Numbers II – Ode to Johnny Rio Dean Sameshima

 

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.

 

For the occasion of this exhibition, Sameshima has created Numbers II (Ode to Johnny Rio), 2008, a special edition DIS Publication, in conjunction with Peres Projects, Berlin Los Angeles. The boxed edition of 75 includes reproductions of seminal material from and in relation to the artist's ongoing "Numbers" series of work, a digital print and an original signed silkscreen on canvas, and will be initially available at Peres Projects locations and Printed Matter, New York.

 

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.