Aperture aggregates the best posts from this past week in the photography blogosphere.

• Art Nouveau magazine interviews artist Hank Willis Thomas, of the monograph Pitch Blackness (Aperture 2008) whose transmedia installation Question Bridge: Black Males is still on view at three different locations around the country, on his latest body of work Strange Fruit which makes ”vivid comparisons of black perception between the pre-slavery era and post-Civil Rights Movement.”
• Joerg Colberg posts on Conscientious Extended about “How To Make a Photobook,” though he admits early on, “My headline is slightly disingenuous: There actually is no simple recipe for photobook making.”
• New York Times‘ Lens blog does a Q&A with Mexico City-based photographer Dominic Bracco II about one of his images “showing death with humanity and dignity,” as well as the Eugene Richards’ photograph from the series “Below the Line: Living Poor in America,” which inspired him.
• Jess Dudley, Wonderful Machine Producer, posts a very informative piece on APhotoEditor, “Pricing and Negotiating – Non-Fiction Book Cover,” in an attempt to elucidate the often murky realm of reproduction rights through a real-life annecdote.
• New Yorker‘s Photobooth profiles “Lost & Found: Salvaging Snapshots in Japan,” with a slideshow of the recovered family photographs from the Japanese town of Yamamoto devastated by the tsunami one year ago, featured in Aperture issue 206, and on view at Aperture Gallery April 2, 2012 – April 27, 2012.
• Time’s Lightbox profiles the independent photo project on Afghanistan (Danger and Aftermath, on view at Museum London in Southwestern Ontario through April 1, 2012),  by Magnum photographer Larry Towell, who’s work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine Photographs (Aperture 2011) and Access to Life (Aperture/Magnum Photos/The Global Fund 2009).
• NPR’s The Picture Show takes “A Peak Inside the Copy Cat Building: Where Baltimore Artists Work – And Live.” Alex Wein and Rob Brulinski’s photographs portray the living spaces of over 100 eclectic new tenants of a building which once housed Copy Cat printing, and was the birthplace of the Crown Cork bottle cap, “a worldwide standard for the beer and soda industries.”

After Identity, What?, 2011 © Hank Willis Thomas

Aperture is pleased to present a new limited-edition photograph by Hank Willis Thomas. After Identity, What? is part of the artist’s 1969 series. MoMA PS1 invited Hank Willis Thomas and other artists to respond to the year 1969, a period marked with revolution and socio-political tumult. The artists made work utilizing images from magazines of the period and juxtaposed them with text derived from the same publications. The resulting pieces demonstrate the concerns and social values of the era and reflect a historical perspective only the passage of time can provide.

Aperture also published Willis Thomas’s first monograph Pitch Blackness (2008), and then released the now sold-out limited-edition photograph, Black Power.

Read FLYP interview with Hank Willis Thomas.

Read an interview with Hank in Art in America Magazine.

Image by Daniel Gordon

Daniel Gordon Artist Talk at Aperture

Artist Daniel Gordon will discuss his large-scale color photographs and unique process at Aperture tomorrow as part of the Parsons Lecture series. Gordon’s work was most recently featured in MoMA/PS1′s Greater NY show. The artist’s collage imagery which has been described by Conscientious blog’s Joerg Colberg as falling in the “somewhat disturbing part of the spectrum,” has been exhibited internationally in museums and galleries.

Parsons Lecture Series: Daniel Gordon
6:30 PM, Tuesday, November 30th

Aperture Gallery and Bookstore
547 West 27th Street
New York, New York

Image by Hank Willis Thomas

A Conversation with Leslie Hewitt and Hank Willis Thomas

Tomorrow evening at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, artists Leslie Hewitt and Hank Willis Thomas will appear in conversation with Eva Respini, associate curator of MoMA’s photography department. This talk is the latest installment of the museum’s panel discussion series Conversations: Among Friends which brings artists, scholars and curators together in consideration of Art’s political and social contexts. Leslie Hewitt, was featured in Aperture published essay collection Words Without Pictures. Hank Willis Thomas’ monograph Pitch Blackness was released by Aperture in 2008.

Click here to buy tickets

A Conversation with Leslie Hewitt and Hank Willis Thomas
November 30, 6:45 pm doors,

The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street
New York, New York

Image by Richard Misrach

Richard Misrach at SF Camerawork

Richard Misrach’s book tour for recent release and critically acclaimed publication Destroy This Memory continues tomorrow night at SF Camerawork in San Francisco. Recently called a “Masterpiece” by writer Geoff Dyer in the Financial Times, Destroy This Memory presents an affecting reminder of the physical and psychological impact of Hurricane Katrina capturing the grafitti and messages scrawled by survivor’s on walls during the Hurricane’s tragic aftermath. The talk will be followed by a book signing and artist’s reception.

Lecture and Book Signing with Richard Misrach
November 30th, 7:00 pm

SF Camerawork
657 Mission Street 2nd Floor
San Francisco, CA

Believe It by Hank Willis Thomas

Aperture’s 2010 Benefit and Auction print list features an eclectic roster of established and emerging artists who have or are making their mark in contemporary art. Included in this year’s Silent Auction, Aperture is pleased to present an exciting recent work by artist Hank Willis Thomas. Thomas, whose critically acclaimed monograph Pitch Blackness was released by Aperture in 2008, is perhaps best known for his internationally exhibited series Unbranded which deconstructs the representation of African Americans in advertisements made over a forty year span. Thomas’ newest body of work Fair Warning emerged from the making of Unbranded and highlights the visual dynamics of cigarette ads aimed at an African American audience whom have been historically disproportionately targeted by the tobacco industry. The images in Fair Warning are re-appropriated by Thomas using the same technique as Unbranded, logos are removed, text is left in snippets that transform intention juxtaposed with the model’s nonchalant hand gestures sans cigarettes and a consideration of the depiction of blackness being marketed.

Hank Willlis Thomas is also co-chairing Aperture’s first ever SNAP! Benefit Party which will follow the annual Benefit and Auction dinner along with Carolyn Francis and Giovanni Tomaselli of Polaroid, sponsor of SNAP! Hosted by Aperture’s SNAP! Young Patrons Program, this event will include an Emerging Artists Auction, the music stylings of DJs AJ Slim, Tim Barber of Tinyvices.com and Jeannie Hopper of LiquidSoundLounge.com and ARTonAIR.org, special raffle prizes and a tasty buffet of light bites.

Click here for more information and to purchase tickets to the SNAP! Benefit Party

Click here for more information and to purchase tickets to the Benefit and Auction dinner

Click here to view the Auction Catalog. Online bidding starts on October 18.

As a contemporary photographer protesting the existing order, Hank Willis Thomas has emerged as the voice of his generation. Using razor sharp insight and complex considerations, his work in Pitch Blackness re-inscribes the deep structure and the continued importance of identity politics. Thomas’s monograph, published by the Aperture Foundation, is a compilation of his numerous photographic series. Hank Willis Thomas will speak on Pitch Blackness this evening at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts in Brooklyn, New York.

Click here to purchase your copy of Pitch Blackness through Aperture at a special Holiday price!

Hank Willis Thomas: Pitch Blackness
Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts
Thursday, December 10, 2009  6:30—8:30 pm
80 Hanson Place
Brooklyn, New York
(718) 230-0492

Join Aperture West Prize winner Hank Willis Thomas for an Artist’s Talk at B&H in New York City, followed by a book signing of his Aperture monograph Pitch Blackness. Hank employs the language of popular culture and advertising in his work to speak explicitly about race, class and history in a way that is accessible and easy to decode. During his lecture at the B&H Event Space, he will discuss his work as an exploration of the affects of past visual culture as it intersects with our current world view – often creating correlations between African American historical challenges and the present. Come discover how Hank creates images that bring history forward with relevance to our experience of race, class and gender as conditioned by popular culture.

Click here to register for this event

Click here to purchase your copy of Pitch Blackness through Aperture
Pitch Blackness: A Look at Past and Present Visual Culture Presented by Hank Willis Thomas
Sunday, November 15,  1:00—3:00 pm

FREE

B&H Photo Video
420 Ninth Avenue, New York
(212) 239-7500

126, an artist-run gallery in Ireland presents Aperture West Winner Hank Willis Thomas in a solo exhibition titled, It’s About Time, in following with the artist’s solo show at New York’s Jack Shainman Gallery this spring, and his first monograph Pitch Blackness published by Aperture Foundation last fall. Through his preoccupation with visual language and by utilizing materials commonly used in mass-media, Thomas presents a range of works from the last eight years in a retrospective fashion. As a whole, his work offers a history of the visual representation of African-Americans by exploring and often inverting iconic components of the “black past” that speak to the overarching complexities of race in the 21st century United States. More universally, Thomas’ work questions the role of media in creating a visual representation of identity.

Click here to purchase your copy of Hank Willis Thomas’ first monograph Pitch Blackness through Aperture.

Click here to purchase a limited-edition print from Hank Willis Thomas through Aperture.

It’s About Time
Hank Willis Thomas
Wednesday, July 15—Saturday, August 15th, 2009
126
Queen St., Galway, Ireland
091569871

Last week, Hank Willis Thomas met with the Aperture interns and gave them a special tour of his exhibition Pitch Blackness at Jack Shainman Gallery. Hank spoke about his newest works since publishing his first monograph, Pitch Blackness, both of which address complex questions about identity and race in America through diverse mediums. The interns engaged with the show and were invited to view the private part of the gallery housing the artist’s portrait of President Obama, Breakfast of Champion. The work was made in collaboration with Ryan Alexiev, and was recently sold at the Armory Show.

We are currently receiving applications for the July-December 2009 Internship session so check out details on our website here. Young graduates from the United States and around the world can apply for an exciting and thorough experience in the editing, design, production, circulation, sales, and marketing of photography’s most significant publications; the development of major traveling exhibitions; the creation of web content; and all other business operations essential to a non-profit organization. The closing deadline to submit your application is April 1!

Tuesday, November 11th at Aperture Gallery, distinguished scholar, curator, artist, and author of Obama: The Historic Campaign in Photographs Deborah Willis and her son, Hank Willis Thomas, photographer and winner of the first ever Aperture West Book Prize for his recently released monograph Pitch Blackness, sat down for an intimate discussion about their family and artistic histories. Together, they outlined the relationship they share as mother and son and as fellow artists.

One of the questions that arose after the presentation was how Deborah, as a central figure in African American studies feels about Michelle Obama as a new role model in the American political and social landscape.

Listen to a clip of her response here.

In case you missed the event you can watch the video recording of the entire discussion here.

Join us for an intimate conversation between mother and son about their work, influences, and collaborations. Hank Willis Thomas is one of today’s most compelling emerging artists. His first monograph, Pitch Blackness (Aperture), raises complex questions about identity, race, violence, and commodification in contemporary life. Deborah Willis is a photographer, educator, author, and curator. She is currently chair and professor of photography and imaging at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and the coauthor or the recently released title Obama: The Historic Campaign In Photographs (Harper Collins). Both will be available to sign their respective books following the conversation.

Tuesday, November 11, 6:30 p.m.

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

FREE

Can’t make it to Aperture Gallery? Watch tonight on Aperture Live!