Dean Sameshima: ‘I’ve Always Held on to Things That Mean Something to Me’

Dean Sameshima’s work is informed by “a fear of losing something I value”. Over the past three decades, the California-born, Berlin-based artist has documented sites of queer activity, from the unassuming façades of Silver Lake’s sex clubs to his own creased, recently vacated mattress to glory holes, the latter in a series titled Erdbeermund (2023)—German for “strawberry mouth”—after the now-shuttered porn theatre in which they were photographed.

Three other porn theatres, the final ones surviving in Berlin, were the subject of being alone (2022), in which Sameshima centred his camera on the backs of anonymous theatre-goers, silhouetted against overexposed screens, as the establishments they sat in were failing under the pressures of digitalisation and gentrification. Sameshima wanted to make sure he had “some kind of piece of it”, as he has put it, “Before it all goes away.”

Indeed, Sameshima made sure to take several pieces with him, holding on to the tickets from his frequent visits to these theatres—ephemera reproduced in his solo show The Intervals at Page (NYC) and Dracula’s Revenge as a series of silkscreen prints, arranged and abstracted in a grid-like structure, overlaid with “ghost images” of previous prints. Sameshima’s work, more broadly, pursues ghosts—whether of people, places or practices.

Maja Renfer: The Intervals (2026) is the result of a meticulous process of collecting and archiving that recurs throughout your practice. What draws you to this way of working?

Dean Sameshima: I’ve always held on to things that mean something to me. Over time, some of these collections have been thrown out, sold or given away, but a few have been with me for decades. Sometimes, I didn’t realise how important they were until much later.

These [ticket] cards have personal meaning, and form a record of a decade, showing how the business has changed over time. The number of locations presented on the cards have decreased between 2015 and 2025, while the prices have increased. Each card is individually signed by the employees selling the tickets and these signatures, too, have changed over time.

All of this shows shifts in the economy, and a loss of interest in spaces that once thrived. In the fall of 2017, PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) was made available in Berlin; then in March 2020, Berlin had its first Covid-19 lockdown, which affected these types of social spaces. These collections don’t only have value to me; I believe they present ideas that can be translated into something beautiful and useful beyond their intended use.

MR: What’s your most valued collection?

DS: My collection of vintage concert flyers, T-shirts and ticket stubs.

MR: The Intervals is a clear nod to Warhol’s VIP Ticket—Studio 54 (1976–1978), a reproduction of a ticket to the famed New York nightclub. Can you expand on this connection to Warhol?

DS: I love what his VIP drinking ticket paintings reference and signify. It’s a portrait of sexual liberation and decadence—and a portrait of a time right before AIDS, just before the party ended. Now that we’re in a period some will call “post-AIDS”, because PrEP has been made available to the public, my tickets represent a newer kind of decadence and sexual liberation.

“These collections don’t only have value to me; I believe they present ideas that can be translated into something beautiful and useful beyond their intended use”

MR: Like much of your practice, this series is both retrospective and introspective, with the tickets printed over images of your previous works. Why?

DS: In silk-screening there is the term “ghost image”, which happens when the screen is permanently stained by the previous images it’s printed. Most of the time these aren’t harmful for the continued use of the screen. Other times, the screens are underexposed and the emulsion won’t wash out, which ruins it. It has to be thrown out or re-stretched, which is oftentimes more expensive than buying a new screen.

I like the idea of repurposing the screens and having my past haunt the current works. It makes me think of the past haunting me—something that won’t go away, good or bad. That history has informed me and brought me to today.

MR: Your earlier series, being alone, has a similarly tactile element. The photographs are grainy, yet they were taken on your phone camera: digital images of disappearing physical spaces. Am I reading too much into this?

DS: You are not reading too much into this. That’s what I hope my work can deliver: readings that extend outside my initial intentions.

I wanted the works to look like prints made from 35mm black-and-white film with a high ISO, which gives night photography—or low-light photography—its contrast and grain. So there is deception with the process. I am not a fan of digital pixellation. My eyes are used to seeing grain in a photograph. 

Dean Sameshima, The Intervals (until 19 December) at Pace (NYC) and Dracula’s Revenge, New York City

Main image: Dean Sameshima at Club 1350 (1997)