Aperture magazine is a finalist for a National Magazine Award in General Excellence (under 100,000 circulation), the magazine industry’s highest honor.  The awards recognize print and online magazines that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative editorial techniques, journalistic enterprise, and imaginative design. Winners will be announced April 30. See the complete list of finalists here.

In addition, the latest issue of Aperture magazine is now available and features:

•    Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape
Photojournalist Jonathan Torgovnik provides and intimate look at the tragic legacy of Rwandan women who were sexually tortured by militiamen during and after the 1994 genocide, and their inheritors: children born of rape. An exhibition of this dramatic work is on view at Aperture Gallery through May 7th.
•    Sally Mann: Untitled
A selection from Mann’s latest family-focused project: intimate photographs of her husband Larry.
•    Jiang Jian: Memory and History by Vicky Goldberg
Photographer Jiang documents life in his native rural China.
Click here to see an expanded interview and additional images from the artist.
•    Photography and Human Rights by Anthony Downey
Downey discusses photographs that explore the stateless condition of the dispossessed and the plight of refugees.
•    Pertti Kekarainen: The Sensation of Seeing by Lyle Rexer
A look at the Finnish photographer’s abstract photography.
•    Look Close: The Scrapbooks of Dan Eldon and Candy Jernigan
Jessica Helfand explores the inventive journals of two artists who died tragically young.
•    William van der Weyde and the American Morality Plan by Michael Lesy
An introduction to the curious work of this little-known early-twentieth-century photographer.
•   Lise Sarfati: She
Sandra S. Philips presents a selection from Sarfati’s latest body of work, focused on the complex relationships of four women.

Photographer Matthew Sleeth’s Various Positions (parts 1 through 6) opens in Chelsea’s own Claire Oliver TONIGHT! The concept of position, both within the individual images and collectively between the pieces is at the center of Sleeth’s work, which depicts an ordered, more perfected view of the chaotic world in which we live. Working toward a new photographic aesthetic, Sleeth captures images with the whimsy of a snapshot that upon closer inspection offer a complex observation. Named one of PDN Magazine’s influential “30 under 30” fine artists, don’t miss the latest exhibition from one of photography’s rising stars.

Various Positions (parts 1 through 6)
Thursday, March 19—Saturday, April 18, 2009
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 19, 2009 6:00—8:00 pm
Claire Oliver
513 West 26th Street, New York
(212) 929-5949

Click here to buy a signed copy of Matthew Sleeth: Ten Series/106 Photographs through Aperture.

Click here to buy a Limited-Edition print from Matthew Sleeth: Ten Series/106 Photographs through Aperture.

Opening this week is Michael Wolf’s new solo exhibition, The Transparent City at Fifty One Fine Art Photography in Belgium. The show highlights Wolf’s body of work from his time in Chicago as an artist-in-residence for a commercial real estate firm. Through this privileged access and his zoom lens, Wolf captures more than the buildings, as his portraits of the urban landscape focus on interactions within the human dimension. With a hint of voyeurism, Wolf captures the complexities of the metropolis through the people who are literally framed by the awe-inspiring architecture. Works from Wolf’s The Transparent City will also be on view at Wouter Van Leeuwen Galerie in Amsterdam and at Elipsis Gallery in Istanbul.

The Transparent City
Friday, March 20–Saturday, April 25 2009
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 19, 6:00-9:00 pm.
Fifty One Fine Art Photography
Zirkstraat 20
2000 Antwerpen, Belgium
03 289 84 58‎

The Transparent City
Saturday, April 11–Saturday, May 16, 2009
Wouter Van Leeuwen Galerie
Hazenstraat 27
1016 SM Amsterdam, Nederland
06-52031540

Michael Wolf
Sunday, March 15–Monday, June 15, 2009
Elipsis Gallery
Çukurcuma/Beyoğlu
Istanbul, Turkey
0090 212 249 48 92-93

Click here to buy a Limited-Edition print from Michael Wolf’s The Transparent City.

Click here to buy your signed copy of Michael Wolf’s The Transparent City through Aperture.

Keyhole Improved Optical Treconnaissance Satellite Near Scorpio (USA 129) ©Trevor Paglen

Bellwether Gallery
Friday, March 6–Saturday, April 4, 2009
134 Tenth Avenue, between 18th and 19th Streets
(212) 929-5959

Currently on view at Bellwether Gallery is the second solo exhibition of the artist, geographer and landscape photographer Trevor Paglen.

For several years, Paglen has been working on tracking and photographing classified American spacecraft in the earth’s orbit. The result is the project The Other Night Sky, a series of 11 photographs and a single multimedia installation that reveal a very different sky than the one most of us see when we look up on a clear evening. These mysterious space objects are indistinguishable from stars or planets and they uncover the mystery and wonder about the endless possibilities of the sky.

To create this body of work, Trevor Paglen used observational data from an international network of amateur “satellite observers.” In collaboration with a team of computer scientist and engineers at the Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology, he spent two years developing a software model, which was able to translate the observational data into a usable form that could reveal the orbital position and motion of the classified spacecraft.
Then, he photographed them using telescopes and large-format cameras, and a computer-guided mechanical mount. The result was these incredibly color-intensive photographs of the night sky.

Active Military and Reconnaissance Satellites of the United States of America, Multimedia Installation © Trevor Paglen

Trevor Paglen is a 2008 recipient of SFMOMA’s SECA Art Award, which features an exhibition that runs concurrently with this exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His visual work has been exhibited in several well-known venues throughout the world such as Transmediale.08 Festival, Berlin; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Kunstraum Muenchen, Munich; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams and many others. His work has been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, Wired, Newsweek, Modern Painters, Art Forum, and in the Summer 2008 issue of Aperture magazine.

In 2008, he also published his third book, Blank Spots on the Map.

Also view this article from ArtForum where the artist talks about his work.

Character Project is USA Network‘s ongoing artistic initiative committed to celebrating America’s characters—the interesting, dazzling, and distinctive people, from all walks of life, who make this country extraordinary. During the summer of 2008 and with the support of Aperture Foundation, USA assembled a team of 11 world-class photographers and asked them to capture the character of America.

Last night the launch party for the book and traveling exhibition was held at Stephen Weiss Studio hosted by Mena Suvari, Jeff Goldblum and Vanity Fair with Aperture characters in tow.

See the exhibition in New York this weekend:

Friday, March 13, 2009 –Saturday, March 14, 9:00 am–7:00 pm
Stephan Weiss Studio

Click here to see a list of dates and cities for the exhibition.

The Character Project photographs are showcased in the book American Character: A Photographic Journey, published by Chronicle Books (March 2009). Featuring each photographer’s provocative perspective on the nation’s most compelling characters, as well as a foreword by internationally renowned journalist and author Tom Brokaw, American Character captures the continuously evolving mosaic of our country and features Aperture-published artists Dawoud Bey, Jeff Dunas, Mary Ellen Mark, Sylvia Plachy, Richard Renaldi, and Marla Rutherford. The collected works will also be displayed in a series of gallery exhibitions, visiting seven American cities.

To see videos from each of the participating artists, click here.

Installation view: Popular Mechanics, © Walead Beshty

Exhibition on view:
Popular Mechanics
Tuesday, March 3–Saturday, April 4, 2009

WALLSPACE
619 West 27th Street
New York, New York
(212) 594-9478

Now on view at WALLSPACE gallery in Chelsea is photographer Walead Beshty’s recent project Popular Mechanics.

Beshty is known for using photography as a tool to explore the social and political conditions of our material culture. He has a focused eye but yet a very laid-back awareness of the subjects around him. There is often a sense of uncertainty when looking at his work. He uses several media, including photograms, which appear as luminous abstract compositions where lines of demarcation do not seem to apply.

Walead Beshty’s work can also be seen in Altermodern: TateTriennial 2009, at Tate Britain in London, and he will be included in MoMA‘s annual New Photography 2009 in September.

Beshty was featured in the Fall 2008 issue of Aperture magazine.

The newly opened exhibition titled In Real Life, a series of four-hour residencies by art critics, bloggers, and curators in now on view and taking place at Capricious Space gallery in Brooklyn. This conglomeration of performances, talks, and workshops are mainly aimed at meditation on the evolution of art and culture in cyberspace. Along the lines of the classic adage “what is art?” these web-based projects challenge how contemporary technology influences the ways in which people create, share, and discuss art and culture. Breaking the barrier, this exhibition exploits the concept of the solitary Internet experience by subjecting it to a public forum. Organized by Laurel Ptak, In Real Life will be at Capricious Space through March 28 and is most assuredly a unique and provocative experience.

To view the complete schedule of events visit: www.letsmeetinreallife.com

Capricious Space
Saturday, March 7–Saturday, March 28, 2009
103 Broadway
Brooklyn, New York
(718) 384-1208

© Elliot Black

Aperture would like to extend its appreciation for all those who came to the opening reception of Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape from Jonathan Torgovnik. The event was a great success and raised awareness for this important world issue. Check out more photographs from the opening below.

Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th floor
New York, NY
(212) 505-5555

Click here to listen to photographer Jonathan Torgovnik on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate show.

Click here to view a special multimedia feature from Intended Consequences.

New York City, 1966 © Lee Friedlander

Friedlander
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Sunday, March 1–Sunday, May 31, 2009
11150 East Blvd
Cleveland, Ohio
(216) 421-7350

FREE

Now on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art, is a special exhibition focusing on the career of the legendary American photographer Lee Friedlander. The retrospective is organized by Peter Galassi, chief curator of photography at MoMA in New York, and gathers about 375 photographs plus special-edition books and portfolios that document his five-decade career.

In the early 1960s Friedlander became famous with off-balanced street photographs that made note of the complexity of the everyday American life. Through his photographs, Friedlander created a detailed portrait of contemporary American life. His images are communicative, packed with visual ideas, have a wicked sense of humor and the bizarre ability to compress multiple layers of meaning in random visual events.

In his attempt to communicate his visualization of what he calls “the American social landscape,” he takes us on a journey through detached images of urban life, store-front reflections, structures framed by fences, and posters and signs all combined to capture the look of modern life. This body of work also includes subjects such as portraits of musicians, self-portraits, landscapes, still lives, nudes, and studies of people at work that depict the diversity of contemporary urban America.

Lee Frielander has also been featured in the Fall 2007 issue of Aperture magazine.