Installation view, settle for a good fantasy, Luhring Augustine, New York (September 11 – October 24, 2026). © Luhring Augustine, New York. Photo: Genevieve Hanson.
From November 1975 to September 1976, conceptual painter and photographer Roy Colmer captured over 3,000 facades in New York City as part of his Doors, NYC project. Working with a familiar and quotidian subject, Colmer set up his shot, clicked, and moved to the next, indifferent to the architecture, history, and importance of these places. This series, held in the collection of NYPL, became a portrait of New York City in parts, filled with New Yorkers wandering into frame, 70s advertisements, and spaces now lost to time. Colmer’s project is a form of serial portraiture as much as a performance of walking New York.
Today in Chelsea, photographic portraiture is the subject of Luhring Augustine’s group show, settle for a good fantasy. The exhibition is informed by the Fran Lebowitz quote, “Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.” Unlike Colmer’s classificatory photography constrained by the idea of documentation, each of the four photographers bring an erotic—and sometimes elegiac—quality to their patchwork portraits. Where Colmer’s frames stay cool, these four warm into desire and, at times, loss.
Read full article at impulsemagazine.com.
