Hosts: Fred Ritchin, Deborah Willis, Stephen Mayes, Melissa Harris (Wafaa Bilal, not pictured)

Aperture’s inside-out  exhibition in-progress What Matters Now? opened in its final form last Saturday night. The five Hosts: Wafaa Bilal, Melissa Harris, Stephen Mayes, Deborah Willis and Fred Ritchin, had two weeks to transform the blank walls of their areas into Proposals for a New Front Page. Their collaborative efforts yielded thought-provoking, outrage-inducing and even hopeful statements about the current state of media and photography. In addition to discussions led by the Hosts, public involvement truly made the exhibition a community effort. The Public wall currently exhibits over one hundred submissions from people worldwide, and those that could not attend the Aperture Gallery space for events and lectures joined the conversation through Twitter, Facebook and the website. The unusual form of  the What Matters Now? exhibition was an experiment on Aperture’s part, but one that produced fascinating results. Using Aperture Gallery as a meeting hub, the goal of the exhibition was to start a conversation about what we are looking at, as a society, and why. The weeks’ events and Saturday’s well-attended opening demonstrates that many are concerned with issues regarding the media: particularly trust, engagement and active readership. Fred Ritchin, the creator of What Matters Now?, even plans to continue working on creating a new way of reading, collecting disseminating information.

Although the hosts are no longer adding to their walls, the Public Wall will continue to grow. You can submit images and text online here until Thursday, September 22, 2011.

What Matters Now?: Proposals for a New Front Page
through Saturday, September 24, 2011
10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th floor
New York, New York

“Having been a photo editor of the New York Times I worried about the credibility of pictures” Fred Ritchin told a packed audience at Aperture’s bookstore this past November while speaking on what inspired him to write his classic book of essays, recently reissued, In Our Own Image, “The idea of fact… of reference points, we don’t have them any more.”

In this three part podcast of Fred Ritchin and Brian Palmer’s public program, Ritchin talks about everything from plagarized journalism to Photoshop to the democratization of photojournalism in the digital age. When Brian Palmer, Ritchin’s colleague at NYU as well as a photojournalist asked Ritchin to discuss his hopes for the future of photojournalism, in his answer Ritchin muses “If one believes that people want the authentic at some level, you know either you want to fall in love, or you want to believe in god, or you want to eat something that’s real or you want to take a walk in the breeze, there’s something authentic that people want then why should imaging be outside the pale. Imaging also can be authentic, should be authentic.”

You can listen to the Fred Ritchin in Conversation with Brian Palmer Podcast here:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

To Download Parts 1 – 3 of the podcast click on the links below:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Photo by Robert Capa

This week at NYU, the International Center of Photography and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives will present a two-day symposium Committed Journalism, focusing on Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and Chim (David Seymour)’s photo reportage of the Spanish Civil War as well as photojournalism in a broader geographical and historical context.

The conference will kick off with panel discussion Photojournalism: Current Commitments with Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist Todd Heisler, New York Times Deputy Picture editor Meaghan Looram, Wall Street Journal Photo Editor Julien Jourdes, Photojournalist Julie Platner, MediaStorm founder Brian Storm, Photojournalist Walter Astrada and panel moderator Fred Ritchin of NYU. The Second day of the conference will feature respective panel’s The Mexican Suitcase and The Contents of the Suitcase featuring Curator of ICP exhibit The Mexican Suitcase Cynthia Young, ICP Chief Curator Brian Wallis, NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute’s Susie Linfield, ICP Associate curator Kristen Lubben, curator and scholar Carole Naggar, Oberlin College proffessor Sebastiaan Faber and panel moderators Jo Labanyi and Juan Salas of NYU. The conference will close on the second day with panel Photojournalism for Humanitarian Works featuring Doctor’s Without Border’s Jason Cone, Photojournalist Ashley Gilbertson, Human Rights Watch’s Emma Daly, and photojournalist Moises Saman.

Click here for more information about the Committed Photojournalism Symposium

Comitted Photojournalism
Day one: 6:00pm – 8:30pm December 2nd
Day two: 2:00pm – 8:30pm December 3rd, 2010

NYU
The King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, NYU
53 Washington Square South, Suite 201
New York, New York

photo by Paul Strand

The long awaited publication of Paul Strand in Mexico brings together photographs and documents never before published from a pivotal time is this seminal artist’s career. On the occasion of the release of this comprehensive volume and exhibition on view now, Aperture in association with The John B. Hurford ’60 Humanities Center at Haverford College has organized a two day symposium curated by scholar James Krippner, to take place at Aperture along with screenings of Strand’s films Manhatta & Redes taking place at the Cantor Film Center, NYU. This series of panels features prominent scholars and practitioners from the field discussing art historical context for this body of work by Strand from a number of perspectives. Join for any or all of the following discussions and events:

Friday, October 15
2:00 PM - Introduction by James Krippner

3:00 PM – Photographs as Historical Sources
Linda Gordon + John Mraz

4:30 PM – Strand, Mexico and Modernist Photography
Ester Gabara + Fred Ritchin

7:00 PM – Screening of Paul Strand’s Manhatta & Redes at the Cantor Film Center, NYU

Saturday, October 16th
2:00 PM – Photography in Mexico and United States Southwest
Anne Hammond + Leonard Folgarait

3:30 PM -Strand in the History of Photography
Mike Weaver + William Williams

5:00 PM – Final remarks by James Krippner

Aperture Foundation
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
New York, New York

Cantor Film Center, NYU
36 East 8th Street
New York, New York

All events are FREE and open to the public.

Click here for more information about the Paul Strand in Mexico Symposium

Click here to view new book Paul Strand in Mexico

Don McCullin is the acknowledged dean of war photographers, although it is a designation he does not easily accept. Working since the 1960s in Biafra, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Cyprus, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Vietnam, and elsewhere, he has created a body of images that reveal in intimate detail many of the agonizing ways in which atrocity can be visited. Today in his early seventies, McCullin is not content with his decades’ worth of photographs: in particular he decries their insufficient role in diminishing the very violence they depict—as evidenced by the title of one of his books on the Vietnam War, Is Anyone Taking Any Notice?, published in 1973. Although haunted by revulsion and guilt, he remains fascinated by photography and is driven to continue working. Recently married and with a young son, McCullin has lately been photographing landscapes in his native England as well as depicting the remains of the Roman Empire for a large-scale documentary project.

Part 1: Don McCullin and Fred Ritchin; from Aperture Foundation on Vimeo.

Fred Ritchin spoke with the photographer last September in New York City; here we present behind-the-scenes documentary clips of their conversation. A condensed version of this interview appeared in the Summer 2009 issue of Aperture.

Camera and editing by Dennis Nazarov
Sound by Hannah Weddel

Click more to view the entire interview.

(more…)

Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs, from the article The Artist Formerly Known as Fashion Photography

The Summer 2009 issue of Aperture, #195, is now on sale. Featuring a diverse and compelling array of images and writing from artists around the world, highlights include:

• The Difference A Painter Makes: Edward Hopper and Photography, notes by Jeffrey Fraenkel and Robert Adams on Hopper’s vision and its mark on photography.
• Daniel and Geo Fuchs: In the Halls of the Stasi, by Matthias Harder. A look at the now-quiet former headquarters of the East German secret police.
• Gay Men Play: Self-Representation, Sex, and Photography Now, by Chris Boot. Sexual identity explored through the medium of photography and on the Web.
• Maya Deren: A Life Choreographed for Camera, by Mark Alice Durant. Little-known photographs by the acclaimed avant-garde filmmaker.
• The Artist Formerly Known as Fashion Photography, by Jason Evans. Genre-bending photographers who are producing inventive fashion work.
• A Look at Look, by Mary Panzer. One of the twentieth century’s great picture magazines, brought back to light.
• Suyeon Yun: Homecoming. A selection from Yun’s project on American veterans of current and past wars.
• Don McCullin: Dark Landscapes, interview with Fred Ritchin. A photographer known for his unflinching visions of conflict and troubles discusses a long career.

And, coming soon to Exposures: video interviews with Don McCullin.

Click here to get a subscription and your own copy of this fabulous issue.

© Gilles Peress/Magnum Photos

For the past 25 years, the AIDS pandemic has inflicted excruciating pain upon humanity, having ravaged the lives of millions of people around the world. Over the past few years, however, a quiet global revolution has enabled millions infected by HIV to live healthy lives through the free antiretroviral treatment program initiated by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

In Access to Life, eight of the world’s leading photojournalists, all members of Magnum Photos, follow thirty individuals in nine countries before, and four months after, they began the antiretroviral treatment, documenting the transformative effect on their bodies, their lives, and the lives of their families. This dream team of photographers was assigned to the following countries: Jonas Bendiksen (Haiti), Jim Goldberg (India), Alex Majoli (Russia), Steve McCurry (Vietnam), Paolo Pellegrin (Mali), Gilles Peress (Rwanda), Eli Reed (Peru), and Larry Towell (South Africa and Swaziland). These powerful images reveal the patients’ complex struggle against the disease with great subtlety and hope.

Coinciding with the release of Access to Life (Aperture, Magnum Photos and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, April 2009), Aperture and The New School are pleased to present a compelling panel discussion with photojournalists Gilles Peress and Kristen Ashburn; Mark Lubell, the Bureau Chief for the Magnum Photos New York and former picture editor of Time magazine MaryAnne Golon; and moderator Fred Ritchin, Associate Chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and Director of PixelPress.

Following this panel discussion, Aperture will host a reception and book signing on Thursday, April 23 with Magnum photographers in attendance.

Access to Life: Photojournalism on AIDS
Panel Discussion
Wednesday, April 22, 7:00 pm

FREE

The New School
Tishman Auditorium
66 West 12th Street
New York, New York

Access to Life
Book Signing
Thursday, April 23, 7:00 pm

FREE

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

New Aperture magazine with Josef Koudelka, Duane Michals, Joel Sternfeld, and more!

On sale at newsstands now or click here to subscribe.

The fall issue of Aperture (issue 192) features:

Claudia Angelmaier: Reproduction Art
A reflection on the age of mechanical reproduction in the work of art by Brian Dillon.

Invasion 68: Prague by Josef Koudelka
An in-depth interview with Koudelka about his documentation of the Soviet-led invasion of Prague.

Walead Beshty: Piece By Piece
Jan Tumlir examines Beshty’s protean engagement with photography.

Leaving Kansas: A Look At Second Life
Fred Ritchin gives a tour of the Internet’s alternative to reality, Second Life, through the photographs of Michael Schmelling.

Framing the Presidency: The Evolution of the Campaign Image
Robert Hariman discusses how candidates have been depicted photographically over the past century.

Re-Viewing Rear Window
David Campany considers the role of photography in Hitchcock’s classic film.

Duane Michals: Chromophilia
Robert Kushner comments on a portfolio of Michals’s most recent work in color.

Hanatsubaki: Perfection is Lifeless
The long life of an adventurous Japanese magazine, by Jason Evans.

Joel Sternfeld: Oxbow Archive
Gretel Ehrlich looks at Sternfeld’s latest project in a meditation on seasonality in the age of climate change.

And be sure to catch the Invasion 68 Prague exhibition, photographs by Josef Koudelka, at Aperture Gallery in New York City September 4 – October 30, 2008.

Don McCullin, The Beatles, 1968. Courtesy and © Don McCullin/Contact Press Images

On the 40th anniversary of one of the most politically tumultuous years in history, Aperture magazine is pleased to present an online version of an article that first appeared in issue 171. With some of the most iconic images from that era and an essay by Fred Ritchin, the question remains: To what extent is photography still relevant today?

Click here for the web-exclusive feature.