settle for a good fantasy: Four Photographers at Luhring Augustine

Luhring Augustine's Chelsea gallery is showing settle for a good fantasy, a group exhibition of four photographers: Janice Guy, Joe Mama-Nitzberg, Shaun Pierson and David Seidner. It runs September 11 through October 24, 2026. The title comes from a line by Fran Lebowitz: abandon the search for truth and settle for a good fantasy. Pierson appeared in the gallery's 2024 photography show Tiptoeing through the Kitchen; for the other three, this is a first presentation at Luhring Augustine.

The shared premise is a kind of portraiture that turns away from idealization. Each artist builds a picture of a subject out of scattered sources, in a patchwork whose pieces are not meant to fit together cleanly. Fracturing and then reassembling becomes a way of making an image, slippage undermines stock portrayals, and questions outweigh answers.

Janice Guy, born in London in 1953, began making photographic self-portraits in the 1970s while studying at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and had her first solo show in Cologne in 1979. She later moved into exhibition making in Rome, Naples and New York, co-founding the gallery Murray Guy in 1998, and returned to photography in 2007. On view are several works from 1977 and 1978, including a 35-print gelatin silver self-portrait set, four-print sets, and a hand-colored five-print work. Interview Magazine describes the 35 prints, pinned unframed in rows, as a subject who grows less knowable with each frame.

Shaun Pierson, born in 1997 in Bridgeton, New Jersey, holds an MFA from Yale and was a 2023 Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program resident. His 2026 archival pigment prints, in artist frames, include Untitled (Strawberry on Lace), Untitled (Cherries), Untitled (Heads), Untitled (Torso), Untitled (The Double) and Untitled (Cable Release). The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston holds his work.

David Seidner (1957–1999) moved to Paris at seventeen and became a leading fashion photographer, appearing in editions of Vogue, Vanity Fair and Harper's Bazaar, while privately pursuing fine art photography and portraiture. His works here date from 1986 to 1988 and include Fragments of woman's face, YSL/Cynthia Antonio (mosaic) and the Enigma series. His archive has been at the International Center of Photography since 2001. Joe Mama-Nitzberg, born in 1965 in Santa Clara, California, has an MFA from Art Center College of Design, and his work is in the collections of the Walker Art Center and MOCA Los Angeles.

The gallery is at 531 West 24th Street, open Tuesday through Saturday, 10am to 6pm. A conversation with Guy, Mama-Nitzberg and Pierson, moderated by ICP's David Campany, was held on October 10.