The irony is not lost on me—as a photo-editor who has devoted many years to a medium known for stilling, or capturing, time, decisive or otherwise—that I should be equally consumed by another medium, one that defies any notion of “capture,” that I am seduced by dance’s very impermanence, especially in the case of Merce Cunningham. Cunningham’s choreography never leaves even a storyline to hang onto in its wake, but rather evinces a kind of isness, as if each dance has an ineffable essence that might somehow be touched, experienced, and that remains vital and resonant long after the curtain falls, so that endings are somehow intangible.

Cunningham’s sensibility was as much about time as about space—or, better, it was about the coexistence of the two and, unlike what transpires in much photography, time is liberated from illustration in a Cunningham dance. Things don’t have to happen in any narrative sense. Time is more about duration—which is in part why John Cage, and the other composers with whom Cunningham collaborated, had such freedom. In photography, conversely, the precise moment at which a picture is created may make all the difference—from evidentiary images to sports coverage to street shots to dance photography.

Which gets me thinking about the ephemeral—an idea that rarely pertains to the photographic object. (more…)

Aperture has long been recognized as an excellent source for quality traveling exhibitions to museums, university galleries, libraries, and art centers around the world.  The foundation has a prestigious roster of exhibitions available at any given time, currently there are ten different exhibitions moving around the world and another four that are currently in development. These exhibitions reflect the diversity of our book program including monographic exhibitions from masters of the medium such as Bruce Davidson and Alex Webb to exciting group shows including The New York Times Magazine Photographs, a never before seen collection of some of the greatest photography ever published in the Magazine and reGeneration 2 a  introduction to the most promising photographers of the next generation. See below for more details on where our exhibitions are currently on view.

Dawoud Bey: Class Pictures

Dawoud Bey’s Class Pictures are portraits of American adolescence across the social, economic and racial spectrum. Now on display at Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh, PA, the 40 x 30 inch color prints are paired with page-long statements written by the subjects–sometimes touching, sometimes funny, sometimes harrowing–that deepen our understanding of the most awkward age.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012–Saturday, March 10, 2012

Silver Eye Center for Photography
1015 East Carson Street
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
(412) 431-1810

The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography

The Ronna and Eric Hoffman Gallery at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR presents The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Color Photography. Photographs and photo-based installations, many exhibited for the first time, “explore the territory of ‘undisclosed’ or abstract imagery in all its forms.” Single-artist installations examine the photographic process and visual culture in an effort to discover new optical possibilities and meaning-making.

Thursday, January 19, 2012–Sunday, March 18, 2012

Ronna and Eric Hoffman Gallery, Lewis and Clark College
0615 S.W. Palantine Hill Rd.
Portland, Oregon
(503) 768-7687

Chuck Close: A Couple of Ways of Doing Something

In Witchita, KA, the Witchita Art Museum presents A Couple of Ways of Doing Something—fifteen of Chuck Close’s intimate daguerreotype portraits of influential contemporary artists alongside Bob Holman’s beautifully typeset poems.  In addition, Close a curator has included examples of his other works taken from each daguerreotype in a variety of media, including tapestries and photogravures.

Sunday, January 29, 2012–Sunday, April 15, 2012

Wichita Art Museum
1400 West Museum Boulevard
Wichita, Kansas
(316) 268-4980

We update all traveling exhibition schedules on a regular basis on our website here and here.  Please feel free to contact Annette Booth, Exhibitions Manager at 212.946.7128 or at abooth@aperture.org for further information on hosting an exhibition at your venue!

Carrie Levy, Untitled from “Domestic Stages,” 2004. Courtesy the artist.

The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the W. M. Hunt Collection is now on view at the George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film. This is the largest exhibition in the museum’s history with more than 500 “magical images of people in which the eyes cannot be seen” and is the first major U.S. showing of The Unseen Eye. The featured works range from daguerreotype to digital by photographers such as Berenice Abbot, Richard Avedon, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Irving Penn, among many more. This exhibition coincides with the release of the stunning Aperture publication The Unseen Eye.

Unseen in “The Unseen Eye,” An Evening with Susan Bright and W. M. Hunt
Wednesday, October 12, 2011, 7 pm
SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd St, New York, New York
Free and open to the public

The Unseen Eye: A Life in Photographs and other digressions …
a multi-media performance piece with W.M. Hunt
Friday, October 28, 2011, 7 pm
Aperture Gallery, 547 West 27th Street, New York, New York
Free and open to the public but please RSVP at rsvp@aperture.org

W.M. Hunt is a champion of photography— a collector, curator, consultant, writer, teacher, and fundraiser who lives and works in New York City. He was a founding partner of the prominent photography gallery Hasted Hunt in Chelsea, Manhattan and served as director of photography at Ricco/Maresca gallery. His new book The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the Unconscious (Aperture) focuses on Collection Dancing Bear, currently his largest collection of photographs.

Exhibition on view: Saturday, October 1, 2011–Sunday, February 19, 2012

Museum admission: $12 adults, $10 seniors, and $5 students

George Eastman House
900 East Avenue
Rochester, New York
(585) 271-3361

Click here to find W.M Hunt’s book, The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the Unconscious (Aperture), now on sale!

Read Elizabeth Avedon’s interview with W.M. Hunt about his collection in La Lettre de la Photographie. Find out more about her visit on her blog.

Paris Street View #7, 2009. © Michael Wolf

Hail Traveler! The Photographer as Tourist, and the Tourist as Subject

Exhibition on View:
July 7–August 12, 2011

Rick Wester Fine Art:
511 W 25th Street, Suite 205
New York, NY
(212) 255-5560

The new exhibit at RWFA, Hail Traveler! The Photographer as Tourist, and the Tourist as Subject, focuses on the wandering spirit of photography. The exhibit features an eclectic group of photographers, including artists published by Aperture: Robert Adams has been featured in several issues of Aperture (most recently 180) and his Aperture books include Along Some Rivers, Summer Nights, and The New West; the work of Richard Avedon was featured in issue 188 and the upcoming book The Unseen Eye; Hiroshi Sugimoto’s was featured in issue 178 and he contributed an essay to the book Setting Sun; and Aperture offers Michael Wolf’s book The Transparent City and three of his limited-edition prints A039, TC Composite #1, and Nine Rooms.

Robert Frank
Rodeo, New York City, 1954, printed c. 1954

Great Photographs of the 20th Century: From the Street will feature work by Robert Adams, Richard Avedon, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Abbas Kiarostami, Lisette Model and Gary Winogrand.

Exhibition on view
May 19 – July 1, 2011

Reception and Panel Discussion:
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Reception at 5:30 pm
Panel discussion at 6:30 pm

Hasted Kraeutler
537 West 24th Street
New York, NY

LaToya Ruby Frazier (Save Our Community Hospital) Campaign for UPMC Braddock Hospital 2011

Always The Young Strangers

Higher Pictures presents Always the Young Strangers, an exhibition of 17 young artists. The exhibition is modeled after and takes its name from a show curated by Edward Steichen at the Museum of Modern Art in 1953. The work in our show is cohesive, chaotic and expansive. The artists are highly tuned-in, producing work that vaporizes the traditional 20th century approach to medium and style. For the artist today, these have entered the hyper-real – they leave us only with references to medium and style. Aided by technologies beyond the camera, their art discloses a hybridized world made by hand. Collectively this work feels and speaks of individuality and possibility.

Erica Allen, Cortney Andrews, Talia Chetrit, Jessica Eaton, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Anna Krachey, Jessica Labatte, Andrea Longacre-White, Aspen Mays, MPA + Katherine Hubbard, Yamini Nayar, Emily Roysdon, Carrie Schneider, Kate Steciw, Letha Wilson, Ann Woo.

Higher Pictures
764 Madison Avenue
New York

Opening reception: Thursday May 19, 6 – 9 pm
Exhibition on view: May 19 through July 9, 2011

Arthur Ou, untitled (Screen Test 1) 2007, courtesy the artist

The exhibition Undressing the World presented by Conveyor will feature Aaron Gustafson, Arthur Ou, Christine Shank, David Horvitz, Elizabeth Bick, George Pitts, Haley Bueschlen, Hrvoje Slovenc, Laura Bell, Leif Huron, Nicholas Alan Cope, Penelope Umbrico, Simone Douglas, Claudia Sohrens, Sophie Barbasch, Stephen Cardinal, and Sylvia Hardy.

The launch party will kick off with a performance by Hypercolor.

Conveyor will be hosting a series of artist talks, live music and perhaps even performance art throughout the weekend at 25CPW.

Stay tuned to our website for more details: www.conveyorarts.org

Conveyor is an organization dedicated to supporting photographic-based artists, through the production and circulation of new works in the medium. In partnership with Conveyor Print Space, we provide artists with opportunities for printing, exhibition and publication.

The Conveyor Magazine Issue One {Curiosities} includes Review on the Photographic Universe Conference: Images and Writing from Arthur Ou, Penelope Umbrico, Andrea Geyer, Wafaa Bilal, Lorne Blythe, Daniel Small, Luca Antonucci and Simone Douglas.

Click here to purchase the Penelope Umbrico Photographs book.

Primary Photographic Gallery is pleased to present “2001″ an exhibition of photographs by New York photographer Tim Barber.

Opening reception: Thursday, May 19th, 6-10pm

Exhibition on view: May 19th – June 15th

Tim Barber grew up in Amherst Massachusetts, lived for a few years in the mountains of Northern Vermont, studied photography in Vancouver B.C. and now lives in New York City. A photographer, curator and designer, Barber runs the online gallery and image archive tinyvices.com, where visitors are encouraged to submit their photographs and artwork. He is represented in the US and UK by Webber Represents.

Following this show Barber will be curating a series of solo exhibitions for Primary Photographic Gallery featuring the artists Asger Carlsen, Brooke Smith, Greg Halpern and Kate Steciw. Stay tuned for schedule information.

Primary Photographic Gallery
195 Chrystie St.
New York, NY 10002