A great exhibit of Penn’s work is at the de Young museum in San Francisco right now. It covers his full career and has arranged his work in a clear, engaging way with placards that help guide us on this journey of discovery.

For the most part.

Some don’t. Many do. They do neglect two things that struck me in general. One was his use of Ansel Adams Zone system where an image is best composed with the full spectrum from deep black to bright white. Penn’s images almost always do so. The total lack of smiles might be another not mentioned but even more is that lack of attention to the non-descript backgrounds Penn favored. Though mentioned, this quality is not fully appreciated. The vagueness forces us to read the profile or figure without hints and clues derived from what surrounds them, or worse, with the figure serving as a pretext to smuggle content in through the background (which can be done well but often isn’t). Penn wants us to focus on the figure not the ground.

And then there are the shots from Africa. Suddenly the placards have to remind us about Orientalism, the cultural sidekick to colonialism that primitivized, trivialized, demeaned or otherwise reduced the full humanity of others from other cultures. Why? Was Penn guilty of this? Can any western artist be free of it? How is it manifest in Penn specifically? One hint that Penn is not guilty, or only guilty of extended his fascination with portraiture to people of other cultures, is that the placards make no accusation and only “remind” us that the practice of Orientalism has caused much harm.

I suspect innocence more than guilt. I would put his images of native Peruvians, which receive no warnings of Orientalism, against his shots of Africans and suggest they are of the same nature and quality. Like Edward Curtis ennobling, dignified shots of Native Americans there is little that can be found sensationalizing, stereotyping, or demeaning in the images. They try to show people as they would wish to be shown, with Penn’s assistance. The willingness to display their bodies with the three African women seems driven by their elaborate patterns of cicatrization on their skins, a decoration comparable to the clothing shown by the Peruvians.

I could be wrong or this could be sign of how Cautious museums and other institutions feel they must be when doing the right thing looms so large.

Peru

Africa