Righteous Dopefiend

Dec. 5-May 31, 2010, $10, Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 3260 South St., 215-898-4000, penn.museum.

by A.D. Amorosi

photography/anthropology

Click Here For More Images

There is nothing easy or ironic about "Righteous Dopefiend: Homelessness, Addiction and Poverty in Urban America" — not the book, from UPenn anthropologist Philippe Bourgois and San Franciscan photographer/ethnographer Jeff Schonberg; not the stark new exhibition culled during their field research. From its wealth of snaps from Schonberg, who dwelled amongst his city's druggiest for 10 years, to Bourgois' active character-driven text, "Dopefiend" feels lived-in. While Schonberg's sense of cinema verite is unobvious and always in motion, pained but not always bathed in utter horror, Bourgois' text is a genuine eye-opener. In between penning In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio and starting a new Philadelphia-based project that examines violence and HIV outbreaks amongst dealers and addicts in North Philly's Puerto Rican community, the Penn professor of medical anthropology (and a consulting scholar at the Penn Museum) breaks down his subject matter with seemingly rote chapter headings ("Male Love," "Parenting," "Making Money") and makes them human. Along with Schonberg, he then curated the written word into visual chapters that never spare his audience from bleakness or decay, yet manages to make each homeless addict's broken ideals palatable, intimate and weirdly loving.

Dec. 5-May 31, 2010, $10, Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 3260 South St., 215-898-4000, penn.museum.