Chashama is pleased to present The Pleasure Seekers, an exhibition of work based on the quest for carnal delights that ooze with both sexuality and vitality, curated by artist, curator and writer Dan Halm.

What is a pleasure seeker in 2009? In a culture embroiled in war and facing economic distress, one tends to look for a way to escape worry and pain, hence the birth of a pleasure seeker. Hunting out hedonistic desires –sexual freedom, drugs, alcohol and the pursuit of free love – allows one to enjoy life and rediscover hope.

In her video Dog (3+), Baishian Bai uses the simplicity of a childhood toy to spotlight sexual tension. A battery-operated dog performs unsuccessful back-flips, which lead to Bai blocking the so-called “naughty bits” with digital censor squares, which ingeniously sexualize the toy and its pursuit for sexual pleasure.

Michael Bilsborough draws bacchanalian bashes and mysterious misadventures in which men and women couple, compete and retreat. Initially thriving on libidinal laxity and appetitive abandon, these orgies soon crumble and we witness a mixed review of sex, reaching beyond sex as unconditional pleasure.

50/50 is a collaborative project between boyfriends Andrew Criss and Chad States that creates a “portrait” of a third lover whom both men have slept with to create a threesome. The survey answered between the two afterwards deals with the negotiations and misinterpretations that take place between the partners and the third party.

With Smoke Filtration Systems, Eric Doeringer is creating a series of sculptures that are also working marijuana water pipes. The mechanics of each pipe are thoroughly tested, but the actual sculptures are presented in a clean, unused condition. Because of their functional nature, they inhabit a space between fine art and design, between sculpture and drug paraphernalia.

Marianna Ellenberg’s video S-U-U a F-U-U is a re-imaging of feminine desire in its cultural absence. It manages to capture her reaction to the “hypsterization of pornography in the New York art scene.” Feathers float while our narrator guides us through this multi-colored world and instruction. The peep is free, but the pleasure isn’t.

Karlos Carcamo presents a world where drug use and drinking are taken conceptually into fine art, while still remaining relevant to the culture of the streets.

With the series ballsacs, Patrick Giglio’s fascination with intricacy, repetition, fiber, shiny things, and biomorphic forms are front and center. Their crocheted construction (a craft that is often associated with grandmothers) seems to insinuate a bygone gay male identity that has since become homogenized or castrated.

With his Cibachrome images of empty cocaine bags, George Harvey addresses his former daily habit. The images are not just photographs of empty bags; instead they are eerie evidence of a former habitual illicit use.

Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo’s collages juxtapose both erotic and benign imagery, collected from pornographic magazines, fashion adverts, vintage books, image web search engines, and other various mass media magazines to create a new narrative that challenges the perception of the original image(s) within a new context.

The buddy booth is a place where men live out their fantasies through fragmented intimate contact and voyeurism directly governed by the architecture of the space itself. Using the physical opening, or slot, between the viewing booths as his visual parameter, Cesar Chavez Lechowick spotlights the intimate interplay of men in this explicitly “performative” structure.

Photographing men that he meets through online communities in New York and Germany, Jesse Finley Reed manages to create a world where the men are interchangeable, yet remain completely individual.

In his Cruising series, Chad States wants his photographs to emulate the activity of cruising for sex in public locations; imperceptible until you know what to look for. It is in this split, between being invisible to the public; but visible to those also participating in the activity… that the photographs hold the staunch tension of the activity.

Chashama supports emerging and underrepresented artists by providing one of the most elusive commodities in New York City: space to create. Chashama works with landlords and developers to identify underutilized real estate, which the owner is willing to donate on a short-term, temporary basis, preferring to see underutilized spaces put to good use, looked after and maintained while they are awaiting commercial tenants.