This month of March brought the passing of the one-year anniversary of the devastating tsunami which hit the coast of Japan in 2011, laying waste much of the region, in some cases washing away entire villages and causing upwards of 20,000 deaths. Since the disaster, relief efforts came in a variety of forms, but one which humanizes the numerical abstraction of the death toll stuck out in particular.

In the current Aperture magazine issue 206, photography critic and independent curator Mariko Takeuchi writes:

In the cities, towns, and village affected by the disaster, a vast number of personal photographs were salvaged, pulled from underneath rubble and mud by all sorts of people. They were discolored by saltwater and covered with dirt; some were misshapen or even emitted foul odors. With very few exceptions, it was impossible to identify the people who had made the photographs, their subjects, or their owners—if indeed they were still alive.

What began as a small community effort has turned into the Memory Salvage Project, a volunteer organization that has to date recovered and begun restoring 750,000 lost family photographs.

“Restoration is not just a matter of infrastructure,” Professor Kuniomi Shibata, head of the Memory Salvage Project, says in a video for Discovery Channel, “There are other important things.”

Snapshots were cleaned, numbered and digitized one by one with the help of volunteers who came from all over Japan. At least 20,000 photographs, and 13,000 photo albums have been returned to their owners. Several thousand other images abstracted by natural disaster have been assembled into an evocative and visually stunning traveling exhibition which has been on view in Tokyo and Los Angeles, and is now coming to New York.

Photographer Munemasa Takahashi, one of the leaders of the project tells New Yorker’s Photobooth why the images on view are so powerful:

After the disaster occurred, the first thing the people who lost their loved ones and houses came to look for was their photographs… Only humans take moments to look back at their pasts, and I believe photographs play a big part in that. This exhibit makes us think of what we have lost, and what we still have to remember about our past.

Lost & Found: 3.11 Photographs from Tohoku will be on view at Aperture Monday, April 2, 2012 – Friday, April 27, 2012.

Aperture Gallery and Bookstore
547 W. 27th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10001
(212) 505-5555

“Sisyphus with Leica,” Alex Webb termed himself in three words for a Q&A with the UK Telegraph last year. The renowned Magnum photographer known for his evocative color street photos—work that he’s repeatedly called 99%, “if not more, about failure,”—will be at Aperture on Friday signing books and presenting a co-lecture with his wife and creative partner, Rebbecca Norris Webb, or “maker of books,” as she described herself for that same Q&A. The free event will take place on the first night of their SOLD OUT weekend photography workshop.

His latest monograph The Suffering of Light, published by Aperture in spring of 2011, is a retrospective of his 30-year “photographic dialogue with the streets,” he tells the Times.  Making the book, he realized, “could be a way to explore the dominant obsession of my photographic life,” he writes, “a particular way of seeing in color… inexplicable, intuitive.”  This obsession, along with his acute sense for the rhythm of the streets has manifested itself through a tremendous body of work.

Webb recalls being originally inspired to engage with the life in public spaces as a teenager seeing for the first time the Chicago series by Ray Metzker titled “My Camera and I in the Loop” in an issue of Aperture magazine–something he paid homage to in color late last year. As he matured, however, he increasingly became drawn to places that have more evident “sociopolitical tensions,” borders and boundaries of societies, and began wandering extensively through the streets of Haiti, Mexico, Istanbul and the like. Still, he wouldn’t approach these places as a “traditional photojournalist.” Instead, his ramblings have resulted in a stunning blend of art photography and documentation.

“I’m looking for photos that have a greater level of ambiguity,” he tells the Times. “It’s more a matter of questioning or enigma than we usually associate with photojournalism, whatever that is. I’m looking for photos that ask questions. I’m not sure I’m able to provide an answer, but you ask a lot of good questions.”

Lately, he’s expressed interest in returning to the United States to photograph and produce a body of work that’s closer to home. “Though it is at this point very much in a state of infancy,” he told Leica Camera blog, he and his wife “are exploring the notion of creating another joint project.”

Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb Artist Talk and Book Signing
Friday, March 23, 2012 at 7:00 PM

Aperture Gallery & Bookstore
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
New York, New York
(212) 505-5555

Last October, upon the launch of The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the Unconscious (Aperture 2011), author/collector W.M. Hunt—known for his wit and (truly) larger-than-life personality—debuted A Life in Photographs and Other Digressions… A live monologue accompanied by images from his collection and video from his past, this event was a wry, uproarious rumination on Hunt’s many years of collecting, on his life in photographs.

Not necessarily by popular demand, but at his own insistence, Hunt will recreate this unique performance piece at Aperture Gallery on Tuesday, March 27. This evening with Hunt promises to be one of information and digression, bringing to light many of the names and stories left out of the book.

The book, The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the Unconscious (Aperture 2011), presents a wonderfully idiosyncratic and compelling collection of photographs assembled around a particular theme: magical, heart-stopping images of people in which the eyes are obscured, veiled, or otherwise hidden. The pictures are characterized by what, at first glance, the subjects conceal, not by what the camera reveals. Tuesday night however, Hunt’s revelations are at the core of the program.

—

The Unseen Eye: A Life in Photographs and Other Digressions…
A Multimedia Performance Piece with W. M. Hunt
Tuesday, March 27, 7:00 pm
FREE

Aperture Gallery and Bookstore
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
New York, New York
(212) 505-5555

The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the Unconscious (Aperture 2011) by W.M. Hunt will be available for purchase at the Aperture Bookstore the night of the event ($52.50, available for online purchase here).

Aperture is delighted to honor 2011 Portfolio Prize winner—Sarah Palmer—as well as four runners up: Thibault Brunet, Lisa Lindvay, Andrew McConnell, and Louie Palu. The work of these exceptional photographers has been chosen from nearly one thousand portfolio entries from around the world.

The 2011 Portfolio Prize site is now live, featuring five full slideshow galleries featuring the work of this year’s finalists, biographical notes, and elucidatory statements written by members of the judging panel—including Publisher, Lesley A. Martin, and Editor, Denise Wolff—casting an editorial eye on the work of each 2011 finalist.

We are also pleased to offer new limited-edition prints by winner Sarah Palmer, and finalist Andrew McConnell in our online shop.

Featured at top: The Bomb (Also) is a Flower by Sarah Palmer, $600, available here.

 

Armory Week is almost here. Join us on Saturday, March 10 for our annual all-day Armory Collectors Brunch to mix and mingle with friends and colleagues in the heart of Chelsea’s art district. The event will include a special walk through of the current exhibition Shared Vision, with Marcelle Polednik, Director MOCA Jacksonville and collectors Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla at 11:00 am, followed by book signings with Aperture artists including Bruce Davidson, Richard Mosse, Brian Ulrich, Penelope Umbrico, collector Bill Hunt.

Saturday, March 10, 10:00 am–1:00 pm
FREE

Aperture Gallery and Bookstore
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
New York, New York
(212) 505-5555

During Armory Arts Week, you can also visit Aperture at the eleventh annual SCOPE New York Art Fair. You can see some of our newest limited-edition prints from artists Hank Willis Thomas’ “After Identity, What?, 2011,” Lars Tunbjork’s “42nd Street and Eighth Avenue, from the Times Square portfolio published May 18, 1997” and Richard Mosse’s “Débris, North Kivu, Eastern Congo, 2011.”

This year, SCOPE’s VIP first view will take place on Wednesday, March 7 at an exciting, high profile location across from The Armory Show. The 35,000 square foot pavilion and its dramatic glass box entrance on 57th Street and 12th Ave will host 50 international galleries and museum-quality programming highlighting groundbreaking, emerging work in contemporary art and beyond.

First View:
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
3:00 pm–9:00 pm

Fair Continues:
Thursday, March 8, 2012-Sunday, March 11, 2012

Admission required.

SCOPE Pavilion
57th St & 12th Avenue
New York, NY 10019
212-268-1522

 

Opening reception:
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
6:00–8:00 pm

Exhibition on view:
Friday, March 2, 2012–Saturday, April 21, 2012

Aperture Foundation
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
New York, New York
(212) 505-5555

Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla, two individuals that Art News ranks among the top ten photo collectors in the world, have amassed hundreds of the most iconic images reflecting the diverse nature of the past century of photography. Aperture Foundation pleased to announce the opening of Shared Vision: The Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla Collection of Photography, featuring over two hundred of those photographs that form one of the world’s best private collections. An exhibition organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Jacksonville, a cultural resource of the University of North Florida, curated by Ben Thompson, MOCA’s curator, and Paul Karabinis, assistant professor of photography at UNF.

Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla’s collaboration hinges on a few underlying principles— mainly, to acquire works of major importance by leading photographers of their generation, and to focus on vintage prints. Although each of the collectors brings a different point of view to the photography—Gonzalez-Falla analyzes color and form, while Gilman responds to images on a more visceral level—these distinct approaches merge into a single, shared vision and emanate from the same goal: to collect photographs that move and inspire them.

Prominet photographers in the collection include Ansel Adams, Eugène Atget, Margaret Bourke-White,Walker Evans, Loretta Lux, Sally Mann, Richard Misrach, Doug and Mike Starn, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Alfred Stieglitz.

The exhibition, organized by MOCA, a cultural resource of the University of North Florida, curated by Ben Thompson, MOCA’s curator, and Paul Karabinis, assistant professor of photography at UNF, is supported by Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla, The Haskell Company, Marilyn and Charles Gilman III, and Joan and Preston Haskell. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog published by MOCA and produced by Aperture Foundation. This catalog features selected photographs from the exhibition, with historical context about each image and the photographer, curatorial remarks from Ben Thompson and Paul Karabinis, and an exclusive interview with the collectors.

Join us on Monday, March 5, 2012 at 6:30 pm at Aperture Gallery for an artist talk with photographer Richard Mosse , followed by a book signing and reception for his new book Infra.

Aperture Gallery and Bookstore
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
Between 10th and 11th Avenues
New York, New York
(212) 505-5555

Over the course of two years, Mosse documented the ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo using a discontinued type of color infrared surveillance film called Kodak Aerochrome to offer a stunning and radical rethinking of how to depict a complex and intractable conflict.  With film that is extra sensitive to green light, he renders the rich typography of the country as well as the camouflage of the Congolese army and combative rebel groups in vivid hues of lavender, crimson, and hot pink.

This is Mosse’s first monograph, co-published by Aperture and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.  These improbably colored images underline the growing tension between art, fiction, and traditional photojournalism as a way of portraying and communicating the impact of war. Mosse states that the collection works “through shocks to the imagination,” using photography’s unique ability “to make visible what cannot be perceived.”

Select large format prints from the collection are currently on view at the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, NC through April 15, organized by Xandra Eden, Curator of Exhibitions.

Weatherspoon Art Museum
500 Tate St
Greensboro, NC 27412
336-334-5770

Mosse’s limited edition print “Débris, North Kivu, Eastern Congo,” is also now available for purchase at Aperture. Mosse calls the ethereal shot a “surprising” double-exposure that came about by accident in March 2011. “‘Débris ‘pushed me to embrace failure and let go of certain ways of seeing.”

Photographs by Richard Mosse have been featured on the cover of Aperture magazine #203.

Last Thursday night, Aperture Gallery hosted an Opening Reception to celebrate Alex Webb‘s exhibition The Suffering of Light. Corresponding to the monograph of the same name, The Suffering of Light is a comprehensive look at over 30 years of Webb’s vibrant color photographs. Taken in international locales from India to Haiti, Webb’s photographs bridge the gap between street photography, photojournalism and fine art photography genres. The exhibition will be on view at Aperture Gallery through January 19, 2012.

Alex Webb will give a walkthrough of the exhibition this Saturday, December 17, from 4:00 – 5:00 pm at Aperture Gallery. The tour is FREE and open to the public.

In the Gallery Bookstore, Aperture is also presenting work by David Favrod, winner of our 2010 Portfolio Prize. in his first New York solo show. In his series Gaijin—which means foreign or alien—Favrod imagines his own personal Japan within Switzerland, playing on visual clichés of Japanese culture and recreating scenes from his childhood memories of Japan.

Photographer Alex Webb with Rebecca Norris Webb

Alex Webb signs his monograph The Suffering of Light.

Aperture’s Executive Director Chris Boot on right

A guest reads a copy of The Photobook Review, Aperture Foundation’s brand new bi-annual publication. Stop by the bookstore to pick up your copy before they run out! Stay tuned to find out when the digital version becomes available.

 

Sancti Spiritus, Cuba, 1993 © Alex Webb/Magnum Photos

Photography Workshop at Aperture with Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb
This one-day workshop is geared for documentary photographers, street photographers, and others who photograph the world with a camera—not for those who dramatically manipulate their photographs. Also includes public gallery talk with Alex Webb about his exhibition, Alex Webb: The Suffering of Light, at Aperture Gallery from 4:00 to 5:00 pm. The exhibition features works from his recently published book The Suffering of Light.

Saturday, December 17, 2011
10:00 am–5:00 pm

$225 (Tickets are non-refundable)
Purchase tickets to the event

Do you know where you’re going next with your photography––or where it’s taking you? This intensive one-day workshop will help photographers begin to understand their own distinct way of seeing the world. It will also help photographers figure out their next step photographically ––from deepening their own unique vision to the process of discovering and making a long-term project that they’re passionate about.

A workshop for serious amateurs and professionals alike, it will begin with reviews of each photographer’s work, serving as a jumping off point for a larger discussion about various photographic issues. Alex and Rebecca, a creative team who often edit projects and books together –– including their book and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, exhibition, “Violet Isle: A Duet of Photographs from Cuba”––will explore with the class a series of topics, including the process of photographing spontaneously and intuitively; how to photograph in cultures other than one’s own; how to edit photographs intuitively; the emotional and psychological implications of working in color vs. black and white; the difference between images in a book and images on the wall; and how long-term projects can evolve into books and exhibitions. Participants should be prepared to ask questions, as these concerns will help shape the ultimate direction of the workshop. This one-day workshop is geared for documentary photographers, street photographers, and others who photograph the world with a camera––not for those who dramatically manipulate their photographs.

Aperture Gallery and Bookstore
547 W. 27th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY
(212) 505-5555

The workshop is offered at the discounted price of $175 for full-time students and Aperture members. Please call (212) 505-5555 to reserve at this special rate, or buy tickets through Aperture’s website.

 

Alex Webb is best known for his vibrant and complex color work, especially from Latin America and the Caribbean. He has published nine books, including Istanbul: City of a Hundred Names, and his most recent, The Suffering of Light: Thirty Years of Photographs (Aperture). Alex has exhibited at museums worldwide including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, and the Guggenheim Museum, NY. Alex became a full member of Magnum Photos in 1979. His work has appeared in National Geographic, the New York Times Magazine, Geo, and other magazines. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007 for continuing working in Cuba, and the Premio Internacional de Fotografia Alcobendas in 2009.

For the past decade, Rebecca Norris Webb has been exploring the complicated relationship between people and the natural world. Originally a poet, she has shown her photographic work internationally, including at the George Eastman House Museum and Ricco Maresca Gallery, New York. Her first book, The Glass Between Us, was published in 2006, and her second book, Violet Isle: A Duet of Photographs from Cuba (with Alex Webb), was published in November 2009. Her photographs are in the collections of the George Eastman House Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, and she is represented by the Photographers’ Gallery in London. Rebecca’s work has appeared in Time, New Letters, Orion, and other magazines. Her third book, My Dakota, will be published in 2012 by Radius, and exhibited at the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Alex and Rebecca have a joint exhibition of their Cuba photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which will run until January 16, 2012, which will then travel to the Southeast Museum of Photography in Daytona, Florida. The couple is currently collaborating on a project in the U.S.

WHAT PHOTOGRAPHERS SHOULD BRING: About 30 photography prints (can be inexpensive 5×7” or 8×10” work prints; we are most interested in the image not the quality of the print). For those who are working in a series or on a long-term project, feel free to bring one or two projects. Class limit: 17. For more information, contact Rebecca at rebeccanorriswebb@yahoo.com.