Reservoir: Rafael Delacruz, Miyoko Ito, Lucas Samaras
January 3–February 3, 2018

“You take a picture and there’s a face there. Well, that face is formed in 16 layers of chemicals. By pressing upon it, you disturb the emulsion. So by pushing it a little bit I can give you a bigger nose than you have; by compressing it I can make your face skinnier. Essentially that’s what it is—it’s a stupid thing. 

“But you have to do it with some finesse; otherwise, if you press too hard, you get to the bottom, which is black. So it has to be a very light touch. And the other thing is you have to use bright colors when you’re photographing. I have to use reds and greens and so on. So that when I start pushing the Polaroid around some color is lost but still you have a great deal of intensity.”

-Lucas Samaras, from a 1979 interview

Rafael Delacruz (b. 1989, San Francisco, CA)
D.W.S., 2017
HD video with sound, 2:52 min.

Miyoko Ito (b. 1918, Berkeley, CA)
Reservoir, 1980
Oil on canvas, 28 x 36 in.

 Lucas Samaras (b. 1936, Kastoria, Macedonia, Greece)
Photo-Transformation, July 30, 1976
Polaroid SX-70 dye diffusion print, 3 x 3 in.

Photography by Robert Divers Herrick