On the occasion of Aperture’s release of The Düsseldorf School of Photography, a comprehensive assessment of the influential photography movement, Aperture and the photography department in the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design presented artist Thomas Ruff and writer, former picture editor, Philip Gefter, on February 12th at Aperture Gallery and Bookstore.

The artist’s talk focuses on Ruff’s early work and participation in the Düsseldorf School as well as his more recent work including images featured in the artist’s JPEGS monograph.

In this clip, Thomas Ruff goes through several key bodies of work following his professor Bernd Becher’s advice to always reflect on the photographic medium. Ruff speaks about his Portrait series which he started at the Düsseldorf Academy and explains how large scale has emancipated photography on the contemporary art scene in the 1980′s. Ruff also touches on the matter of objectivity versus subjectivity as well as on the notion of authorship with his Stars series. Finally when speaking of Jpegs, he focuses on the structure of images he finds on the internet and their distribution. By enlarging them, Ruff also plays with the perception of these images when the pixel patterns become sublime geometric displays of color.

To watch the full talk click here:

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

The spring issue of Aperture magazine #198, is now on newsstands.

Here are some of the features:

• Magnum colleagues Elliott Erwitt and Marc Riboud discuss each other’s work and where their philosophies on photography differ.

• Anders Petersen speaks with JH Engstrom about expanding beyond the spatial limitations of his earlier work and his method of photographing people.

• John Gossage transitions into color photography for his upcoming volume The Thirty-Two Inch Ruler/Map of Babylon, featuring photographs taken in Washington D.C.

• Paolo Pellegrin and Scott Anderson team up using pictures and words to tell stories about Iraqi refugees.

• Zoe Crosher’s collection of Michelle duBois’ self-portraits examines styles of documentation.

• Walid Raad‘s visual catalogue of Lebanon explores modes of interpreting and fabricating history.

• In New Trees, Robert Voit photographs cell phone towers to comment on how nature submits to the technological desires of people.

Click here to subscribe now.

Copyright Zwelethu Mthethwa

The New York Armory Show and the many art events that coincide with it are nearly upon us! When planning your week, keep in mind these exciting events at the Aperture Foundation:

Zwelethu Mthethwa and Okwui Enwezor in Conversation

Tuesday, March 2nd, South African photographer Zwelethu Mthethwa will be talking at Aperture with internationally acclaimed curator Okwui Enwezor who contributed an essay to the long awaited self-titled monograph Zwelethu Mthethwa. The book’s editor Joanna Lehan will introduce their discussion.

Tuesday, March 2nd, 6:30PM
Aperture Gallery and Bookstore
547 West 27th street, 4th floor

Armory Brunch

Aperture will host an all day Armory brunch at the gallery and bookstore in honor of the week’s events. Aperture artists such as Zwelethu Mthetwa, Eirik Johnson, Joel Meyerowitz, Jacqueline Hassink, Matthew Montieth, Gillian Laub among others will be available to sign their books. There will be special offers on limited edition prints and more. Refreshments will be served.

Saturday, March 6th, 10:00 AM-1:00 pm
Aperture Gallery and Bookstore
547 West 27th Street, 4th floor

Aperture at the Armory Show

Be sure to visit Aperture at the Armory Show where the foundation will be featured in the publications area.

March 4th – 7th
Pier 92, Booth L16
55th street and Twelth Avenue

Aperture at PULSE New York

We will also be featured at this year’s PULSE Contemporary Art Fair in New York, booth P-6 will feature exclusive new limited-edition books and prints by such artists as Jowhara Alsaud, Barbara Crane, Robin Schwartz, Shadi Ghadirian, and many others.

March 4th – 7th                                                                                                                    Booth P-6 330 West Street
New York, New York

Photograph by Stephen Shore

Pioneers of Color, an exhibition opening this week at Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York, showcases the influential work of master photographers Stephen Shore, Joel Meyerowitz and William Eggelston. Juxtaposing three distinct artists whose works have come to define color photography’s emergence onto the photography scene in the 1970s, this show celebrates the bold images that laid the foundation for contemporary photography today.

In addition Edwynn Houk Gallery will host a conversation with Kevin Moore, the curator of Starburst: Color Photography in America 1970 – 1980., currently on view at the Cincinnati Museum of Art, as well as the Hatje Cantz-published exhibition publication of the same title, and photographer Joel Meyerowitz on Saturday, March 6th.

Pioneers of Color: Stephen Shore, Joel Meyerowitz, William Eggleston
February 25th – April 24th, 2010

Opening reception
Thursday, February 25, 6:00PM – 8:00 PM

Artist Joel Meyerowitz and curator Kevin Moore in conversation
Saturday, March 6, 3:00PM

Edwynn Houk Gallery
745 Fifth Avenue
New york, New York
(212) 750 – 7070

View Stephen Shore’s Uncommon Places

View Joel Meyerowitz’s Legacy

Thomas Demand (for Hubertus’ talk)”Busstop”, C-Print/Diasec, 240×330 cm, 2009

Aperture and the Photography Program in the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design’s lecture series resumes with writer, curator and critic Hubertus von Amelunxen this Thursday, February 25th at the Aperture Gallery and Bookstore.

Hubertus von Amelunxen is the Walter Benjamin chair at The European Graduate School for New Media in Luebeck, Germany and the senior visiting curator for photography and new media at the Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal. As the longtime editor of FOTOGESCHICHTE and author of numerous books on the topic of the photographic arts, Amelunxen is an influential and internationally recognized voice in his field.

The talk, entitled Photography After Photography, 15 Years Later will revisit a publication Amelunxen organized in 1995 entitled Photography After Photography: Memory and Representation in the Digital Age.

Photography After Photography, 15 Years Later
Thursday, February 25, 6:30 PM

FREE

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

Michal Chelbin, from the series Strangely Familiar: Acrobats, Athletes, and other Traveling Troupes – NYPH’09 Honorable Mention, Photographic Book category 2009

Since their inception, the New York Photo Awards have consistently surpassed all expectations in terms of the quality, reach, and number of submissions received (over 3,000 submissions and 15,000 images were received last year, from more than 90 countries worldwide).

The mission of the New York Photo Awards is to give visual artists the opportunity to reach key decision makers in the photographic community and the editorial, fine art, and commercial worlds and to honor talented photographers from all over the world whose exceptional work breaks new ground visually, intellectually, and aesthetically.

The New York Photo Awards Ceremony is scheduled to return to St. Ann’s Warehouse on Friday, May 14, 2010, starting at 8PM. The work of the Award Winners and Honorable Mentions will be presented on the big screen before a packed audience of industry luminaries. Twelve major awards will be publicly presented to the Award Winners, and 24 artists will receive Honorable Mention certificates. In addition to the New York Photo Awards ceremony, and an online feature presentation on the New York Photo Festival website, their work will be showcased in a group exhibition during next year’s edition of the New York Photo Festival.

Enter Here!

Copyright Fusco/Magnum Photos

In the days following the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, photographer Paul Fusco, on assignment for Look Magazine, photographed the hundreds of thousands of mourners. From aboard the funeral train transporting Kennedy’s coffin from New York to D.C. Fusco captured with his camera the crowds of people waiting by the side of the railroad tracks to pay their last respects.

A monograph of this powerful and classic body of work was published by Aperture in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s death, and an exhibition organized by Magnum Photos is now on view at the Norton Museum of Art in Palm Beach, Florida through May 2nd.

If you are in the area take advantage of this great opportunity to view an important photographic document of American history and a defining work for this accomplished photographer.

RFK Funeral Train Rediscovered
February 13 – May 2, 2010

Norton Museum of Art
1451 S. Olive Avenue
West Palm Beach, FL 33401

Buy Paul Fusco’s RFK

Buy a limited edition print from the RFK series

Come celebrate with Aperture friends and artists! Enjoy an exclusive limited-edition print by Dan Winters, live jazz by The Cangelosi Cards (listen here), a Polaroid photo booth, participate in a Dewar’s tasting, sip Chandon bubbly, win spectacular raffles and more! Hosted by SNAP! Aperture’s Young Patrons Program. Your participation will support the Aperture Fund for Emerging Artists.

Co-chaired by Jen Bekman, Christina Cahill, and Alan Stoga

Friday, March 19, 2010
9:00 pm–Midnight

Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor (map it)

Party tickets, including one print and
Aperture magazine subscription:

> $250 (admission for two)

> $200 (admission for one)

Regular party tickets:

> $150 (admission for two)

> $100 (admission for one)

Buy a SNAP! membership now and get discounted admission tickets.

Existing Patrons and SNAP! members contact development@aperture.org for discounted admission tickets.

Contact: Michiko Simanjuntak Grasso, (212) 946-7149, mgrasso@aperture.org

Zoe Crosher and Jan Tumlir will be speaking at Aperture Foundation tonight.

Upon the recent release of Aperture Magazine issue 198 which features Jan Tumlir’s article “Femme Fatale: Zoe Crosher’s reconsidered archive of Michelle duBois,” the writer and artist will discuss self-invention and role-playing as told through personal photographs, and what comes of the great “archival theme” in the digital era.

Tonight: Tuesday, February 16, 6:30 pm

FREE

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

Aperture and the Parsons Department of Photography at The New School presented this artist talk with photographer James Welling in October of 2009. Focusing on reoccurring themes of abstraction and the paradoxical in images he has made throughout his career, Welling went into detail about the progression of his work as a photographer and some of the artists who have influenced and inspired him.

In this excerpt Welling talks about how his body of work Light Sources came to fruition, essentially through his interest in the 10th frame of rolls of film he had shot for various projects over the years. Shooting in his preferred 6×7 format, Welling found that the 10th frame would not fit on the standard contact sheet page and thus, upon reaching his 10th exposure Welling would habitually break from his subject and shoot something else. Working with a large group of these “context-less” 10th frames, Welling compiled Light Sources.

To watch the full version of this talk click on these links below:

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

James Welling is represented by David Zwirner Gallery in New York and is head of the photography department at the University of California, Los Angeles. His work was featured in issue number 190 of Aperture magazine.

The first of the Spring 2010 Parsons Lecture Series at Aperture is titled Photography After Photography, 15 Years Later with Hubertus von Amelunxen on Thursday, February 25, 6:30 pm.