Dean Sameshima's Wonderland: A Quiet Chronicle of Queer Safe Spaces
In the mid-1990s, American artist Dean Sameshima embarked on a photographic journey that would quietly document a hidden world. His series, titled Wonderland, captures the exteriors of queer sex clubs and bathhouses in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, taken between 1995 and 1997. These images, now on display at Soft Opening in London until 23 May, offer a stark yet poetic glimpse into spaces of illicit nocturnal activities, all shot with a deadpan formalism that belies the bacchanalia within.
Ordinary Buildings, Extraordinary Secrets
At first glance, Sameshima's photographs appear mundane. Each building is framed from across the street, with utility cables, poles, and graffiti carving the urban landscape. Cerulean California skies and palm trees provide a backdrop, but the streets are eerily empty, devoid of people and debris. The silence in these images is palpable, creating a sense of isolation and mystery.
None of these structures have visible windows; if they do, they are boarded up or blacked out. In one photograph, a door is left mysteriously ajar, revealing a security door and a neon arrow sign inside. This subtle detail teases the viewer's voyeuristic impulses, hinting at the hidden worlds beyond. The titles, however, are explicit. One reads: "12 stalls, 1 leather bunk bed, outdoor garden, 1 water fountain, 1 barber's chair, glory-hole platform, Chinese decor", directly informing us of the activities within.
A Response to Loss and Precarity
Sameshima was in his early twenties when he took these pictures, a time when the AIDS pandemic had devastated Silver Lake's queer community. His work is imbued with a sharp sense of precarity and wistfulness, a foreboding that these spaces would soon disappear. The titles note that at least three clubs closed in 1995, and Sameshima's photography serves as a mitigation of grief and loss, preserving these sites as records of beloved safe spaces.
By day, these locations—warehouses, industrial spaces, and stores—are unremarkable. One club sits beside residential homes, raising the question: did the neighbours know? Another is painted a sludgy grey with no markings, easily overlooked. Sameshima, as a devoted observer-participant, captures these places as devotional documents, anchored to a specific time and place. They resist the prying eyes of outsiders and the shaming gaze of heteronormative society, reminding us that visibility can be dangerous and anonymity a strategy for survival.
The Art of Subtlety and Shadows
The exhibition features seven sex club photographs, hung at intervals to mimic the pacing of driving through Los Angeles. The horizontal prints offer wide, panning vistas, like looking from a car window, cutting blank spaces into the urban landscape. Around the corner, a suite of photographs documents famous cruising spots in Griffith Park and Harbor City Recreational Park. Unlike Kohei Yoshiyuki's sensational flash pictures of sexual encounters, Sameshima's approach is unsensational and prosaic.
Shot in warm daylight with no people, these park images focus on the quiet, natural solace of shrubbery and dappled light. They could be mistaken for picnic spots, yet they bristle with tension between safety and exposure. A tiny detail—a discarded blue condom wrapper—hints at the hidden activities, adding a layer of sad poetry to the scenes.
Nuanced Representations of Queerness
Wonderland showcases Sameshima's slow, unshowy approach to documenting communities, emphasising the importance of communal spaces as islands of freedom. Compared to Catherine Opie's brash and proud portraits of California's queer community, Sameshima deals in subtleties and shadows, finding power in the unseen. His work offers a more nuanced, open-ended picture of queerness, presence, and belonging, celebrating the fleeting, radical nature of pleasure, even when it occurs in the bushes.
This exhibition not only stands as a record of lost safe spaces but also invites reflection on the complexities of queer life in the 1990s. Through his lens, Sameshima transforms ordinary buildings into poignant symbols of resilience and memory.
