Exhibition: Gordon Parks: Centennial at the Jenkins Johnsons, San Francisco. February 21 - April 27, 2013

In celebration of the 100th birthday of Gordon Parks, one of the most influential African American photographers of the 20th century, Jenkins Johnson Gallery in collaboration with The Gordon Parks Foundation presents Gordon Parks: Centennial, on view from February 21 through April 27, 2013. Gordon Parks, an iconic photographer, writer, composer, and filmmaker, would have turned 100 on November 30, 201. This will be the first solo exhibition for Parks on the West Coast in thirteen years. The exhibition will survey works spanning six decades of the artist’s career starting in 1940. The exhibition consists of more than seventy-five gelatin silver and pigment prints, including selections from Life magazine photo essays: Invisible Man, 1952; Segregation Story, 1956; The Black Panthers, 1970; and Flavio, 1960, about favelas in Brazil. Also included in the exhibition is his reinterpretation of American Gothic and his elegant depictions of artists like Alexander Calder, fashion models, and movie stars.

Robert Mapplethorpe - Brian Ridley and Lyle Heeter, 1979. Photograph on paper Humour is not something that we tend to associate with Mapplethorpe’s work, but this double portrait certainly has it. Unusually, Mapplethorpe has chosen to photograph these two men not in a neutral setting but in a cluttered environment of questionable taste. The implication is that this is where the men live. They are dressed in full black leather gear and the submissive seated partner is chained up and shackled to the bearded standing figure. The sado-masochistic ritual that is being enacted contrasts totally with the homey living room. The only pointer to darker currents is the table to the right made of deer antlers.
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Robert Mapplethorpe - Brian Ridley and Lyle Heeter, 1979. Photograph on paper

Humour is not something that we tend to associate with Mapplethorpe’s work, but this double portrait certainly has it. Unusually, Mapplethorpe has chosen to photograph these two men not in a neutral setting but in a cluttered environment of questionable taste. The implication is that this is where the men live. They are dressed in full black leather gear and the submissive seated partner is chained up and shackled to the bearded standing figure. The sado-masochistic ritual that is being enacted contrasts totally with the homey living room. The only pointer to darker currents is the table to the right made of deer antlers.