Memorial Tributes to Queer Loss by Hunter Reynolds and Dean Sameshima
**The Intersections of Art, Queerness, and Memory: A Journey through Hunter Reynolds and Dean Sameshima’s Exhibition at PPOW Gallery**
Art plays a crucial role in documenting, interpreting, and challenging societal narratives, particularly those that intersect with marginalized identities and histories. The recent dual exhibition *Hunter Reynolds / Dean Sameshima: Promiscuous Rage* at PPOW gallery in TriBeCa, Manhattan, delves deeply into these dynamics, exploring themes of queer identity, memory, and the persistent shadows of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Through the interwoven works of Hunter Reynolds and Dean Sameshima, the exhibition examines contrasting approaches to the act of remembering and mourning, shifting between the personal and political, the universal and the particular.
### Remembering through Contrast: Silence vs. Naming
The exhibition thrusts viewers into contrasting modes of memory with its opening works, *Anonymous Illness* (2024) by Sameshima and *Quilt of Names (panel 2)* (1992) by Reynolds. Sameshima’s abstract canvas, with the larger font of the word “illness” underscoring the equivocal title, critiques historical governmental silence and fearmongering during the early HIV/AIDS epidemic. By deliberately refusing to identify the disease, the piece evokes the Reagan administration’s tacit complicity in downplaying the epidemic, erasing its victims, and stigmatizing the queer community.
In stark contrast, Reynolds’ *Quilt of Names* asserts the power of visibility and naming. Through intricately woven photo-documentation of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, Reynolds memorializes lives lost to the epidemic, emphasizing the importance of explicitly remembering those rendered invisible by societal and political indifference. His works reflect his active engagement with ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), further underscoring the political nature of private loss. Together, these two works create a profound dialogue on how memory can simultaneously be an act of resistance and reflection.
### The Politics of Mourning: Artifacts of Grief as Actionable Memory
Reynolds’ installations position mourning not as a passive experience but as a charged, political act. Pieces like *Ray Navarro’s Bed of Mourning Flowers* (1990/2018) transform artifacts of grief into symbols of activism. Featuring photoprints of funeral flowers used to honor video artist and activist Ray Navarro, the work encapsulates personal loss while addressing systemic injustices, including the Catholic Church’s condemnatory stance on queer identities. Similarly, *Felix Bead Curtain* (2018), a chromogenic photo-weaving inspired by Félix González-Torres’ works, conveys longing, intimacy, and the hope entwined with facing one’s mortality.
These tributes highlight Reynolds’ ability to transcend grief, channeling it into multi-dimensional art that balances personal narratives with collective activism. For LGBTQ+ individuals, mourning has often carried the weight of asserting political identities and demanding recognition — a truth that Reynolds continues to evoke in these works.
### Shrouded Biography: Abstractions of Queer Desire
Sameshima’s contributions, particularly pieces like *Anonymous Berlin Stories* and *Anonymous Blue Movie* (2024), bridge abstraction and biography. These works hint at the artist’s experiences of Berlin’s gay porn theaters, capturing glimpses of queer desire and intimacy within their coded, subterranean spaces. The deliberate mystique contrasts with contemporary demands for explicit identity narratives, presenting queerness as both concealed and celebratory. By creating works that are “half-hidden, half-revealed,” Sameshima allows viewers to navigate a complex space that resists full clarity.
This strategy of abstraction finds resonance in Reynolds’ own explorations of queer spaces. For instance, his *Moon Over Gerhard (FTL Bear Daddy Beach)* (2004) transforms the sexually charged act of cruising into ethereal abstract photography. Through long-exposure images of neon lights, road signs, and the moon, Reynolds turns these sites of liberation and joy into dreamlike compositions, suffused with “auras of utopian desire.” The works of both artists celebrate these shared spaces of queer connection even as they protect and obscure the details of individual stories.
### Between the Particular and Universal
The exhibition’s curatorial approach masterfully moves between biographical specificity and universal relatability, reflecting the duality of queer experiences. On one hand, we see deeply personal gestures, such as Reynolds’ explicit tributes to loved ones lost to AIDS. On the other, we encounter the abstract and generalized language in Sameshima’s works, which protects intimacy while gesturing toward a collective narrative of queer resilience and pleasure.
Crucially, *Promiscuous Rage* also examines the gaps that remain between personal and universal memory, as well as between recognition and erasure. Just as Reynolds highlights AIDS victims’ names to combat the “official memory” of impersonal statistics, Sameshima