Numbers II – Ode to Johnny Rio Dean Sameshima

Javier Peres is very pleased to present the second Berlin solo exhibition of Dean Sameshima, Numbers II – Ode to Johnny Rio, a new series of silk-screens on canvas. The title refers to John Rechy's 1967 novel, Numbers, a thinly veiled auto-biographical portrait of a narcissistic, self-indulged, Johnny Rio, and his sexual forays in the cruising "scene" of Los Angeles – spurred on by the ravages of time, racking up bed partners becomes an obsession, and thus the protagonist, a dark angel of sex and stand-in for his progenitor, turns his tawdry, illicit world into a code of numbers.

Whether in his earlier photographs, his prints of appropriated images, or here with silk-screens drawn from photographs of John Rechy, Sameshima's subject matter deals in the currency of contemporary desire, nostalgia, vindication and accumulation, yet his works speak the language of seriality and the subversion of power structures. Like his earlier pop-forbear, Peter Roehr, Sameshima starts with the object, with the capacity of obsession it embodies and its imperative to be possessed. In a subtle move that straddles the two, Sameshima appropriates these objects, thus making them participate in a complex archive of signifiers, codes, and numbers.

This exhibition constitutes a sequel to the artist's first solo exhibition in Berlin in 2007, Numbers, which presented a body of works from his series of dot paintings. The artist lives and works in Berlin and will be present for the opening.

NUMBERS II – Ode to Johnny Rio featuring Dean Sameshima will be on view at Peres Projects, Berlin Kreuzberg  (Schlesische Str. 26, Berlin, Germany) through April 26, 2008. Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, from 11:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. and by appointment.