Dean Sameshima has spent thirty years documenting the vestiges of queer spaces. His recent series, being alone (2022), pictured anonymous subjects in porn theaters facing screens of ethereal light. In his latest body of work, The Intervals (2026), Sameshima reproduces his entry tickets into those same theaters over a decade-long period. Like On Kawara’s Date Paintings, Sameshima’s works keep time, but only register the time spent after hours.

The kinokarte is a business-card-sized entry ticket into Berlin’s sex cinemas. It allows 24-hour admission into all locations, only three of which remain. Each is neutrally marked with a label, date, time of arrival, and finished with an attendant’s signature—its contents withholding the erotic potential they promise. The design has changed slightly since Sameshima’s project began, but the handwritten element remains as a lingering emblem of human touch.

The Intervals extend the artist’s long-term practice of screen printing. Sameshima has developed a newfound use for the silkscreens which transferred images of previous works, repurposing them as surfaces for his latest series. The kinokarte calendars which now occupy these frames coexist with ghost images containing the histories of past works—ethereal surfaces which carry remnants accrued during the passage of time.

Sameshima’s tickets form grids which seem to stretch beyond the plane, implying an endless cache of longing. His repetitive use of banal formal cues allow symbols to be interpreted freely, similar to experiences within the porn theaters themselves. A time stamp may trigger other memories for the viewer, but anyone embroiled in the act of interpretation is a voyeur. Looking engages the solitary conditions of our desire.

The artist’s subject and media draw a parallel to Warhol’s 1976–78 VIP Ticket - Studio 54 paintings. In both, the rhythmic process of pushing ink through a veil generates a space for pleasure. While Warhol printed on canvas, Sameshima’s use of the silkscreen privileges the action above its representation. Warhol’s tickets formulated in the decade which preceded the AIDS Epidemic, and Sameshima began working in its immediate aftermath: a ghostly presence.