Photos By Gail

Lucas Samaras has never been one to serve a straightforward meal — and with Dinner #15 (1965), he transforms the act of dining into something deeply psychological, uncomfortably tactile, and undeniably unforgettable. This sculptural work from his Dinner Series isn’t just a visual feast — it’s a surreal course in tension and temptation.

At first glance, the piece appears deceptively elegant: a round, plated-brass platter glinting under the lights. But look closer, and the table turns. A dense forest of sharp nails juts upward from the platter’s surface, punctuating a bed of shiny glass beads scattered like crumbs. Nestled within this thorny landscape is a cryptic ceramic “main course”: a blood-red, unidentifiable form — something like raw meat or internal organ — encircled by two life-sized sculpted human fingers. It’s grotesque and tender all at once, hinting at bodily intimacy, violence, and vulnerability.

Adding an eerie flourish, a single floweret of sea coral, painted in a bright, unnatural green and red, rests on the platter like a garnish from another world.  To the right, a slender glass goblet catches the eye. Rather than wine, it’s crowned with a coil of white twine, hovering at the top as though floating in invisible liquid — a ghostly toast to the strangeness on the plate.

Dinner #15 isn’t just unsettling — it’s mesmerizing. Samaras plays with opposites: beauty and threat, appetite and repulsion, ceremony and chaos. The piece reads like a symbolic offering from a dreamscape, simultaneously decorative and dangerous. There’s no invitation to eat here, only to contemplate.

As with much of the artist’s work, the personal merges with the theatrical. He often explored the boundary between private rituals and public display, and “Dinner 15” feels like an intimate performance frozen in time — a still life charged with psychological energy. It speaks in a quiet, sharp whisper — and it lingers long after you’ve walked away.

Photographed at the Whitney Museum in NYC.