sculptures and paintings recently gifted to the museum from the Samaras Estate.

Over the course of seven decades, Lucas Samaras developed a unique approach to art making, experimenting with a wide range of materials—including his own body and belongings—which became the primary subjects of his photographs, sculptures, and drawings. These works offer a glimpse into his broader practice and his commitment to cultivating his home-studio as a kind of artwork itself.

“Throughout his adult life, Samaras developed an ongoing dialogue between himself and his image. His signature method of manipulating film allowed him to create outrageous distortions of himself and his world,” said Grace Deveney, David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Associate Curator, Photography and Media. “These assembled works invite us into his creative, engaged, and focused life, one built through transforming everyday objects and actions through ceaseless artistic exploration.”

Samaras was born in Greece and as a boy he witnessed the Greek Civil War firsthand. Art making became an escape from the war’s horrors and the way it complicated his family dynamic. While his father moved to New Jersey, he and his mother stayed in Greece for nine years. The family reunited when Samaras was 12 and moved with his mother to the US.

Following his youth in Greece, Samaras’s work was also deeply influenced by his participation in ”happenings,” live artworks that combined installation and performance that emerged in New York in the late 1950s and 1960s.

This exhibition gathers works from throughout his career that highlight how these influences shaped his unique practice.

Lucas Samaras: Sitting, Standing, Walking, Looking is curated by Grace Deveney, David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Associate Curator, Photography and Media.