Michael Famighetti

Aperture issue 229 will explore photography as it relates to transgender lives, histories, and communities. Guest edited by Zackary Drucker, the artist, activist, and producer of the television series Transparent , the issue will feature archival work and new photography by leading contemporary photographers.

Why did Henri Cartier-Bresson nearly have a posthumous exhibition while still alive? What led Stephen Shore to work with color? Why was Sophie Calle accused of stealing Vermeer's The Concert? And what is Susan Meiselas's take on Instagram and the future of online storytelling? Aperture Conversations presents a selection of interviews highlighting critical dialogue between photographers, esteemed critics, curators, editors, and artists from 1985 to the present day. Emerging talent along with well-established photographers discuss their work openly and examine the future of the medium. Drawn primarily from Aperture magazine with selections from Aperture's booklist and online platform, Aperture Conversations celebrates the artist's voice, collaborations, and the photography community at large.

The summer 2018 issue of Aperture magazine considers the influence of photography on leading filmmakers, and the role of cinema in the work of artists and photographers. Featuring in-depth interviews with Sofia Coppola, Shirin Neshat, and Gus Van Sant, and contributions by Negar Azimi, David Campany, J. Hoberman, Alex Prager, RaMell Ross, Antwaun Sargent, Dayanita Singh, and Dana Stevens.

Family considers how artists and photographers have chronicled their relationships to their families and chosen communities.

The latest in a series of city-based issues, Mexico City profiles the dynamic photographic culture of Mexico's capital, home to a thriving contemporary art scene, revered photography institutions, and world-class museums.

Spirituality Aperture 237 In a time of hyperactive communication, unending consumerism, and political confusion, Wolfgang Tillmans guest-edits an issue of Aperture on the subject of spirituality and its connection to solidarity. "People are touched and moved by experiences of genuine solidarity," Tillmans notes. "Solidarity describes a degree of selflessness, or experiences that remind people of values higher than the pure materialistic culture we're in." This issue, featuring contributions by leading artists, scientists, novelists, and philosophers, will look at different ways of considering humanity's longing for spiritual connection--from the shared sense of purpose behind global mass protests, to the collective spirit of the dance floor, to how image-makers have strived to visualize the intangible and the inexplicable. Key features include: a look at the role of spiritualism in the work of Minor White, Aperture's founding editor; esteemed physicist Peter Galison on the recent landmark image of a black hole; David Swindells's chronicle of underground rave culture in London; Siddhartha Mitter on images of protests in Hong Kong, Cairo, and Standing Rock; a collaborative project by Olivia Laing and Mary Manning; Sean O'Toole on Santu Mofokeng and South Africa's spiritual landscapes; plus portfolios by Susan Hiller, Mare Nero, Harit Srikhao, and more.

The Elements of Style investigates the role of style, dress, and beauty in the formation of individual identity. From the stunning studio work of Kwame Brathwaite, the Harlem-based photographer who advanced the potent political slogan "Black Is Beautiful," to Collier Schorr's representations of the queer community in fashion contexts, to Pieter Hugo's portraits of young students at a Beijing art school, this issue reveals, across time and geographies, how fashion and style help us to see who we are and who we might become. Aperture magazine is an essential guide to the art and phenomenon of photography, that combines the smartest writing with beautifully reproduced portfolios. Published quarterly, each issue focuses on a major theme in contemporary photography, serving as a book about its subject, for everyone interested in understanding where photography is heading. With fresh perspectives on the medium by leading writers and thinkers, and beautifully designed and produced, Aperture magazine makes new ideas in photography accessible to the photographer, student, and the culturally curious alike.

Aperture 230

This winter, in the wake of a pandemic, global protest movements, and a dramatic presidential election in the United States, Aperture releases "Utopia," an issue that shows that other ways of living are possible--when the collective will exists. In "Utopia," artists, photographers, and writers envision a world without prisons, document visionary architecture, honor queer space and creativity, and dream of liberty through spiritual self-expression. They show us that utopia is not a far-fetched scheme, but rather a way of reshaping our future. In a profile, Salamishah Tillet considers Tyler Mitchell's visions of Black people resting in open green space, a democratizing landscape in which Mitchell continuously asks himself: "What are the things that I can do to lessen the inherent hierarchies in the photography-shoot structure of seeing and being seen?" Sara Knelman shows the freeing possibilities of the feminist collage works of Lorna Simpson, Mickalene Thomas, Sara Cwynar, and Alanna Fields. Julian Rose speaks with the filmmaker Matt Wolf about his latest documentary, Spaceship Earth (2020), which follows the people who created Biosphere 2 in 1991. And Antwaun Sargent traces Black queer artists' journeys into immersive desire. "Utopia" also includes compelling portfolios by David Benjamin Sherry, Allen Frame, and Balarama Heller, whose respective works span time and geography, from bohemian New York to a Hare Krishna retreat in India. "The utopian imagination tends to stir when the world feels simultaneously wrecked and malleable," the writer Chris Jennings notes, in a series of reflections by writers such as Olivia Laing and Nicole R. Fleetwood. Notions of utopia shouldn't be restricted to the fantasy of a fully realized ideal society, or the outsize, often failed, sometimes disastrous schemes and social experiments of the past. Instead, we might consider utopia a mode of vision and thought that shields us from hopelessness.

This fall, as debates around nationalism and borders in North America reach a fever pitch, Aperture magazine releases "Native America," a special issue about photography and Indigenous lives, guest edited by the artist Wendy Red Star. "Native America" considers the wide-ranging work of photographers and lens-based artists who pose challenging questions about land rights, identity and heritage, and histories of colonialism. Several contributors revisit or reconfigure photographic archives--from writer Rebecca Bengal's look at the works of Richard Throssel and Horace Poolaw, to artist Duane Linklater's intervention in a 1995 issue of Aperture, "Strong Hearts," the magazine's first volume devoted to Native American photographers. "I was thinking about young Native artists," says Red Star, "and what would be inspirational and important for them as a road map." That map spans a diverse array of intergenerational image-making, counting as lodestars the meditative assemblages of Kimowan Metchewais and installation works of Alan Michelson, the stylish self-portraits of Martine Gutierrez, and the speculative mythologies of Karen Miranda Rivadeneira and Guadalupe Maravilla. "Native America" also features contributions by distinguished writers and curators, including strikingly personal reflections from acclaimed poets Tommy Pico and Natalie Diaz. With additional essential contributions from Rebecca Belmore and Julian Brave NoiseCat, as well as a portfolio from Red Star, the issue looks into the historic, often fraught relationship between photography and Native representation, while also offering new perspectives by emerging artists who reimagine what it means to be a citizen in North America today.