Opening: Sam Contis at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery
In an age when America’s president is obsessed with his own masculinity—in one instance even publicly defending the size of his penis—it’s easy to say that Sam Contis’s photographs of men in remote regions of California feel contemporary. Working in the tradition of artists like Catherine Opie, the young Oakland, California–based photographer explores a time when traditional forms of maleness are falling out of fashion. This series finds her traveling to Deep Springs Valley, where one of the few all-male colleges in America remains open. Working in both black-and-white and color, Contis shot men as they worked on a cattle farms and lounged in the Californian landscape. In the process, she zeroed in on specific details—for Embrace (2015), she photographed two people, both of whom appear genderless, hugging.
Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, 54 Ludlow Street, 6–8 p.m.