Published by DelMonico Books. Edited with text by Catherine Craft. Foreword by Jed Morse.
Published with Nasher Sculpture Center.
For nearly 15 years, American artist Samara Golden (born 1973) has confounded viewers with her extraordinary and disorienting environments. Using mirrors to create the impression of vast spaces, which she populates with handmade figures and objects, Golden presents installations that can range from seemingly chaotic to quietly seething. if earth is the brain then where is the body commemorates her 2024 eponymous exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center, for which Golden conjured a rippling, glistening body of water, filled with aquatic life alongside human figures and their detritus. Encompassing the fetid as well as the paradisial, her piece became a place where memories, emotions, and thoughts converge in possibilities including the oceanic reaches of the unconscious. This volume invites the reader into Golden's world, offering vibrant, detailed photographs, taken by the artist, alongside a wide-ranging, evocative essay by curator Catherine Craft.
Published by MoMA PS1. Edited by Mia Locks. Foreword by Klaus Biesenbach. Text by Mia Locks, Samara Golden, Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer.
Los Angeles–based artist Samara Golden (born 1973) creates immersive installations that explore what she calls the sixth dimension, where a multitude of pasts, presents and futures exist concurrently. For The Flat Side of the Knife, curated by Mia Locks and organized by MoMA PS1, Golden presented her largest installation to date, filling the double height of MoMA PS1’s Duplex Gallery with staircases, beds, couches, lamps, musical instruments, video and sound. The Flat Side of the Knife combines physical spaces with illusory spaces that appear only in mirrors, akin to psychological and hallucinatory spaces in the mind. Her use of mirrors in conjunction with sculptural elements made from a silvery insulation board allows the illusion of space to expand in multiple directions. This catalogue includes documentation of this exhibition alongside the artist’s major works to date.
Samara Golden: The Flat Side of the Knife