Sam Samore

Gray Kapernekas Gallery is pleased to present Sam Samore: Stories (Incomplete): A Project, featuring new large-scale photographic works. Samore’s experimental photography is well known for its narrative qualities and cinematic references.

Included in this exhibition are four new photographs by Samore, presented in pairs. With their extended horizontal formats, Samore’s imagery presents a hyper-wide-screen experience, redefining cinematic narrative in still form. Drawing from art historical and film references, Samore explores and expands notions of the allegorical and the dramatic. In one grouping, female characters are stylistically presented in a Hitchcock-esque mis-en-scéne, reflected in mirrors; the imagery does not reveal a sense of before or after an event.

A s econd grouping extends Samore’s interest in fables and dreams; saturated colors reveal relationships and modes of communicatio n—emotional and psychological. This aspect of “collaged narrative”, typical for Samore, presents a linear format, but by no means a linear story. The female figure is constant and prominent in Samore’s imagery, bearing the burden of traditional Western beauty, while at the same time, claiming its power. Psychologically charged, the women in Samore’s photographs do not appear as subjects, nor directed actors; they are protagonists within their own stories. While referencing Greek mythology and European fairy-tales, Samore’s open-ended narratives run counter to their traditional sources and structures, avoiding moral endings or ethical lessons.

Samore’s photographic work and installations have been exhibited internationally throughout the 1990s, particularly in Europe. Solo exhibitions have been presented by Casino Luxembourg; Centre d’art contemporain, Tours, France; Centre Naitonal de la Photographie, Paris; DAAD Galerie, Berlin; Ecole des beaux-arts de Nimes, France ; Kunstverein Elsterpark, Leipzig, Germany; Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland; De Appel Stichting, Amsterdam. Participation in group show s include Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel; Musée de L’Elysée, Lausanne; the Foundation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris; Deutches Museum, Munich; Sert Gallery, Harvard University, Cambridge; Kunstraum Innsbruck; Kunsthalle Baden-Baden; Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; Contemporary Museum, Baltimore; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pusan, Korea; Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo; Kunstverein Hamburg; ICA Portland, Maine; P.S. 1, New York; Tramway Gallery, Glasgow; ICA, London; CAPC Musée, Bordeaux; Hara Museum of Art, Tokyo; Le magasin Centre d’art Contemporain, Grenoble; Decession, Vienna; New Museum for Contemporary Art, New York; and the Serpentine Gallery, London. His work was showcased in the 2005 Triana Biennale, curated by Hou Hanrou.

Sam Samore
Stories (Incomplete): A Project
Gray Kapernekas Gallery