Six Color Curl 2008 © Walead Beshty

Exhibition on view:
Directions—Walead Beshty: Legibility on Color Backgrounds
Thursday, April 30–Sunday, September 13, 2009

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Independence Avenue at Seventh Street SW
Washington, D.C.
(202) 633-4674

This spring, the Hirshhorn Museum presents Directions: Legibility on Color Backgrounds by the conceptual artist Walead Beshty, whose abstract images question the fundamental principles of modern art and the nature of photography. His mesmerizing photographs are mysterious and a product of his enduring fascination with modernist visual culture. He often works with historical formats, including stereographs and photograms, but he also makes use of more recent technologies, such as color processors and digital printers.

The fundamentals of this body of work are found in a camera-less process discovered by early twentieth-century artists László Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray, who produced unique, black-and-white prints by placing objects on photosensitive paper and then exposing them to light. Beshty re-invents this technique by making use of color processing and large-sale printers. He also curls or folds the photographic paper before exposing it to light, which creates luminous, elusive abstractions. His photograms are an aesthetic study and bring attention to the ways in which photography shapes our understanding of both history and the world around us.

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

Join Aperture for a special evening with performances and a one-night exhibition organized by photographer/designer Jason Fulford and artist/designer Leanne Shapton, co-founders of the small non-profit press J&L books to celebrate the release of three new books.

The Plan by Michael Schmelling, text by Richard Maxwell
Weavings by Corin Hewitt, text by Michael Brenson and Marisa Sanchez
Landmasses and Railways by Bertrand Fleuret

Wednesday, May 20, 2009
6:00-8:00 pm

Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th floor
(between 10th and 11th Avenue)
New York, NY
(212) 505-5555

W. 125th St. at Frederick Douglass Boulevard, 2008 © Carmilo José Vergara

New York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, New York
(212) 873-3400

Exhibition on View:
Harlem 1970-2009: Photographs by Camilo José Vergara
Thursday, April 30– Sunday, July 12, 2009

The NY Historical Society presents Harlem 1970-2009: Photographs by Camilo José Vergara, an exhibition documenting the urban rejuvenation of this famed neighborhood. Having experienced poverty in his native Chile, Vergara was always drawn to rough urban landscapes in the US. For nearly four decades, he returned to the same intersections and streets in Harlem and photographed the urban settings as they evolved through the years. One highlight is a sequence of images taken between 1977-2007 outside of 65 East 125th St showing the vivid transformation of the building from a local nightclub, to a discount variety store, to a smoke shop, to a clothing boutique, to a mattress outlet, to, finally, a vacant storefront with a “for rent” sign.

Chrysler Building 1928-1930 ©William Van Allen

Exhibition on View:
Landmarks of New York
Thursday, April 30– Sunday, July 12, 2009

Also on view at the NY Historical Society is Landmarks of New York. The exhibition includes 83 photographs documenting some of the most historically significant architectural sights and public parks in New York, and provides a fascinating spotlight on the extraordinary architecture that makes New York such a vibrant city today. After traveling to 82 countries, the exhibition makes its final showing in New York.

Also view Aperture‘s publication New York Rises, Photographs by Eugene de Salignac.

Bambi the Mermaid, Coney Island, Brooklyn © Sylvia Plachy

Do you have an engaging question for world-renowned photographer Sylvia Plachy about her work? Melissa Harris, Editor of Aperture magazine (and two of Plachy’s books, Self Portrait with Cows Going Home and Goings on About Town), will interview Plachy for the 2009 LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph’s INsight conversation series and wants to open the forum to questions from around the world. Don’t miss this opportunity to understand and further connect with Plachy’s photographic vision. Submit a question, including your name and location, by Monday, June 1, 2009. We are looking for questions that delve beyond technical matters, exploring issues of creativity, storytelling, subject, sensibility, and inspiration. Selected questions will be asked during the interview, which will be viewable here after July 8, 2009.

Send questions to: asksylvia@look3.org

Paramount Theatre
Thursday, June 11, 2009  7:00 pm
215 E Main St
Charlottesville, Virginia
(434) 979-1922

Click here for more details

79 Moons From Flickr – 51 Visible, 87 Suns From Flickr – 29 Visible © Penelope Umbrico

In collaboration with 20×200, A Jen Bekman Project, Aperture Foundation is pleased to present two exclusive images from Penelope Umbrico, from the series Suns from Flickr, now available starting as low as $50 for a 11″x14″ print.

Penelope Umbrico combines multiple “sunset” and “moonrise” photographs found on Flickr, and superimposes them in Photoshop. Each photograph is visible to a greater or lesser degree depending on the amount of opacity she gives each, which is indicated in the titles of the images: 79 Moons From Flickr – 51 Visible and 87 Suns From Flickr – 29 Visible.

About the Aperture/20×200 project, Lesley A. Martin, Aperture’s Book Publisher, who curated a show of Umbrico’s work notes:

“It’s pretty much one year ago today that Penelope Umbrico first premiered her now nearly ubiquitous Suns from Flickr as part of the show I curated for the 1st annual NYPH. This piece in particular received much-deserved critical response — Ken Johnson called it ‘spectacular’ in his review for the New York Times. The piece will also now appear in the forthcoming Aperture publication The Edge Of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography by Lyle Rexer. So I’m super excited that for this, Aperture’s first collaboration with Jen Bekman’s 20×200 project, Penelope has generously agreed to create two brand new images — each of which is related to the Suns installation, but in classic Umbrico fashion, are totally new and creative re-renderings of her ideas for the specific purpose of the 20×200 format.

“So we’re all super excited about it here at Aperture. Special thanks to Penelope Umbrico and the folks at 20×200! We’re looking forward to hearing people’s comments about the prints now that they’re available … ”

20×200’s mission is to make art easily accessible for everyone, and offers extremely affordable exhibition-quality prints, available exclusively online. So buy one of these brilliant images today and support Aperture in the process.

Aperture Gallery presents The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography, curated by Lyle Rexer. From the beginning, abstraction has been intrinsic to photography, and its persistent popularity reveals much about the medium. The Edge of Vision showcases the work of nineteen contemporary photographers who base their practice in some form of abstraction. Rexer defines abstraction as “a departure from or the eliding of an immediately apprehensible subject.” Within this broad definition, a host of approaches explore aspects of the photographic experience, including the chemistry of traditional photography, the mediation of lenses, the direct capture of light without a camera, temporal extensions, digital sampling of found images, radical cropping, and various deliberate destabilizations of photographic reference. Aperture will celebrate the opening of this exhibition with a reception featuring a live DJ Saturday night.

On Friday, May 15, Aperture hosts a panel moderated by Lyle Rexer, featuring artists Jack Sal, Silvio Wolf, and Penelope Umbrico at The New York Photo Festival. The panel will be followed by a book signing of Rexer’s recent Aperture publication The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography.

The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography
Panel Discussion

Friday, May 15, 2009  5:00 pm

FREE with Festival Admission

New York Photo Festival
St. Ann’s Warehouse
38 Water Street
Brooklyn, New York
(718) 254-8779

The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography
Exhibition and Opening Reception

Opening reception:
Saturday, May 16, 2009, 7:00–10:00 pm

Exhibition on view:
Friday, May 15, 2009 –Thursday, July 9, 2009

Talk & Book Signing with Lyle Rexer: Tuesday, June 16, 6:30 pm      

FREE

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

Click here to purchase your copy of The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Contemporary Photography.

Click here to purchase The Edge of Vision limited-edition portfolio.

This Thursday, May 14th, Aperture and 20×200 will release a limited-edition archival pigment print by Penelope Umbrico, made to benefit Aperture Foundation and celebrate the exhibition The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography, opening Saturday at Aperture Gallery.

20×200 offers ridiculously affordable exhibition-quality prints, available exclusively online. Popular editions sell out quickly, so sign up for the  20×200 mailing list today to be notified as soon as the print is released. Also, check Exposures on Thursday to be among the first to be notified of the edition’s release.

The actual image is a closely guarded secret until the announcement in Thursday’s 20×200 newsletter, but we can tell you that the image is related to Umbrico’s Suns From Flickr project.

The second annual New York Photo Festival taking place in Dumbo, Brooklyn, Wednesday, May 13, through Sunday, May 17. This year, the four main exhibition pavilions are curated by William A. Ewing, director of Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland; Chris Boot, head of the London-based publisher Chris Boot, Ltd.; Jody Quon, photography director at New York magazine; and Jon Levy, director of the London-based publisher Foto8. Visit Aperture’s booth in the powerHouse arena to see our latest books and limited-edition photographs. On Thursday evening, May 14, a special book signing and party will take place at the powerHouse arena, starting at 9:00 p.m., with many Aperture artists present to sign their books, including Catherine Chalmers, Michal Chelbin, Doug DuBois, Philip Gefter, Jacqueline Hassink, Charles Lindsay, Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz, Richard Renaldi, Lyle Rexer, Robin Schwartz, Jonathan Torgovnik and more. For the second year, each day the festival will feature Aperture Presents, a series of panel discussions at St. Ann’s Warehouse.

Aperture Presents Events include:

Artist-Publisher: Mass Produced for Mass Dissemination Thursday, May 14, 5–6 pm

The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography: Moderated by Lyle Rexer
Friday, May 15, 5–6 pm

Cuddle (with Bill Hunt)
Saturday, May 16, 5–6 pm

Photography After Frank, A Conversation Between Philip Gefter and Andy Grundberg
Sunday, May 17, 5–6 pm
FREE with Festival Admission

New York Photo Festival
St. Ann’s Warehouse
38 Water Street
Brooklyn, New York
(718) 254-8779

——————–
Party and Book Signing at powerHouse arena with Aperture artists:
Thursday, May 14, 9:00 pm

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 –Sunday, May 17, 2009

The New York Photo Festival Headquarters
37 Main Street
Brooklyn, New York
(347) 853-7447

All Aperture related events

All NYPH09 events

Check out pics from behind the scenes NYPH08

And Should…, 1974 © James Welling

Exhibition on view:
The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984
Tuesday, April 21–Sunday, August 2, 2009
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street
New York, New York
(212) 535-7710

Now on view until August is The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984. The exhibition is named after a group of artists working in New York from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, whose work and collective achievement is an important chapter in the history of contemporary art.

Coming from a generation with expanding media and consumer culture, and educated in the era of Minimalism and Conceptualism in art, the artists explore the social and psychological role of the image, and how it shapes our perceptions of ourselves and the world. The Pictures Generation 1974-1984 features the work of 30 artists and includes paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, video, installation, prints, and books.  Among the featured artists are Aperture-published Louise Lawler, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, and James Welling.

Back row: James Chung, IPC President; Tony Cilento, Keynote Speaker; John Segall, IPC Vice-President. Front row IPC award recipients: Will Mosgrove, APA; Jack Reznicki, PPA; Mary Calvert, WHNPA; Joe Mark, PSPA; Richard Anderson, ASMP

Thanks to Fujifilm U.S.A. who invited Aperture to attend the 11th Annual International Photography Council (IPC) Awards luncheon at the United Nations in New York City last Thursday, May 7.

Honoring leaders from a wide field of professional photographers, the annual awards highlight IPC’s mission to increase worldwide recognition of photography as a universal means of communication. IPC promotes and encourages photography through international exhibitions and conventions, scholarships, lectures, and other programs.

The Fujifilm Table (everyone from Fujifilm except where noted)
Back row: Doug Fachnie; Joellyn Gray; Kayce Baker; Dana Triwush, Aperture magazine; Neal Clipper, Abbey Photographers. Front row: Kevin Spellissy; Tom Curley; Christian Fridholm; Dominic Insana

Photos courtesy and © Brandon Remler