SAM SAMORE – ACCUMULATION OF SHAPES
2014-11-10Sam Samore presents a new series of portraits of the French actress Juliette Dol. Each work consists of two images, apparently sequenced a few frames apart, which are cropped and then joined together with a narrow black line of separation. Directly referencing the cinematic device of the split screen, the resulting works not only engage both the formal and conceptual relationships between film and photography, but also serve as in-depth investigations into obsession, inconclusive narrative and the complex psychological corridors of desire.
Each photograph depicts Dol in the process of an immediately identifiable but mysterious action: we see her recumbent on a bed, fully clothed in a bathtub full of water, approaching a doorway, navigating through a dark space by flashlight with eyes fixed on an indeterminate point in the distance. By cleaving together two slightly different images, Samore makes a clear reference to the physicality of film cells. Slight variations in the subject’s position or the camera’s depth of field imbue the images with a kinetic quality that reinforces the unsettling sense that we are accessing only fragments of a whole. The coupling of known and unknown quantities pays direct service to the Film Noir trope of doubling, though Samore is careful to disrupt the narrative experience by ultimately withholding even the suggestion of conclusivity.
Exhibition runs from November 23rd to December 21st, 2014
team (gallery, inc.)
47 Wooster Street
New York
NY 10013
