The Bath | Irving Penn
© The Irving Penn Foundation
Written by: Max Wiener
San Francisco in the 1960s was a hotbed of creativity unlike the world has ever seen. Every nook and cranny had a flourishing master emerging from the darkness, from Jerry Garcia to Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. Brilliant minds were oozing with creative juices (and maybe a touch of LSD), and bodies were moving freely in a space that can only be defined as free.
© The Irving Penn Foundation
One of these brilliant minds was Anna Halprin, the groundbreaking American choreographer whose work with the Dancers’ Workshop of San Francisco served as the basis for Irving Penn’s stunning photography series The Bath. The eponymous performance series was a pioneering approach to the human body’s ability to move in space, and Penn’s fourteen accompanying photographs highlight not just Halprin’s mastery, but also his own. It is a tandem display of sheer beauty and ability, and on the walls of Paris’ Thaddeus Ropac Gallery we see two artisans at work. The series opened on September 23rd and has a scheduled closing date of November 30th.
Penn’s work with the camera perfectly encapsulates the thematic sequences of Halprin’s work as a choreographer. The dancers, leaning into their piece’s title, seem to bathe in the light of Penn’s camera, both natural and artificial. Their bodies bask in it, and Penn’s lens highlights their physical happiness unlike any other. Their faces soak in it, their bodies contort to soak up its warmth. It truly proves to be one of the most fascinatingly beautiful displays of human connection.
© The Irving Penn Foundation
Irving Penn has one of the most natural abilities to manipulate light in his work, and The Bath could perhaps be his finest selection. His shadows seem to occupy space as living creatures; we are drawn to the darkness. It presents the human body as a structure, and the lack of light gives us more room to interpret each piece. The bodies do not directly touch each other on purpose, as the space they leave is the space for our minds to occupy. It is a conscious decision by both Penn and Halprin, and it clearly proves to be beneficial to the series’ overall image and meaning. All things, including our own bodies, need darkness to recharge and rest, and Penn highlights this necessity extremely well throughout each of the fourteen images.
© The Irving Penn Foundation
There seems to be a freedom throughout The Bath that we can’t even fathom existing in today’s society. Because of this, we must examine each photograph as a nostalgic portal, a society that once was. What if we used The Bath to benefit our current zeitgeist? Each body moves carefree, regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, etc. Both Penn and Halprin use The Bath to show us that Earth is a space in which we can all exist freely. If we sync our bodies and minds, we can move around it in ways we couldn’t previously imagine.
