by Olivia Noss // Feb. 18, 2025
Sam Youkilis is a photographer from New York who takes an anthropological approach to short form video. Using his iPhone, Youkilis creates a series of vignettes of his travels, often depicting people engaged in activities of leisure: lovers kissing and holding hands, locals lounging on the beach and napping in the sun, baristas making decadent coffees, people enjoying a meal around a table and, more than anything, simply enjoying life.
Sam Youkilis: ‘October 18, 2018, 11:45 AM,’ video still // Copyright and courtesy of the artist
His first institutional solo exhibition ‘Under the Sun,’ now on view at C/O Berlin, provides an immersive experience of these works, enlarging them from the size of an iPhone screen to an almost human scale. This collection of multi-form video installations floods viewers with a cacophony of sounds and sights that play over one other to construct a vibrant chaos one might find while travelling to any number of these locations. The work, taking place first on Instagram, is a series that plays upon traditional ideas of what travel photography can look like. There is a vitality to Youkilis’ videos, which, although shot on a device owned by many, possess a certain joie de vivre and a seductiveness that inevitably elevates the iPhone videography vernacular.
Sam Youkilis: ‘April 9, 2024, 6:30 AM,’ video still // Copyright and courtesy of the artist
Youkilis’ exhibition, which spans a variety of countries, is categorized by theme. The show is divided into four rooms—the opening video begins with serene landscapes of waters in Italy, while the second room centers around Italian coffee-making: decadent breakfasts laid out in bed, older Italian men handing frothy cappuccinos to Youkilis over the bar, an Italian woman pouring coffee into mugs from a percolator on her windowsill and cortados held in front of luscious watery vistas.
Sam Youkilis: ‘August 10, 2022, 10:24 AM,’ video still // Copyright and courtesy of the artist
Meanwhile, the third room floods visitors from virtually all sides with a collection of videos from undisclosed places. The pieces are structured as diptychs, which emulate the high saturation of these environments, and how one might not know where to look if one was to walk through them. The work is diaristic in character, as Youkilis treats each set of videos as an entry into the day-to-day of his travels, and the encounters he experiences along the way. Through his lens, East Asian traditional crafts such as calligraphy or weaving bear the same importance as the making of a coffee or the enjoyment of a piping hot bowl of pasta. In turn, each act is treated as a sacred ritual. Color is also a driving force in Youkilis’ work, as well as repetitive motions carried out in many of these videos. Together, these visual elements produce a hypnotic, meditative shorthand that Youkilis leverages to portray romance and charm in everyday life.
Sam Youkilis: ‘November 14, 2020, 7:32 PM,’ video still // Copyright and courtesy of the artist
Youkilis’ series form the nexus of travel photography, street photography and documentary work. The artist proposes new modes of engaging with travel and one’s surroundings as a whole, and the series begs the question: how has iPhone photography shaped the visual landscape of contemporary photography today? And with that, how does the immediacy of iPhone photography change the way we engage with travel? The last room ends with the only triptych in the show, depicting the flight patterns of flocks of birds across the sky. The title of this series, ‘Under the Sun,’ echoes the idiom that we all live “under the same sun”—fittingly so, as this series is a testament to the humanistic spirit of Youkilis’ work and a pleasant reminder that simple joys in life transcend both language and culture.
Exhibition Info
C/O Berlin
Sam Youkilis: ‘Under the Sun’
Exhibition: Feb. 1-May 7, 2024
co-berlin.org
Amerika Haus, Hardenbergstraße 22-24, 10623 Berlin, click here for map
