Lucas Samaras: Boxes and Reconstructions

Preview: written before the show opened

As a boy in Greece, Samaras would sit in his cousin's dress shop cutting up paper, and whenever he reached for the fabric she told him not to touch it. In 1979, with nobody to stop him, he sewed fabric into big, busy paintings he called Reconstructions. They stayed in his own collection, and this is the first time any have been shown. You still can't touch the fabric.

They hang beside his boxes, a series of almost 300 he kept making from the early 1960s into the 1980s. He fixed photographs, cutlery, nails, mirrors, bright yarn and feathers onto boxes full of compartments and drawers, using liquid aluminum and plaster. The selection runs from the plain hinged Box #5 to Stiff Box #14, all curves in Cor-ten steel, and Box #133 from 1989.

Nobody has reviewed it yet. Entry is free at Pace's Chelsea building, 540 West 25th Street, Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm, with an opening reception on 5 November from 6 to 8pm.