Be sure to check out Australian artist Polixeni Papapetrou‘s latest exhibition at Foley Gallery. “Polixeni Papapetrou: Games of Consequence” will open on September 4th (a busy night for Aperture artists!) as does Aperture Gallery’s Invasion 68 Prague, photographs by Josef Koudelka, so be sure to catch both. Read the press release here, to learn more about exhibition and the artist’s work and her use of the Australian landscape and adolescent models to explore the concept of youth and the “wonderfully heterogeneous dimensions of childhood, where the fear and danger mix with the angelic.” Aperture magazine readers will recall that we featured the work of Papapetrou in Issue 184, Fall 2006, specifically, her series Haunted Country. “I tried to capture feelings about Australia, but also about children and their eternal vulnerability in both the natural and social orders,” states the artist. This is the second solo exhibition of Polixeni Papeptrou’s photography at Foley Gallery. Her first exhibition included work from the Haunted Country series.

Aperture is pleased to have a work from Polixeni Papapetrou still available in our limited-edition

photographs program from the Haunted Country series. Prints can be viewed in our limited-edition room, or email prints@aperture.org with any questions.

As promised, here is a sneak preview of the very special limited-edition photograph by Hank Willis Thomas that we will be unveiling as a new work in our Limited-Edition Photographs Program. Hank is the first recipient of the Aperture West Book Prize, and as a result his first monograph Pitch Blackness will be published by Aperture in October 2008. As René de Guzman writes of Willis Thomas in her essay contribution to Pitch Blackness, the artist is “most closely aligned with the pioneering African-American artists of the 1970′s and 1980′s, such as Carrie Mae Weems and Deborah Willis ( the artist’s mother, who is also an acclaimed photographer, scholar and curator), and his immediate predecessors Lorna Simpson, Glenn Ligon and Kara Walker.” The artist’s work deals with issues of grief, black-on-black violence in America, the ways in which corporate culture is complicit in the crises of black male identity and how advertising and the media represent African Americans. With his characteristic pointedness and dark humor informed by his personal experiences, Hank Willis Thomas is one of the most compelling emerging artists working today. Aperture is looking forward to bringing his work to a wider audience. Keep checking the website for print availability or email prints@aperture.org with inquiries.

Artist Hank Willis Thomas celebrated a great week last week, starting off with his work being on the cover of New York Magazine, which featured his illustration of Barack Obama and getting to look at advance copies of his first monograph, Pitch Blackness, which will be released by Aperture in October 2008. Hank Willis Thomas was selected as the winner of the first Aperture West Book Prize, an Aperture initiative announced in January 2007 to raise awareness of Western-based photographers in the United States. The artist has gained wide recognition with his highly provocative series B®ANDED, which addresses the commodification of African-American male identity by raising questions about visual culture and the power of logos. The monograph is a virtual tour-de-force which visually deals with the senseless murder of the artist’s young cousin Songha Willis, the issues of grief, black-on-black violence in America and the ways in which corporate culture is complicit in the crises of black male identity and culminating in his latest series Unbranded- in which Willis Thomas examines advertising and media representation of African-Americans. Hank Willis Thomas is one of the most compelling emerging artists of today and we are pleased to let our devoted blog readers know that we will be introducing a print by Hank in our limited-edition photographs program. Stay tuned! For additional information on the artist you can view his website.

We wanted to give our devoted blog readers a little inside scoop and a sneak peak at the new Limited-Edition Photograph created by Thomas Allen expressly for Aperture. We will be releasing this work later in the summer. To create Suspended, 2008 exclusively for Aperture’s Limited-Edition Photographs program, American artist Thomas Allen selected the pulpiest of pulp paperbacks and then lovingly sliced out the cover figures, folding them into position and constructing the witty scene that he then photographs. We were thrilled that Thomas agreed to participate in our program ( a big thank you to Michael Foley of Foley Gallery, who represents Thomas Allen’s work in New York for also thinking it was a good idea ) , and even more thrilled that he decided to create a work expressly for Aperture. States the artist, “this image makes me laugh every time I see it. I found the book with the woman seated at a desk some time ago, but didn’t have a clue as to what to do with it. I didn’t find a “mate” until I began thinking about the limited-edition print ideas for Aperture. Truth be told, I found two books – one I used and this one:

but I felt it didn’t spark the tension like the one in the final print does-two coeds schooling us on the primal art of getting noticed.”

Allen enjoys taking on different roles in creating his photographs, ” in addition to being a photographer, I play talent scout, casting director, stage manager, lighting supervisor, and film editor.” He photographs these vignettes in shallow focus, with a four-by-five inch camera, rendering his prints with the dreamy effect reminiscent of the View-Master stereoscopic toy that inspired him from his childhood. Aperture proudly published his debut monograph Uncovered in 2007. This print will be coming to the Aperture website soon so be sure to sign up for notification online so you know when it will be available.