When Kickstarter launched in 2008, it more or less revolutionized the way people went about funding their creative or artistic endeavors. It also popularized a new investment sector long-embraced by non-profits that some experts say has the potential to boost our sluggish economy. By making it incredibly accessible for anyone with an idea to reach out to the world for funding or self-publishing (instead of looking for the ‘right’ institution or donor for a grant). Kickstarter also helped unleash a flood of potential investments and start-ups–some worthier than others.

This is why we at Aperture have started our own Curated Kickstarter page, where we showcase the most promising and exciting projects we find to bring creative people and like-minded investors together. As one Kickstarter user told David Pogue of the Times, “Kickstarter is to Amazon as Craigslist is to eBay,” Michael Critz wrote in an email, “It’s a community.”

So far, four of the projects we’ve selected have been successfully funded.

Emily Schiffer’s “See Potential” will install mural-sized documentary photographs in the South Side of Chicago amid urban decay to bring to light the lack of affordable, healthy foods in the neighborhood and “use public art as a platform to transform urban blight into community engagement.”

Radiant Labs in New York earned nearly $3000 over their projected to goal to get their Long Island City photo lab “up and running and keep analog color and black & white darkroom practices accessible to the community.”

Booklyn, a decade-old organization that provides resources for and unites artists looking to create unique and limited edition books and works on paper, raised over $14,000 to turn their “digital database into a functional, friendly, searchable website.”

Photographer Cara Phillips raised $17,000 to publish her first monograph, Singular Beauty, “a photographic exploration of the world of cosmetic surgery.”

Two other projects await the same:

There’s just over a day left to support Anton Orlov’s Photo Palace Bus, a one-time yellow school bus turned mobile studio and darkroom traveling cross-country in support of analog photography.

And the makers of Hot Spots, a new documentary on Magnum photographer Martin Parr, his creative process and biting humor, following him as he travels through the South for a rare museum commission, are looking to reach their $23,000 goal by February 29.

Photographer Hank Willis Thomas–the first ever recipient of the Aperture West Book Prize–along with Chris Johnson, Bayeté Ross Smith and Kamal Sinclair,  spent the last several years traveling cross-country, collecting video interviews from hundreds of black males across a wide range of socio-economic strata. Now on display at the Brooklyn Museum and four other locations around the country, Question Bridge: Black Males, weaves 1500 video exchanges by 150 men from 12 different cities who have never met into a wildly innovative “stream of consciousness dialogue,” across multiple screens and platforms.  Elements of chance, spontaneity and audience participation work to deconstruct dominant stereotypes of black males in the collective consciousness.  Jesse Williams, their Executive Producer, discusses this project and the prospect of future Question Bridges in an interview with Indiewire.

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11238

Exhibition on view:
Now through Sunday, June 3, 2012

Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak Street
Oakland, CA 94607

Exhibition on view:
Now thru Sunday, July 8, 2012

City Gallery at Chastain
135 West Wieuca Road, N.W.
Atlanta, Georgia 30342

Exhibition on view:
January 27 – March 17, 2012

Sundance Film Festival 2012
1825 3 Kings Dr
Park City, Utah 84060

Exhibition on view:
Now thru January 29, 2012

Utah Museum of Contemporary Art
20 S. West Temple
Salt Lake City, Utah

Exhibition on view:
Now thru May 19, 2012

This monumental transmedia installation is not Thomas’ first exploration of the crisis of black male identity in the United States. His deeply personal, grim, but darkly humorous first monograph Pitch Blackness brought him wide recognition as one of the most compelling artists emerging today. A limited edition print of his 2011 photograph, After Identity, What? is now available for purchase at Aperture.

Aperture is now offering another chance to join  Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb in a weekend photography workshop at Aperture.

Do you know where you’re going next with your photography –– or where it’s taking you?  This intensive weekend 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, as well as the process of how long-term projects evolve into books and exhibitions. A workshop for serious amateurs and professionals alike, it will taught by Alex and Rebecca, a creative team who often edit projects and books together –– including their joint book and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, exhibition, Violet Isle: A Duet of Photographs from Cuba, Alex’s recent Aperture book, The Suffering of Light, and Rebecca’s upcoming third book, My Dakota.

Included in the workshop will be an editing exercise as well as an optional photography assignment and long-term project review.  For more information –– including workshop fees, how to enroll, daily schedule –– please email Anne Lewis alewis@aperture.org.

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE: Friday evening, March 23, 2012, thru Sunday afternoon, March 25, 2012

Friday, March 23, 2012: 7:00-8:30pm: Alex and Rebecca Slide talk and Q&A

Saturday and Sunday, March 24 & 25, 2012: 10-6:00 pm

Price: $500/ $450 for photography students and Aperture Patrons

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

MORE ABOUT THE WORKSHOP: (more…)

Copyright by artist, clockwise from top-left: Sarah Palmer, Louie Palu, Lisa Lindvay, Andrew McConnell, Thibault Brunet

Thanks to all the photographers who took part in our annual Aperture Portfolio Prize contest this past year. Judges have gone through the submissions and after much deliberation, we’re pleased to announce the five finalists:

Lisa Lindvay

Andrew McConnell

Sarah Palmer

Louie Palu

Thibault Brunet

For almost a decade now, our contest has helped to identify trends in contemporary photography and bring the work of innovative and emerging artists to a wider audience.  This year, first prize is $3000 and an exhibition at Aperture Foundation.

Check back with us in the coming weeks as we get ready to announce the winner via email newsletter and our website and showcase their work. Don’t forget to check out the winning images from years past here. And remember, it’s never too early to start thinking about submitting for next year’s prize.

Exhibition on view:
January 7–February 4, 2012

Robert Berman Gallery
Bergamot Station:
2525 Michigan Avenue
Santa Monica, CA
(310) 453-7535

Robert Berman Gallery presents a collaborative exhibition from photographer Gerald Slota and filmmaker and playwright Neil LaBute. Embracing themes of family and relationships, HOME.SWEET.HOME showcases the two-way effort of ominous photographic collages by Slota and accompanying suggestive text by LaBute.

The ideas for this exhibition began when Slota and LaBute started communicating via e-mail which developed into a series of menacing postcards titled, “Because the Darkness Feeds My Soul,” featured in Aperture magazine issue 196.

Image: Erwin Olaf, Roy, from ‘Paradise Portraits’, 2001/2002

During ArtPalmBeach, the Norton Museum of Art and the Palm Beach Photographic Centre present a special event and talk with the wildly entertaining W.M. Hunt, in conjunction with his new book, The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the Unconscious on Saturday, January 21, 11:00 am at Palm Beach Photographic Centre.

Visit Aperture’s booth at the fifteenth annual ArtPalmBeach and browse our latest selection of books, limited-edition photographs, and the new issue of Aperture magazine. Featured artists include Rinko Kawauchi, Jordan Tate, and Penelope Umbrico.
Friday, January 20, 2012–Monday, January 23, 2012

One day pass:
$10 in advance, $15 at the door
Multi-day pass:
$15 in dvance, $20 at the door
Children under 12 accompanied by adult, free

Palm Beach Convention Center
Booth 119
650 Okeechobee Boulevard
West Palm Beach, Florida

Plate 23, Poor Monuments, Aircraft, at right, is seen as it is about to fly into the World Trade Center in New York on Tuesday. The aircraft was the second to fly into the tower Tuesday morning, http://www.forrestmarketing.com/ worldtradecenters/attack.html, 2011, © Broomberg and Chanarin

Exhibition on view:
January 14–February 18, 2012

Galerie Gabriel Rolt
Elandsgracht 34
1016 TW Amsterdam
+31 (0) 20 78 55 146

Galerie Gabriel Rolt presents Poor Monuments, a series of 85 works on paper reappropriated from Bertolt Brecht’s book, War Primer. The UK-based team, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, identify images comparable to our present day from Brecht’s book. Instead of correlating them to World War II as Brecht did, they are revised to embody the “War on Terror.”

The contemporary representation is exemplified through a red box over Brecht’s original image. Here the titles of the source photograph and web address are stated rather than the image itself. In this vein, Broomberg and Chanarin question what has remained similar and what has changed in terms of the fabrication, utilization, and delivery of war photography.

Exhibited for the first time alongside Poor Monuments is Portable Monuments, a further analyzation of Brecht’s poems, where seemingly unsophisticated colored blocks are used to develop a code for investigating and dissecting the photographic image.

Broomberg and Chanarin have been featured in Aperture issues 185 and 204.

The Pear, 1983, © Larry Towell / Magnum Photos

Opening reception and book signing:
Saturday, January 21, 2012
2:00–4:00 pm

Exhibition on view:
Now through February 4, 2012

Michael Gibson Gallery
157 Carling Street
London, Ontario
Canada
(519) 439-0451

Two published bodies of work, The World From My Front Porch and The Mennonites are featured in Magnum photographer Larry Towell’s exhibition Close to Home at the Michael Gibson Gallery.

The inspiration for The World From My Front Porch materialized after being scolded by his father for inquiring about a road trip with friends. He was told that anywhere was too far to travel. Towell began documenting his family’s rural lifestyle in southern Ontario. This personal, sheltered depiction of the family farm and its residents concludes with him venturing beyond his doorway façade.

For over ten years, Towell has photographed the Mennonite population in Canada and Mexico for a series of photographs titled, The Mennonites. Making inimitable portraits of this often misunderstood community, he documents their poverty, desire for land and work, and the continuous effort to keep the modern world at bay.

Join Towell for the presentation of his personal video diary, Indecisive Moments, followed by a Q&A on January 28 at 2:00 pm.

His work has appeared in Aperture issues 202, 187, and 171.

‘‘ THE LATIN-AMERICAN PHOTOBOOK: THE BEST KEPT SECRET IN THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY. ‘‘ MARTIN PARR

FOTO/GRÁFICA
A NEW HISTORY OF THE LATIN-AMERICAN PHOTOBOOK
CURATOR : HORACIO FERNANDEZ
JANUARY 20 – APRIL 8, 2012
Coinciding with the newly released book The Latin American Photobook, an exhibition curated by Horacio Fernandez will premiere at Le Bal in Paris, featuring over forty photobooks produced between 1921 and 2012. After Paris Foto/grafica will travel to Ivory Press, Madrid, Spain; Aperture Gallery, New York; Buenos-Aires, Argentina.

The idea of seeking and presenting the best photobooks of Latin America was born during the 2007 Latin-American forum on photography in São Paulo. On this occasion we observed the critical lack of a cartography of the books published in the 20th century on the continent. A rigorous investigation was lead to offset this silence by a systematic rescue of unquestionably valuable works, result of a complex alchemy between many ingredients: images, sequence, text, layout, binding, printing quality… The research focused exclusively on photobooks published in Latin America by Latin-American authors involved in carrying out their work. During three years, through 19 countries from Cuba to Patagonia, we interviewed photographers, graphic artists, collectors, scholars, publishers, and sifted through their libraries and archives. Chasing the unknown on the scale of a continent has converted this investigation into a quest both breathtaking and electrifying. The result is surprising. Powerful, complex, troubling, often forgotten, cursed or secret books have emerged. Throughout the pages, unfolds ‘‘something that is part of caress, complaint, appeal, complicity, bitter denunciation’’ (Julio Cortazar). Finally, this critical study reveals the remarkable contribution of Latin America in world history of photobook.

Advisory committee : Marcelo Brodsky, Iata Cannabrava, Lesley Martin, Martin Parr, Ramon Reverté.
A full program of meetings, debates, performances, lectures and screenings will accompany this remarkable presentation.

Read more for details. (more…)

Anthony Esposito, Accused “Cop Killer,” 1941, © Weegee/International Center of Photography

Exhibition on view:
January 20–September 2, 2012

International Center of Photography
1133 Ave of the Americas
New York, NY
(212) 857-0000

Weegee’s nocturnal scenes of urban life, crime, and death will be on display at the International Center for Photography in an exhibition titled, Murder Is My Business, arranged by ICP Chief Curator Brian Wallis.

An extensive collection of Weegee’s photographs from 1935–1946 of blood-spattered New York crime scenes with haunting imagery of sheet-covered bodies and felons in handcuffs will be on view. Complimenting the show is an environmental replica of Weegee’s actual apartment and recreations of past exhibitions.

Weegee freelanced for a variety of New York newspapers and photo agencies. Tuning in to police radio bands, he would arrive to crime scenes minutes after incidents occurred. Fashioning a darkroom out of his car trunk, the grittiness of Weegee’s aesthetic and obsession with photojournalism is evident when observing his work.

Weegee’s images have been published in numerous issues of Aperture magazine, most recently in issue 201.

In conjunction with this exhibition, ICP will be offering “Weegee’s Night Walks” around New York City. More information can be found here.

Additionally, WEEGEE: Naked City is being exhibited at the Steven Kasher Gallery through February 25.