East Village, New York
Pia Dehne
Smiling Faces Sometimes
Dashwood ProjectsSmiling Faces Sometimes by Pia Dehne features 272 candid black and white portraits of people she photographed with a Yashika T4 camera in the early 2000’s, mainly at Passerby, a short lived bar on 15th Street, Chelsea gallery openings and parties in NYC. The photos were made shortly before and after September 11th and document a fleeting moment in time when the Downtown art scene felt like a safe harbor and partying was a necessary act of bonding. Pia Dehne captures intimate moments in these portraits which reflect an innocent mixture of pure joy, foolishness, despair and loneliness, reflecting complex undercurrents of the era. The book also includes fragments of song lyrics from bands that sang about NYC, in a cut-up literary style, as developed by William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin and the Dadaists before them, adding another layer to a nearly forgotten time. Dashwood Projects presents large scale prints of portraits from the book adding another dimension to this chapter of NYC night life. Pia Dehne is an artist from Düsseldorf, Germany and has exhibited internationally for over 30 years. She studied at the Kunstakadamie Düsseldorf under professor Markus Lüpertz. She lived in Berlin for several years before moving to NYC in 1999. Pia now lives and works in the Catskill region of NY state.