“Bring Back Spanking”: A Five-Minute Cig With Photographer Sam Penn

SATURDAY 8:17 PM SEPTEMBER 28, 2024 PARIS

For the past several weeks, our editors have been careening between fashion shows in Europe, but we haven’t forgotten about our own. So, for this week’s edition of Smoke Break, our Editor-in-Chief Mel Ottenberg paid a visit to Balice Hertling, the in-demand art gallery just north of the Seine, to check out Bad Behavior, a new collection of works in color by the New York photographer Sam Penn. While enjoying a cigarette outside the gallery, she got to talking about raves, spanking, and falling back in love with the city through the lens of a Contax T3. “This is what our city looks like,” Ottenberg declared. “Maybe I need some dumpy picture of yours in my apartment.”

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MEL OTTENBERG: When are these pictures from, Sam?

SAM PENN: They’re from this past year. All shot in New York: in the city, Fire Island, upstate.

OTTENBERG: I love them. What are they shot with?

PENN: A film camera, a Contax T3. This is for anyone out there who wants to ask me what camera I use. It’s a very popular question.

OTTENBERG: What else do people keep asking you over and over about these pictures?

PENN: “Who are the people?”

OTTENBERG: Oh, I love the spanking one. I just realized that she’s spanking her.

PENN: Yeah. Her is me, actually.

OTTENBERG: Oh wow. The pretzel. You’re really doing the pretzel right.

PENN: [Laughs] I’m doing the pretzel.

OTTENBERG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bring back spanking.

PENN: Oh, yes. Bring back spanking.

OTTENBERG: Normalize spanking.

PENN: Normalize spanking.

OTTENBERG: But fisting is like, a lot.

PENN: No, it’s too intense. 

OTTENBERG: But spanking is so great. Classic. I mean, I think fisting is great too, but it doesn’t have to be for everybody.

PENN: Yeah. I feel like I almost prefer a bruise to an ache.

 

OTTENBERG: Was that one shot in New York City?

PENN: Yeah, that’s in New York City. That’s my friend Marcs in her apartment, in the evening.

OTTENBERG: Beautiful. Can you drive?

PENN: I can totally drive.

OTTENBERG: Where are you from?

PENN: Philadelphia.

OTTENBERG: And where is that? Is that a rave location?

PENN: No, this is under the FDR in downtown Manhattan.

OTTENBERG: It’s beautiful.

PENN: Thank you. It was interesting, they always cover up these construction sites but then there was a gap in between two poles and I looked inside and discovered a canal. I don’t really know what was going on there. 

OTTENBERG: It’s a beautiful picture of disgusting, shitty New York, you know?

PENN: Yeah.

OTTENBERG: That shitty place—why do we love it?

PENN: I feel like it grounds the show in a beautiful way.

OTTENBERG: This is what our city looks like. I really love that picture, actually. Maybe I need some dumpy picture of yours in my apartment.

 

PENN: I would love it if you would have that one. It feels good to show New York pictures in Paris, too.

OTTENBERG: Yes, showing that picture here is different. New York is so gross. Are you into New York right now?

PENN: Yeah, I’m into it.

OTTENBERG: Why?

PENN: I’m into the people. I’ve made good friends. I’m into the debauchery a little bit, the bad behavior.

OTTENBERG: Fabulous.

PENN: Which is the title of my show…

OTTENBERG: Wait, the show is called Bad Behavior?

PENN: Yeah, the show is called Bad Behavior, after Mary Gaitskill’s collection of short stories.

OTTENBERG: Oh, yes. Do you know Alissa Bennett, historian of bad behavior?

PENN: Yes, I do. That’s why I asked her to write the press release.

OTTENBERG: She’s one of my oldest friends. We met when she was 17 and I was 18, and we both got rides from the same girl to go to raves. And then we met at her house and split a hit of ecstasy and we’ve been friends ever since.

PENN: That’s an amazing origin story.

OTTENBERG: I know. We were basically fake friends with this girl with the car for raves and drugs.

PENN: It’s important to go to raves with someone who has a car.

OTTENBERG: Yes, exactly.

PENN: I love Alissa and I love the book. So I asked her to write the press release, and it was good to talk to her about the show. She was like, “Do you want to tell me what this is about? Or do you want me to write what I think this is about?” And I was like, “I think the second thing.” And she was like, “Well, that’s great. That allows more people to connect with it and draw their own conclusions about what’s going on.” Because it feels a little bit like, I don’t want to tell everyone everything about it.

OTTENBERG: Yes. I see what the show is about. This show is officially fucked as far as I’m concerned. My favorite is the clouds, because they look like full meth clouds.

PENN: We weren’t on meth in that last picture. But we’re on something…

OTTENBERG: What do you think is the best daytime party right now?

PENN: I like Merge. Merge is good. Oh, I would also say Faggots Are Women is actually pretty good.

OTTENBERG: Oh, I love that name.

PENN: Yeah, Kay Gabriel. It’s a great name. I also love Zero Chill, which is what Seva [Granik] is doing. There’s one on Halloween.

OTTENBERG: Oh, maybe I’ll go to that.

PENN: Okay, I’ll see you there.

OTTENBERG: Thanks for talking to me about this. Maybe I’ll buy your meth clouds.

PENN: I would love that.