Photo by Yseult Chehata

Recently Aperture Work Scholar’s visited the infamous arts space The Clocktower which was founded by innovator of the alternative space movement Alanna Heiss. The Clocktower, which is situated in downtown Manhattan on the top of a government municipal building is an art space situated inside a literal clock tower. It is the home to Art International Radio as well as a gallery and residency program. Most recently the Clocktower exhibited The Dangerous Book Four Boys the solo show debut of James Franco. Aperture Work Scholars were treated to a curator led tour of Franco’s exhibit and of this exceptional arts space by co-curator of the exhibit and manager of programming for The Clocktower space, Beatrice Johnson.

The October 1st deadline for Aperture’s Spring 2011 session is approaching! Aperture’s work scholar program is a six month opportunity to work closely with the staff of Aperture Foundation. Work scholars contribute to the day to day work flow of the office engaging in Aperture’s many programs and contributing to the editing, design, production, circulation, sales, and marketing of photography’s most significant publications; the development of major traveling exhibitions; the creation of web content; and all other business operations essential to a non-profit organization.

Click here for more information about The Clocktower and ArtonAir Radio as well as James Franco’s The Dangerous Book Four Boys

Click here for more information about Aperture’s Work Scholar program and for more details on how to apply

Click here to view the past Work Scholar trip to the Center for Photography at Woodstock

Photo by Paul Strand

Tonight September 16, 2010,  Aperture joins in celebrations to commemorate the bicentennial of Mexico’s Independence with opening receptions for both Paul Stand in Mexico and in collaboration with En Foco, Mexico + Afuera: Contemporary Mexican and Mexican-American Voices.

Aperture is proud to present Paul Strand in Mexico the exhibition, taking place in two parts, at the Aperture Gallery and at the Bronx Museum, and the accompanying publication, bringing together exquisitely printed infamous and unpublished images, documents, personal notes and film from this poignant period in the famed photographer’s life.

Paul Strand first visited Mexico in 1932 at the invitation of Carlos Chavez, the eminent Mexican composer and conductor. Strand’s sojourn in Mexico, was a time of great creative renewal for the artist-one of intense productivity, and the development of a method of working that would become the foundation of his subsequent endeavors: collective portraits of other lands.

Click here to be notified when the publication becomes available!

Paul Strand in Mexico
On View at Aperture Gallery September 9th – November 13th, 2010
Opening Reception Thursday, September 16th, 6:00 – 8:00pm

Also opening this evening is  En Foco: Mexico + Afuera: Contemporary Mexican and Mexican-American Voices which explores—via the work of photogrpahers Chuy Benitez, Dulce Pinzon, and Monica Ruzansky—how life and culture are enmeshed. Selections from En Foco’s Permanent Collection will also be on view encompassing work from the past four decades from Chicano, Mexican-American, and Mexican artists.

Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th St, 4th floor
New York, New York

Also on view at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, presented by Aperture
Paul Strand: The Mexican Portfolio
September 9th, 2010 – January 2nd, 2011

Bronx Museum of the Arts
1040 Grand Concourse
Bronx, New York

A Paul Strand in Mexico symposium will take place on October 15–16, 2010. There, James Krippner, author and co-curator of Paul Strand in Mexico, will bring together a distinguished group of international scholars and practitioners from Mexico, the U.K., and the U.S. to discuss Strand’s output during his sojourn in Mexico in the context of Latin-American modernism, revolutionary politics and film of the 1930s, Mexican-American identity, and other topics. Screenings of the newly restored versions of the classic Strand films Redes and Manhatta (1921), and a viewing of the José Clemente Orozco murals at the New School—the only public commission by a Mexican muralist remaining in New York City—will take place as part of the symposium events.

Paul Strand in Mexico is coproduced by Aperture Foundation and Televisa Foundation. Paul Strand in Mexico is made possible by the National Council for Culture and the Arts (CONACULTA), Mexico; National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius; Tinker Foundation; Mexican Cultural Institute of New York; and The John B. Hurford ’60 Humanities Center at Haverford College.

In 1982 Aperture published photographer Stephen Shore’s monograph Uncommon Places, a photographic portrait of the American vernacular landscape. The book went on to become a definitive classic, greatly influencing a generation of photographers and considered by many one of the most important photography books of its time. The book was rereleased with previously unseen material in 2004 under the title Uncommon Places: The Complete Works and an accompanying exhibition Biographical Landscape: The Photography of Stephen Shore was launched, touring galleries and museums around the world. Now after six years of touring, Biographical Landscape will make its final and thirteenth stop as part of a survey show entitled Stephen Shore and the New Dusseldorf Photography at NRW-Forum in Dusseldorf, Germany this fall.

When Uncommon Places was republished by Aperture in 2004 the new edition included extensive texts by noted curator and critic Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen and writer Lynne Tillman and was accompanied by images from Shore’s series American Surfaces as well as from his series Amarillo: Tall in Texas. The exhibition Biographical Landscape which complemented this comprehensive second run of the monograph and which has been integrated into a new exhibition by NRW-forum, also includes excerpts from several different bodies of work by Shore including an excerpt from American Surfaces, Shore’s early work shot on a 35mm camera, Shore’s edition of postcards from his work Amarillo, Texas and a collection of photographs featured in Shore’s 1972 exhibit All the Meat You Can Eat. The exhibition is primarily comprised of a selection of 25 prints from Uncommon places as well as twenty one prints from later bodies of work.

New exhibition Stephen Shore and the New Dusseldorf Photography considers the influence of both Shore’s pioneering of color photography and Bernd and Hilla Becher’s innovative typology influenced images on German artists who studied with Bernd Becher between the years of 1976 and 1996. Along with Shore’s bodies of work this exhibition will include works by Bernd and Hilla Becher, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, Volker Dohne, Axel Hutte, Andreas Gursky, Claus Goedicke and more.

Stephen Shore and the New Dusseldorf Photography
On view September 11th, 2010 – January 11th, 2011

NRW-Forum
Ehrenhof 2
40479 Dusseldorf, Germany

Click here to purchase Stephen Shore’s Uncommon Places: The Complete Works

Photo copyright Stephen Shames

Aperture exhibition The Black Panthers: Making Sense of History, Photographs by Stephen Shames opens August 25th at The Haggerty Museum.

During the height of the Black Panthers party, from 1967 through 1973, Stephen Shames photographed daily operations, capturing the group’s public face as well as behind the scenes moments. His close friendship with the panthers, Bobby Seale in particular, allowed Shames unprecedented access and his photographs provide a rare and dynamic look at the social movement. A selection of this work was collected in the acclaimed Aperture monograph The Black Panthers (Aperture, 2006) and the exhibition The Black Panthers: Making Sense of History brings together silver gelatin prints from this historically invaluable body of work.

The Black Panthers: Making Sense of History
Photographs by Stephen Shames
Wednesday, August 25, 2010-Sunday, January 2, 2011

Haggerty Museum of Art
Marquette University
13th and Clybourn
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
(414) 288-1669

cover photo by Zwelethu Mthethwa

Zwelethu Mthethwa was recently featured on Flak Photo’s (http://www.flakphoto.com) Weekend Series (a weekly feature highlighting new photo essays, book projects and gallery exhibitions) and now Flakphoto has partnered with Aperture to give away three copies of Zwelethu Mthethwa’s new monograph to facebook fans.

Mthethwa’s recent self-titled monograph and exhibition Inner Views at The Studio Museum in Harlem have received widespread critical acclaim. The New York Daily News writes that Mthethwa’s images of domestic life, the landscape and labor issues in urban and rural South Africa demonstrate “The power that homes can have on our souls” and The New York Times writes the work provides “A refreshingly intimate look at South African life.”

To enter Flakphoto’s book give away, browse the Flak Photo Gallery and post a link to one of your favorite photographs in the comments of Flak Photo’s books give away page before August 1st at 11:59pm. Three fans will be randomly selected from the submitted posts to receive their complimentary copies.

Click here to learn more about Zwelethu Mthethwa’s self-titled monograph

Click here for more information on Flakphoto’s book give away

“Welcome to the Gerry and John show” Aperture editor Denise Wolff stated in her introduction to Gerry Badger and John Gossage’s recent conversation at Aperture Foundation. Both Badger and Gossage have each been in the field of fine art photography for over thirty years and established acclaimed careers. Gerry Badger as a critic and author whom has written for dozens of periodicals and coauthored with Martin Parr The Photobook: A History, Volumes I and II, and John Gossage as a photographer with seventeen published photo books and work in several public collections.  They also happen to be old friends. Take a listen to this podcast of Badger and Gossage discussing The Pleasures of Good Photographs.

Click the links below to listen to the Gerry Badger and John Gossage Podcast:

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Gerry Badger’s recent book of essays The Pleasures of Good Photographs compiles the writer’s evocative meditations on thought provoking classic and contemporary images by a range of photographers from Dorothea Lange and Eugéne Atget to Martin Parr, Luc Delahaye, Susan Lipper, and Paul Graham.

Also this Fall Aperture will be reissuing John Gossage’s classic title, The Pond.

Copyright Arthur Ou

Looking to get out of the city for a day? Take a trip to Mount Tremper Arts in the Catskill Mountains and see Seven Summits, the group photography exhibition featured during their Summer Festival. The exhibition highlights the practice of artists whose adventuresome spirit leads them straight to the source of their subject matter, whether it be found inside the studio or across the country. Seven Summits features fourteen pieces by seven artists, including Artur Ou from the Center for Photographic Media and Culture at Parsons The New School for Design which currently has an exhibition on view at Aperture Gallery, States of Flux. Also featured in the show are works by artists Roe Etheridge and Miranda Lichtenstein.

Mount Tremper Arts was founded by photographer Mathew Pokoik and choreographer Aynsley Vanderbroucke is a multi-disciplinary non-profit that supports contemporary artists in the creation and presentation of new works of art.

Seven Summits
Open on Sundays 12:00 – 6:00pm
July 10 – August 15, 2010

Mount Tremper Arts
647 South Plank Road
MOunt Tremper, New York

Click here to see a full list of events at Mount Trempner Summer Festival.

Submit to Hey, Hot Shot! A Jen Bekman Project, Photography Competition by Thursday, June 17th and win a collection of Aperture Books. This year’s guest curator, Aperture’s own Lesley A. Martin, Publisher of Aperture’s Book Program, and a HHS! panelist will be reviewing all entries submitted and will select one photographer to receive an incredible selection of books. View more information here!

Featured books included are: Words Without Pictures by Charlotte Cotton, Sawdust Mountain by Eirik Johnson, Winter Stories by Paolo Ventura, Photography After Frank by Philip Gefter, Legacy by Joel Meyerowitz, Explosions, Fires, and Public Order by Sarah Pickering and the trade edition of  Kamaitachi by Eikoh Hosoe

Since its inception in 2005, Hey, Hot Shot!, an international photography competition, has provided one hundred and twenty-nine photographers from all over the world with unrivaled exposure, support and recognition. This year marks the 5th anniversary of the competition and the 7th anniversary of Jen Bekman Gallery. Prizes include a $5,000 honorarium, inclusion in a two-week exhibition and five Curator’s Choice Awards.

See past winners here including Nina Berman, Aperture Portfolio Prize runner-up Alejandro Cartagena, and Cara Philips, to name a few.

Apply Here. Good Luck!

Black Power by Hank Willis Thomas

The third annual New York Photo Festival (NYPH) Kicks off today!

This year the festival features Aperture Presents, a series of panel discussions at St. Ann’s Warehouse, curated by Aperture’s editors. Panels will take place each day from 4:30-5:20 p.m.

The first panel taking place this afternoon will feature artists Justine Reyes, Brian Ulrich, and Hank Willis Thomas presenting their work and experiences securing funding, reviews, fellowships, and grants.

Tomorrow Aperture will bring together Amy Elkins, co-founder of Women in Photography; Ariel Shanberg, executive director of the Center for Photography at Woodstock; and Amy Yenkin, director of Open Society Institute, to offer insight on how artists can better benefit from the various opportunities available to them.

In addition Aperture will present a conversation with photographer Eirik Johnson (whose series of photographs Sawdust Mountain is currently on view at Aperture) and picture editor of Orion magazine, Jason Houston. The four day panel series will conclude with an artist’s talk by 2008 Aperture Portfolio Prize runner-up and emerging artist Jowhara AlSaud.

Emerging Artists’ Support Systems, Part 1
The Artist’s Perspective: Justine Reyes, Brian Ulrich, Hank Willis Thomas
Thursday, May 13, 2010

Emerging Artist’s Support Systems, Part 2
Funds, Fellowships and Reviews
Friday, May 14, 2010

Sawdust Mountain: Eirik Johnson and Jason Houston in Conversation
Saturday, May 15, 2010

Time Frames: An Artist’s Talk with Jowhara AlSaud
Sunday, May 16, 2010

NYPH 10
May 13th – 16th, 2010
St. Anne’s Warehouse
37 Main Street
Brooklyn, New York

#2077 by Todd Hido

The Copenhagen Photo Festival, opening in Denmark on May 12th, will feature a photo exhibition installed on the city of Copenhagen itself. The exhibit entitled Day and Night will be presented in the form of banners, projections and billboards and will feature works by an eclectic roster of artists including Walead Beshty, who was featured in Aperture magazine issue 192, Aperture published Tim Davis, Todd Hido and Kohei Yoshiyuki who was featured in Aperture Magazine issue 188.

In addition there will be special events hosted by the city’s galleries and a conference on contemporary art photography at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts on May 14th. The festival runs May 12th through May 20th, 2010.

Click here to learn more about the 2010 Copenhagen Photo Festival

Click here to purchase Limited-Edition Todd Hido print #2077 from the series House Hunting

Click here to purchase Limited-Edition Tim Davis print Democrat and Republican