
Smiling Faces Sometimes celebrates the launch of a book featuring 272 candid black and white portraits by Pia Dehne, shot with a Yashika T4 in the early 2000s at Passerby bar, Chelsea gallery openings, and downtown NYC parties. Made shortly before and after September 11th, the photographs document a fleeting moment when the Downtown art scene felt like a safe harbor and partying was a necessary act of bonding—intimate moments of joy, foolishness, despair, and loneliness from a nearly forgotten time. The exhibition presents large scale prints of portraits from the book.