Sam Penn’s 19 exquisite images of herself and her partner, writer Max Battle, in a new show, “Max” (New York Life Gallery, November 6 through December 20), will gladden your heart. Bathed in the kind of light that only seems present when you’re with the one you adore, this is a show all about love, closeness, yearning, and, yes, intense sexual attraction; these might be some of the most emotionally resonant and deeply personal images I’ve seen in the longest time. Penn and Battle, who are both trans, have navigated their relationship and very carefully chosen how they reveal—expose, even—that relationship so that their shared vulnerability becomes a remarkable iteration of strength and honesty.
“Ever since I’ve known Max, I’ve photographed him,” Penn says, “and as we became romantically and sexually involved, the quality and the quantity of the photographs increased. I’ve always been interested in doing a show focused on only one subject, and Max was down for the ride.” She and Battle are sitting at the Odeon restaurant on a recent Friday morning and discussing their remarkable exhibition, which marries Penn’s imagery (where inner nakedness is more powerful than anything more explicitly corporeal) with Battle’s writings (which evoke a raw, uncompromising spirit). The two mediums will be presented in tandem at the gallery and in an accompanying book, which includes an extra nine images. “We crash out separately,” reads part of Battle’s text. “Drugs, exes, obsession, and rejection. Who I am and who she is and anger and apathy. Jet-setting, political duress, too much work, and not enough work. She lashes out. I’m needy and self-abasing. None of this ever stops us from fucking.”
