Dave Anderson has photographed in tough places—a surviving Ku Klux Klan bastion in Texas, New Orlean’s post-Katrina Ninth Ward—but his photographs are rarely gritty. His Aperture monograph One Block, which documents the rebuilding efforts of one block of Ninth Ward residents, focuses less on the neighborhood’s despair and more on its hopes for renewal. Anderson knew that to photograph amidst such hardship he would have to tread lightly: “I was super-cognizant of ‘photographers fatigue’–people were sick of photographers showing up night and day and making grand promises,” he mentioned in a Color magazine profile. That Anderson spent time living and forming relationships with the residents he photographed is evident in the work—the subjects appear at ease, comfortable sharing their struggle to rebuild with Anderson and his lens.

Anderson produces videos as well as photographs—he is the man behind Oxford American’s SoLost web series, a video exploration of “the side roads, backrooms, cellars and psyche of the modern South,” which so far features 29 four-to-seven minute mini-documentaries on subjects ranging from a couple constructing a medieval castle in Arkansas, to Alabama menswear designer Billy Reid, to photographer William Eggleston. SoLost is a one-man operation, which accounts for the easy rapport between Anderson’s camera and his subjects, and why these videos feel like privileged glimpses into the richness and diversity of life in the American South.

Anderson will give a lecture about his image-making projects at The Center for Photography at Woodstock, this Friday, July 13 at 8pm. If you’re in the area, it will be worth checking out.

›› Watch a video of Anderson speaking about One Block with Aperture, and head to the Aperture store if you’re interested in purchasing a copy.

The Latin American Photobook, edited by Horacio Fernández and published by Aperture, has been awarded the historical book award at the Rencontres d’Arles photography festival. The volume, a blend of bibliography, facsimile, and encyclopedia, offers a critical study of the most important photography books to come out of Latin America, from the 1920s to today. Along with Aperture’s The Dutch Photobook: A Thematic Selection from 1945 Onwards and Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ’70s, The Latin American Photobook is part of a growing body of scholarship on the photobook and its place in photographic history.

Jonathan Torgovnik won the Rencontres d’Arles Discovery prize for Intended Consequences—his portraits of women and their children who were born of rape in the Rwandan genocide—which was published by Aperture in 2009. Watch an excerpt of a panel discussion with Torgovnik, and read an interview with the photographer on FLYP. Intended Consequences and limited-edition prints of Torgovnik’s work are available for up to 35% off as part of Aperture’s summer sale, until midnight EST, August 10, 2012.

Check out The Guardian for more coverage of the Rencontres d’Arles festival prizes.

“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

In this clip, Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi speaks about the work from her Aperture monograph, Illuminance, with Aperture publisher and editor of the book, Lesley A. Martin. Kawauchi explains how she is interested in revealing the universal cycles of life through the ordinary existence of her family. She also touches on the sequencing and the palette of her images, how they express her own half-awake, half-asleep reality. Finally, they discuss the collaboration process in making this hybrid book combining both Japanese and Western influences.

This excerpt is edited from a conversation between Rinko Kawauchi and Lesley A. Martin which took place at Aperture Gallery on May 18, 2011, on the occasion of the release of Kawauchi’s monograph, Illuminance.

Rinko Kawauchi’s work has frequently been lauded for its nuanced palette and offhand compositional mastery, as well as her wonder-inspiring, deliberate attention to tiny gestures and the incidental details of her everyday environment. In Illuminance, Kawauchi continues her exploration of the extraordinary in the mundane, drawn to the fundamental cycles of life and the seemingly inadvertent, fractal-like organization of the natural world into formal patterns.

Click here to purchase the book Illuminance

Click here to view and purchase Kawauchi’s limited-edition print

The Wild Project is pleased to present an exhibition of limited-edition prints produced by Aperture Foundation. Aperture Foundation is a leading photography non-profit dedicated to promoting photography in all its forms based in Chelsea. The exhibition focuses on contemporary artists whose work, in many cases, has been featured in Aperture Magazine, Aperture books, in exhibitions at Aperture Gallery or have been winners of the Portfolio Prize contest. This exhibition features Michel Campeau, Maureen Drennan, Doug DuBois, JH Engström, Todd Hido, Kalle Kataila, Mark Lyon, Edgar Martins, and Bas Princen.

Aperture Foundation is proud to have one of the longest running limited-edition print and portfolio programs in the United States. The print program started in the 1960’s with collaborations between the master photographers Paul Strand and later with Edward Steichen. The print program expanded over the years to offer richly diverse editions and portfolios to art lovers and collectors. Today the program works with several artists’ estates and presents prints that range from masters of the medium, to established contemporary artists and finally highlights many emerging artists of tomorrow. Proceeds from the sales benefit the artists and helps maintain the quality of Aperture’s publications and public programming. The print program supports the organization’s non-profit mission to advance photography in all its forms.

May 11–September 7, 2011
Opening Reception: Wednesday, June 29, 6-8pm

Wild Project
195 East 3rd Street
New York, NY 10009

Image: My Sister’s bedroom by Doug Dubois, 2004, courtesy Doug Dubois

In this clip, photographer Simone Rosenbauer speaks about her Small Museums in Australia project documenting the collections and people behind these town museums.

reGeneration2: tomorrow’s photographers today exhibition is now on view at the Centro de las Artes in Monterrey, Mexico through July 17.

Following the worldwide critical acclaim of the book and exhibition reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow in 2005, a breakthrough publication for artists such as Pieter Hugo or Nathalie Czech, Aperture Foundation and Musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne, Switzerland, have collaborated on a new edition. This second volume and exhibition–the broadest survey of its kind–features the works of eighty up-and-coming photographers selected from 120 of the world’s top photography schools.

Click here to purchase the accompanying publication of reGeneration2: Tomorrow Photographer’s Today

Penelope Umbrico (photographs) offers a radical reinterpretation of everyday consumer and vernacular images. As the artist describes, she works “within the virtual world of consumer marketing and social media, traveling through the relentless flow of seductive images, objects, and information that surrounds us, searching for decisive moments—but in these worlds, decisive moments are cultural absurdities.”

Join us in celebrating the first monograph of artist Penelope Umbrico along with a reading by poet Rob Fitterman and a conversation with Virginia Rutledge, Vice President and General Counsel of Creative Commons.

Wednesday, June 15, 6:30 pm
FREE

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

Click here to purchase the book Penelope Umbrico (photographs).

Join Verna Curtis, curator of photography in the Prints & Photographs Division of the Library of Congress; photographer Duane Michals, as well as Aperture Editor Denise Wolff to discuss the illustrated history of a mode of presentation that became an art form in itself—a history that has seen radical shifts in the role of handmade artists’ objects. This panel takes place on the occasion of the release of Photographic Memory: The Album in the Age of Photography which traces the rise of the album from the turn of the century to the present day, showcasing some of the most important examples in the history of the medium, as collected by the Library of Congress.

Aperture Gallery and Bookstore

Tuesday, June 14, 6:30 pm

Free

Click here to purchase the book Photographic Memory: The Album in the Age of Photography

Join Jane Hilton at Aperture for an artist talk, book signing, and reception on the release of her new book Dead Eagle Trail, published by Schilt Publishing.

After a two-decade-long love affair with US subject matter, Jane Hilton stumbled upon the inspiration for her latest work during one of her many road trips across the western states of America. The title of her book and exhibition refers to her discovery of a dead Golden Eagle in the middle of the road in Nevada. The experience inspired her to document and explore one of the most iconic, romantic archetypes of American culture and history, the cowboy.

Dead Eagle Trail marks Hilton’s empathetic portrayal of the cowboy of the twenty-first century. Unlike previous expositions of the American West, her subjects are photographed within their own personal environments, surrounded by their collections of artifacts and memorabilia. Hilton’s work is a reminder of simpler times, set apart from the technological trappings of modern life.

Artist Talk and Book Signing: Thursday, May 26, 6:30 pm

Aperture Gallery and Bookstore

An exhibition of this series is also on view at Nayla Alexander Gallery. This will be Jane Hilton’s first solo exhibition in New York, featuring twenty color photographs, all taken by a 4 x 5 inch camera.

Installation shot of Sleeping Soliders by Tim Hetherington. Image taken with SONY a33 DLSR Camera and Lens, generously donated by Sony USA

In remembrance of Tim Hetherington, photographer, reporter, and filmmaker, Aperture is honored to present his Sleeping Soldiers video installation and his Diary video, from Wednesday, May 25 through Thursday, June 23.

Tim Hetherington was killed in Misurata, Libya, on April 20, 2011, during an attack by pro-Qaddafi forces on the rebel-held town. His funeral took place in London on May 13 and in New York, May 24.

Sleeping Soldiers (5 minutes, 2009) is an immersive video essay, shot at the same time as the film Restrepo, featuring soldiers of a U.S. Airborne Infantry platoon based in the Korengal Valley of Eastern Afghanistan, in combat, and asleep. The original three-screen installation was first shown in New York in 2009 at the New York Photo Festival, in an exhibition curated by Jon Levy.

Diary (19 minutes, 2010) is a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of Hetherington’s working life, and was made as an attempt to find himself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our Western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media.

Both videos were shot and directed by Tim Hetherington, with editing and sound design by Magali Charrier.

Hetherington’s family and friends have suggested that donations in his memory be made to the three charities that Tim felt most strongly about: Human Rights Watch, the independent organization dedicated to defending and protecting human rights, for which he worked regularly; Committee to Protect Journalists; and Milton Margai School for the Blind in Sierra Leone, where Hetherington photographed and worked with students, who had been intentionally blinded by the Revolutionary United Force. Donations to these charities will be accepted at Aperture during the screening of his videos.

Tim Hetherington was born in Liverpool, UK, in 1970. He studied literature at Oxford University and later returned to college to study photojournalism. He lived in New York and was a contributing photographer for Vanity Fair magazine. He was known for creating diverse forms of visual communication and his work has ranged from multiscreen installations, to fly-poster exhibitions, to handheld device downloads. Known for his long-term documentary work, Hetherington lived and worked in West Africa for eight years and reported on social and political issues worldwide.

As a filmmaker, he worked as both a cameraman and director/producer. He was a cameraman on Liberia: An Uncivil War (2004) and The Devil Came on Horseback (2007), and his directorial debut, Restrepo (codirected with Sebastian Junger), was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and shortlisted for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, in 2011.

He authored and published two books of photographs: Long Story Bit by Bit: Liberia Retold (Umbrage Editions, 2009), and Infidel (Chris Boot, 2010).

He was the recipient of numerous awards, including a Fellowship from the National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts (2000–2004), a Hasselblad Foundation grant (2002), four World Press Photo prizes, including the World Press Photo of the Year 2007, the Rory Peck Award for Features (2008), and an Alfred I. duPont award (2009).