New York is a city of improvisers—and there has been no shortage of creative solutions to surviving the trauma of the pandemic and meeting a moment of social unrest and public demands for social justice and equity. The “New York” issue features newly commissioned portfolios by Farah Al Qasimi and Roe Ethridge, alongside never-before-seen photographs by Rosalind Fox Solomon and Saul Leiter. Acclaimed photojournalist Philip Montgomery speaks with Kathy Ryan about covering the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic; Hua Hsu writes about how photographs at the Museum of Chinese in America tell a story of resilience; and Tanisha C. Ford profiles Jamel Shabazz, the legendary street photographer, whose indelible images from the 1980s are icons of style and joy.

Coinciding with the “New York” issue, Aperture and Rockefeller Center are collaborating on a month-long photography program celebrating New York, in the heart of the city. The program will feature a virtual talk series, a pop-up store, and public art exhibitions. See below for the full schedule.

Tanisha C. Ford in conversation with Jamel Shabazz
Tuesday, March 30, 7:00 p.m. ET, Register here

Since the early 1980s, Jamel Shabazz has photographed New York’s street life and hip-hop culture with joy, verve, and style. His work not only captures the essence and pureness of hip-hop culture in New York, but also the deep connections he has with his subjects and community. In this conversation, Shabazz and Ford will discuss Shabazz’s career, his lasting legacy, how quarantine has given him time to rediscover hidden gems in his archive, and the installation of work at Rockefeller Center through April.

Artist Talk with Irina Rozovsky
Thursday, April 8, 7:00 p.m. ET, Register here

For ten years, Irina Rozovsky has been making lyrical portraits of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park—both of the landscape and its visitors—perfectly capturing the democratic nature of the space. From images of women fishing to family barbeques to young couples in the grass, In Plain Air (2011­­–20) is a lover letter to Prospect Park and all those who spend time there.

Presented in collaboration with Aperture, Rockefeller Center, Parsons the New School for Design, and MACK. Additional support for this program is provided by MPB.com.

Widline Cadet and Rafael Rios on Family, Friendship, and New York
Thursday, April 22, 7:00 p.m. ET, Register here

In this conversation Nicole Acheampong, assistant editor of Aperture magazine, will speak with photographers Widline Cadet and Rafael Rios about their work featured in the “New York” issue, and on crafting intimate portraits of friends and family. In her series Soft, Cadet makes dreamlike, black-and-white photographs of friends embracing in New York City parks, while Rios’s Family series captures vibrant flashes of his extended Puerto Rican family’s everyday life in Brooklyn. Both artists, commissioned by Aperture to make new work for this issue, have expanded their long-term projects to offer new ways of seeing the tenderness and tenacity of community, a vital offering at a moment of social distancing.

A Lightbox Installation of Photographs by Jamel Shabazz
On view at Rockefeller Center from March 27 to April 30

An outdoor exhibition of New York City street and subway photographs by Jamel Shabazz, who has methodically created street portraits throughout the city for forty years. Fourteen of Shabazz’s portraits will be displayed in the heart of the city, installed on seven-foot-tall lightboxes across Rockefeller Center’s public plazas.

The Flag Project 2021
On view at Rockefeller Center from March 27 to April 30

The Flag Project 2021 is a public art installation celebrating the medium of photography that called on the public to submit photographs inspired by New York City, with 83 winning submissions produced as flags and flown from the iconic flagpoles of Rockefeller Center. The installation also features guest photographers, invited by Aperture, who have helped define New York in photographs, including Kwame Brathwaite, Renee Cox, Elliott Erwitt, Roe Ethridge, Nan Goldin, Ryan McGinley, Susan Meiselas, Duane Michals and Tyler Mitchell.

Aperture Pop-Up
At Rockefeller Center from March 27 to April 30

This special pop-up space will feature new limited-edition prints by artists featured in the “New York” issue, Aperture’s new book releases and best sellers, special artist-signed publications, and more.

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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. The issue features 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—and writing by Antwaun Sargent on Black queer artists’ representations of desire, Sara Knelman on the freeing possibilities of feminist collage, and Salamishah Tillet on Tyler Mitchell’s visions of Black utopia. They all show us that utopia is not a far-fetched scheme, but rather a way of reshaping our future.

In conjunction with the release of “Utopia,” Aperture launches a series of digital programming in partnership with London-based fashion brand JW Anderson. See below for the full schedule.

Tyler Mitchell and Salamishah Tillet on Black Utopia
December 10, 7:00 p.m. ET

Tyler Mitchell’s iconic photographs of Black individuals playing and at ease in public are what Salamishah Tillet calls a “profoundly radical act.” Blurring the line between art and fashion photography, Mitchell’s images capture a Black utopia filled with community, love, and tenderness. In this conversation, Mitchell and Tillet consider what Black utopia looks like in today’s world. See here to register.

Matt Wolf on Creating “Spaceship Earth”
January 21, 2021, 7:00 p.m. ET

For more than a decade, the filmmaker Matt Wolf has won acclaim for his meticulously crafted documentaries that reveal lost histories through deep dives into media archives. In this conversation, Wolf will discuss his latest film, Spaceship Earth (2020), which traces the activities of a counterculture collective known as the Synergists, who spent two years inside Biosphere 2, a self-enclosed ecosystem in the Arizona desert. See here to register.

Feminist Futures with Sara Knelman
February 4, 2021, 7:00 p.m. ET

From the Dada movement to today, artists have deployed the visual collisions of collage to critique, challenge, provoke, and invent their own idyllic realms. In this conversation, writer Sara Knelman speaks with Alanna Fields and others about the freeing, utopian nature of feminist collage. See here to register.

Antwaun Sargent on Black Queer Utopia
February 18, 2021, 7:00 p.m. ET

Antwaun Sargent, artist Shikeith, and others discuss the ways Black queer artists are redefining the notion of utopia. As Sargent explains in his essay “The Future Will See You Now,” Black queer artists are using photography in defiance of the “straight imagination,” and in doing so, creating their own narratives of desire and relief. See here to register.

Read more from Aperture, issue 241, “Utopia,” or subscribe to Aperture and never miss an issue.

Through December 14, as part of the Aperture Magazine Collectors’ Edition, collect a signed print by David Benjamin Sherry for $200.

Works of Imagination, the Magnum Square Print Sale in partnership with Aperture, brings together over one hundred images by an international group of photographers. As we near the end of a year unparalleled in recent memory, this collection of prints features works that reflect on the different ways that photographers imagine the world.

Through Sunday, October 25, you can collect these signed and estate-stamped, 6-by-6 inch, museum-quality images for $100 each. When you purchase through this link, you directly support not only the artists, but also Aperture’s programming, publishing, and operations.

Selected by Aperture’s editors, here are fifteen highlights from this year’s Magnum Square Print Sale in partnership with Aperture.

Janette Beckman

“In London in the 1980s, the Islington Twins (Chuka and Dubem Okonkwo) would meet every evening at rush hour at ‘The Bar’ with a crowd of teenage followers. ‘The Bar’ didn’t serve food or drink; there was no jukebox or seating. It was just a horizontal pole that stopped cars from entering the road to the local Highbury & Islington Tube station. Always identically and impeccably dressed, the twins played music by bands like Madness, The Specials, and Bad Manners on their boombox, and talked to the commuters and to their friends. They received a small college grant and bought pork pie hats, Crombie overcoats, Sta-Prest trousers, and loafers from a shop in East London. For them, being a mod was more than just clothes. It was the way you conducted yourself and behaved toward others. Chuka said: ‘People began to stop us in the street and ask if they could take our photographs. We had to have the photographers in our fantasy, as it was only when other people noticed us that we would really believe that we looked the way we did.’” —Janette Beckman

Dawoud Bey

“Photographs are nominally related to life as we know it, even as they are clearly not life itself. In the best cases, a photograph can elevate the experience of mundane everyday circumstance and transform it into an entirely new experience that both acknowledges and transcends what was there.” —Dawoud Bey

Matt Black

“Pictures are facts that can overcome the fictions we are told or that we sometimes tell ourselves. Even when they are about things just beyond sight, they can help us to understand our world and our place in it.” —Matt Black

For Freedoms

“In 1943, Norman Rockwell visualized the four freedoms, articulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941, central to American identity—freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. But his paintings, while poignant, left out the richness, diversity, and reality of American life. 

This recreation by the artist collective For Freedoms updates Rockwell’s original illustration of the freedom of worship. The work is distinctly American in its inclusion of Indigenous people, immigrants, individuals of different faiths, and those of diverse ethnicities. Their collective reverence, despite different styles of prayer, imagines a nation where not only does worship mean many things, it is also not something to hide.” —Hank Willis Thomas, Emily Shur, Eric Gottesman, and Wyatt Gallery of For Freedoms

Nan Goldin

“The trans rights movement has been a crucial part of the ongoing street protests. I feel lucky to have lived long enough to have witnessed this sea change in visibility and acceptance of trans people in our culture. In the early ’90s, I traveled to Bangkok to photograph the world of queens known as ‘ladyboys.’ Second Tip was their home and sanctuary. Every week, they held lavishly produced beauty contests, wearing showgirl costumes and lip-synching to Madonna. I wonder how today’s movement would have affected their lives.” —Nan Goldin

Proceeds from the sale of this print will benefit P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now)

KangHee Kim

“Street Errands is a series of collaged photographs that mix street scenes from New York and other parts of the US. They start from mundane encounters on everyday errands in New York, and by manipulating these images, I construct my own form of surreal escapism. I cannot travel abroad due to my visa status, so I build layers of photos or modify the original photographs to create new spaces. The manipulation of these scenes introduces infinite possibility, free from the limits or restraints of real life. 

I think of these collages as paintings, and I show the post-production process as a way of showing mark-making. I aim to achieve perfection by rediscovering the possibility of merging two or more images, finding their spark, but I leave flaws in my photographs. Small imperfections are human; they are what make people attractive.” —KangHee Kim

Mary Ellen Mark

“The circus is a universal form of theater and a metaphor for everything that has always fascinated me visually. It is full of ironies, often humorous and sometimes sad, beautiful and ugly, loving and at times cruel, but always human.” —Mary Ellen Mark

Diana Markosian

“I was seven when my family arrived in America. The year was 1996. The Soviet Union had long collapsed, and by then, so had my parents’ marriage.  In the evenings, in our tiny Moscow apartment, my family would watch Santa Barbara, the first American show broadcast on Russian state television. For my mom, Santa Barbara represented a dream. One night, she woke me up, and said we were going on a trip. We left without saying goodbye to my father, and the next day landed in a new world: America.” —Diana Markosian

Richard Misrach

“In the past, I have been able to photograph the glorious skies and views of the San Francisco Bay and Golden Gate Bridge from my deck. During the recent spate of fires, beginning in August, I have been confined to my home, and the photographs I make are taken from the same spot as the earlier series, but as dense smoke renders the Golden Gate invisible, I have focused on my more immediate surroundings. There were days when the smoke created day for night, post-apocalyptic views right out of a sci-fi Hollywood movie. The most obvious and undeniable culprit here is climate change, whose impacts are increasing at an exponential rate. The future has arrived.

In an interview given in her last years, Dorothea Lange beckoned the next generation of photographers to document civilization’s advancing effects on California, framing it as the New California. She couldn’t have anticipated climate change, but she was worried about the detrimental consequences of settlement and growth. This series is dedicated to her remarkable foresight.” —Richard Misrach

The photographer’s proceeds from the sale of this print will benefit Aperture

Rebecca Norris Webb

“Over the years, I’ve learned to trust images I’m drawn to in the world. In times of uncertainty and unsettling emotions, these resonant images seem like advance dispatches from the interior of the self. They know before I know. The day I made this photograph, I was heavyhearted. My beloved father-in-law was dying, and I wanted to be at his bedside. Unable to fly home for a day, I reluctantly decided to photograph. Half in a daze, I remember climbing a flight of rickety stairs to a Havana rooftop. A young man greeted me, a pigeon fancier in his late twenties. ‘I almost died,’ he softly confided to me, ‘and my birds brought me back to life.’ Kneeling on the coop’s floor, I noticed a pigeon opening its wings. I lifted the camera to my eye.” —Rebecca Norris Webb

Lise Sarfati

“This is a photograph from my Austin, Texas series, a fashion series created for a magazine and an exhibition at the Maison Rouge in Paris. I don’t normally work with fashion, but I accepted the commission to challenge myself to make the clothes disappear for the benefit of the ‘character.’ I made this series with the idea of a sequence in the life of each of the girls I photographed, which mixed exterior and interior in the idea of the ‘everyday.’ Each girl I chose had an off-beat presence in the world. The accumulation of the series made me think of short novels, and the fashion magazine had a literary approach. The more realistic a context is, the more fictional it becomes.” —Lise Sarfati

Shen Wei

“When creating a self-portrait, I often transform into a different persona. I’m usually naked, so it’s not about putting on a costume. Somehow, I find myself responding to the environment I’m in, sensing the past and future of that place as I perceive it.” —Shen Wei

David Benjamin Sherry

“In the last decade, I’ve traveled and photographed extensively throughout the Western National Forests and National Parks. In doing so, I’ve revisited famous Western landscapes seen in the historic photographs of Carleton Watkins, Eadweard Muybridge, William Henry Jackson, and Ansel Adams. I discovered that many of these iconic landscapes—so crucial to our collective understanding of the American West—were deteriorating, affected by human interference. The pictures I took, which began as an homage to the legacy of grand Western landscape photography, evolved into an opportunity to build on it. 

Like my forebears, I use an 8-by-10-inch large-format film camera, which allows for an unrivaled level of detail. However, when printing this series, I’m not interested in depicting the way the landscape appears in reality, but rather in its potential for emotional resonance. For me, color is a conduit to making those feelings visible, beginning a radical, queer new chapter to the otherwise colonial, heteronormative history of the medium.” —David Benjamin Sherry

Lindokuhle Sobekwa

“This work is from a series about my sister, Ziyanda. I began this project after finding a family portrait in which her face had been cut out. She was a secretive, rebellious, and rough presence in my life. The day she disappeared, she was chasing me, and I was hit by a car. She only returned a decade later, suffering from illness. By that time, I had become a photographer and realized my family had no pictures of her. One day I saw this beautiful light coming in through the window, shining on her face. I lifted up the camera to catch the moment and she shot me an evil look and said, ‘Stop! If you take that picture, I’m going to kill you!’ So I lowered my camera. I still wish I had taken the shot.” —Lindokuhle Sobekwa

Chanell Stone

“Garden Glow is derived from my series Natura Negra, in which I explore the Black body’s relationship to the American landscape, with a special emphasis on urban nature. Using myself as a conduit, I create verdant self-portraits to convey both personal and collective narratives of urbanized Black people. Inner-city gardens and canopies operate as sites for connection and the ‘re-naturing’ of the Black body to the natural world.” —Chanell Stone

The Magnum Square Print Sale in partnership with Aperture is available from October 19 through Sunday, October 25 at 6 p.m. ET. For one week only, collect signed and estate-stamped, 6-by-6 inch, museum-quality prints for $100 each. By using this link to make your purchase, you directly help support not only the artists but also Aperture’s programming, publishing, and operations.

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 essays 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, “Native America” 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.

Join us for a series of free virtual public programs with photographers, historians, and writers that accompany the release of “Native America.”

Inside the “Native America” Issue with Wendy Red Star and Natalie Diaz

Thursday, September 17 at 7:00 p.m., on Zoom

Guest editor Wendy Red Star and Poet Natalie Diaz will look inside the “Native America” issue, which 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. Red Star and Diaz will delve into the various topics, artists, and takeaways in the issue and discuss their own relationships to its contents.

On the Art of Kimowan Metchewais

Thursday, September 24 at 7:00 p.m., on Zoom

Cree artist Kimowan Metchewais’s multidisciplinary approach rearticulates colonial memory and explores the ground on which contemporary Native art and communities might stand. This panel brings together writer and art historian Christopher Green, filmmaker Christina Wegs, and artist Will Wilson, all of who will discuss Metchewais’s life and continuing influence on the art world.

Martine Gutierrez and Nadiah Rivera Fellah on Indigenous Woman

Thursday, October 1 at 7:00 p.m., on Zoom

For the 2018 project Indigenous Woman, Martine Gutierrez played the roles of photographer, stylist, creative director, editor in chief, and featured model to create a 124-page art publication. Throughout its pages, Gutierrez transforms herself into a revolving roster of identities—in some spreads, wearing go-go boots; and in others, appearing in Indigenous textiles belonging to her Mayan grandmother. In this discussion, Gutierrez and curator Nadiah Rivera Fellah will take an in-depth look at the project and navigating of contemporary Indigeneity.

This panel is presented in partnership with Parsons School of Design at The New School

Aperture Conversations: Wendy Red Star at Photoville

Saturday, October 3 at 2:00 p.m., online via Photoville

Join Wendy Red Star for an artist talk about her 2017 project Um-basax-bilua (Where They Make the Noise) 1904–2016, a celebration of cultural perseverance, colonial resistance, and ingenuity. A visual record of found and personal photographs and cultural memorabilia, Red Star’s annotated timeline, on view at Photoville 2020, summarizes the century-long history of the Crow Fair, and examines the cultural shift from colonial forced assimilation to cultural reclamation.

History Is Present: A Conversation with Alan Michelson and Chrissie Iles

Thursday, October 8 at 7:00 p.m., on Zoom

For more than thirty years, New York–based artist Alan Michelson has produced evocative, influential works that excavate colonial histories of invasion and eviction. A Mohawk member of the Six Nations of the Grand River, Michelson uses photography, painting, video, and installation to create dynamic spaces of visual and auditory immersion. In this discussion, Michelson sits down with Chrissie Iles—who cocurated his 2019 exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art—to discuss his career and the power of contemporary Indigenous art.

Read more from Aperture, issue 240, “Native America,” or subscribe to Aperture and never miss an issue.

We’re excited to share Solidarity: The Magnum Square Print Sale in Collaboration with Vogue, which brings together images from legendary photographers that reflect on the power of togetherness in tumultuous times.

For seven days only, you can acquire these signed and estate-stamped, museum-quality images for $100 each. For the duration of this sale, Magnum and Vogue photographers will donate 50% of their proceeds to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). When you purchase through Aperture’s affiliate link, you directly help support not only the artists, but also Aperture’s programming, publishing, and operations.

Selected by Aperture’s editors, here are 11 highlights from the Magnum Square Print Sale.

Chien-Chi Chang, Immigrants sleeping on a fire escape to avoid summer heat, New York City, 1998
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Chien-Chi Chang

“Solidarity is a word that is usually written large. To some, it might mean a great victory by the people. But I have seen it in smaller settings. On the hottest night of a New York summer, in a tenement building by the Manhattan Bridge outside rooms too sweltering to sleep in, these men found—and shared in—a sense of solidarity on a fire escape. The goal was not grand. They just yearned for a breeze.” —Chien-Chi Chang

Miranda Barnes, Lorraine Motel, Memphis, 2018
Courtesy the artist/Vogue

Miranda Barnes

“This photograph was taken for the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination for the New York Times in 2018. It was my first assignment through the newspaper, as well as my first time in Memphis. The experience taught me a great deal on the
importance of research in relation to photography, photographing an assignment alone, and the responsibility you have as the person with the camera. Within the theme of solidarity, this photo resonated, as I believe it is important to reflect on moments of history that have been
whitewashed. Acknowledgment and unlearning are critical to the current movement, and they begin from within.” —Miranda Barnes

Enri Canaj, A small boat with refugees and migrants reached safely the Greek coast, It was hard to get the boat to land because of the bad sea, Lesbos, Greece, October, 2015
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Enri Canaj

“It is always the right time for our strength to be seen. No matter what happens, we should never forget solidarity, which lightly bears our sorrows and joys like a lifeboat, carrying us smoothly and safely towards the next port.” —Enri Canaj

Bruce Davidson, The Selma March, Alabama, 1965
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Bruce Davidson

“This photograph was taken during the 1965 protest marches from Selma to the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery. Martin Luther King Jr. led a group of African American, nonviolent marchers to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of segregationist repression. This was a watershed moment in the Civil Rights Movement. I came across this young demonstrator, wrapped in a flag, protesting racism; behind him is Father Smith of San Antonio, a white Catholic priest who protested against injustice for most of his life.” —Bruce Davidson

Lua Ribeira, Los Afortunados, Melilla, Spain, 2019
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Lua Ribeira

“This photograph makes me think about bridges, and the extent to which the origins of our issues reside on an illusion that we are separated. Carlos Skliar writes in his essay ‘The Fragile Look’: “to eliminate judgement is no easy task and, despite this, it is exactly what should be done, everything that would have to be done from now onwards so the world could be different and become pure childhood—or pure abnormality. That is: it doesn’t inevitably progress towards self-destruction, but rather, it would lead to the freedom of time and the precious uselessness of the actions undertaken, those actions that lie far from the benefit of profit-making and the trade of bodies and souls.” —Lua Ribeira

Denise Stephanie, In Your Hands, Brooklyn, 2018
Courtesy the artist/Vogue

Denise Stephanie

“The year 2020 has reminded us that human connection is one of life’s greatest treasures. At first, we were forced to be ‘socially distant’ in response to a global pandemic. We substituted FaceTime and Zoom meetings for in-person interaction and discussion. We found ways to cope and attempted to fill the gaps. Virtual communication has been the bridge to strengthen our relationships, show support for one another, and bring light to what haunts us. Then, triggered by tragic and chronic injustice, we covered our faces but joined our hands across the world in solidarity with Black voices, for Black lives. We leveraged digital platforms to turn conversations into action. Through our resilience, we created a new normal but acknowledged that there is no substitute for the human touch. In this double-exposure image, these faceless, melanated women stand together, supporting one another, joined by the same personal touch we have been missing. They remind us that through compassion, our bonds are unbreakable.” —Denise Stephanie

Elliott Erwitt, Valencia, Spain, 1952
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Elliott Erwitt

“The work I care about is terribly simple. I observe, I try to entertain, but above all I want pictures that are emotional. Little else interests me in photography. Today, so much is being done by unemotional people, or at least it looks that way . . . I mean, work that’s fascinating and fun and clever and technically brilliant. But if it’s not personal, then it misses what interesting photography is about.” —Elliott Erwitt, in Personal Exposures, 1988

Sohrab Hura, Pati, India, 2010
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Sohrab Hura

“I never quite understood what solidarity meant until I went to Pati for the first time in 2005. Pati is a small village block in Madhya Pradesh in central India. Coming from a bigger metropolitan city like New Delhi, I witnessed and experienced solidarity in a way that felt like a life-changing experience—I guess that is what happens when you have the privilege of not really feeling the immediate need for it yourself, and it only remains a sort of a grand gesture that you might extend on to others. It was here that for the first time, I experienced a collectiveness unlike anything else. It was also here that I learnt that solidarity could even exist in the act of stepping back and listening.” —Sohrab Hura

In addition to the donation to the NAACP, Sohrab Hura’s proceeds from the sale of this print will be used to support Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (JADS), a grassroots union formed by people in Pati to fight for basic rights, including the right to work in dignity.

Alex Webb, Erie, Pennsylvania, 2010
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Alex Webb

“I keep returning to these words of James Baldwin, which seem as apt today as when he wrote them nearly sixty years ago: ‘Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.’” —Alex Webb

Richie Shazam, Tell Your Friends to Pull Up, New York City, 2020
Courtesy the artist/Vogue

Richie Shazam

“Through my artistic expression, I’ve learned about myself and was able to learn about others. My photography lets me tell stories, send but also transcend messages. My work connects me to who I am, where I come from, and most of all, those around me. Pride is about celebrating our ability to stand up for ourselves. This year, we are called upon to stand up and against the violence and hate thrust onto so many Black and brown bodies. Attending the Black Trans Lives Matter march in Brooklyn was a moving, historical moment.” —Richie Shazam

Ronan McKenzie, Our Place, Los Angeles, 2019
Courtesy the artist/Vogue

Ronan McKenzie

“Father Jamaiel and daughter Akua sit at their table bathed in sunlight, creating time to talk to each other. Within my work, I often explore connection, family, relationships, and communication; I aim to present the love, strength, and support within Black family and friendship that are rarely projected outward but always felt. This image is special to me, as it is a real documentation of true listening and the flood of light, acceptance, beauty, and happiness that comes with it.” —Ronan McKenzie

The Magnum Square Print Sale in Collaboration with Vogue is available now through Sunday, August 2, 2020 at 6:00 p.m. EDT. For seven days only, collect museum-quality, 6-by-6-inch square prints for $100 each—with Magnum and Vogue photographer’s donating 50% of their proceeds to the NAACP. By using this link to make your purchase, you directly help support not only the artists but also Aperture’s programming, publishing, and operations.

Before Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency was screened at museums around the world and published by Aperture as a now-classic photobook, there was the live event, announced on posters on the streets of Manhattan and Berlin. “As we said in those years,” Nan Goldin tells Darryl Pinckney in “Ballads,” Aperture’s Summer 2020 issue, “in the ’80s and ’90s, there was no way to see anything unless you were present.”

The Ballad was a performance, often staged in crowded, downtown bars. These were underground happenings, slideshows of almost seven hundred pictures set to music, edited and re-edited, sometimes minutes before. It could be chaotic: slides would get stuck, or projector bulbs would break. The poster on the cover of Aperture, which includes Goldin’s photograph The Hug (1980), was for a screening at Collective for Living Cinema, an artist-run cooperative in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood that showed experimental films.

In the years since Aperture published The Ballad of Sexual Dependency in 1986, Goldin’s tour de force has become an enduring model for photographers across ages and geographies, from Tokyo to New Delhi to Prague. Aperture’s summer issue takes a measure of that dynamic influence, like a song endlessly revised but always recognizable. “Everyone’s obsessed with the ’80s,” says Goldin. “But it must mean more to the kids than just that. They must be able to see themselves in The Ballad. Not just the clothes, but on some emotional level.”

Pre-order Aperture, issue 239, “Ballads,” available June 4, and subscribe to Aperture to never miss an issue.

We’re excited to share the Spring 2020 Square Print Sale from Magnum Photos and The Everyday Projects, which brings together images from their archives that relate to or capture events that changed the course of history, society, a life, or a practice.

When you purchase through Aperture’s affiliate link, you directly help support not only the artists but also Aperture’s programming, publishing, and operations. For seven days only, you can acquire these signed and estate-stamped, museum-quality images for $100 each, with a percentage of sales donated to Doctors Without Borders’s COVID-19 emergency response. In this critical time, we all need your support, now more than ever.

Selected by Aperture’s editors, here are 13 highlights from the Magnum Square Print Sale.

Peter van Agtmael, Somewhere between Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul, Afghanistan, 2008
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Peter van Agtmael

“I had just woken up on a flight in Afghanistan, when I looked out the window and saw this scene. I scrambled for my camera and took a few frames before the cloud began to break apart and pass from view. Looking back, this photograph marked the point I understood war was deeper and more complex than the brutality I’d chased over the previous two years. Now, twelve years later, I see war in the totality of the human experience: a cyclical and cynical exercise in power, violence, ignorance and fear, but paradoxically one that also embodies humanity, courage and moments of transcendent beauty. These seem like irreconcilable forces, yet nonetheless hold true in defining our perplexing species.” —Peter van Agtmael

Tasneem Alsultan, A group of relatives busy on their social media phone apps at Al-Jenadriyah, a cultural festival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Courtesy the artist

Tasneem Alsultan

“I was walking through the crowds at a cultural festival in Riyadh when I noticed this group of girls, all wearing flower crowns and discussing their next booth to visit. In an era full of digital screens and filters, it took me a few seconds to realize that the scene I was looking at was real. As a Saudi woman, I realize women are subjected to many stereotypes and misrepresentations across the world. This is even more true for women wearing niqab, despite the many recent changes for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. Here we get to see a striking moment, which for these girls was mundane, everyday.” —Tasneem Alsultan

Jonas Bendiksen, Altai Territory, Russia, 2000
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Jonas Bendiksen

“I took this image almost exactly twenty years ago. Without knowing it, just seconds before, I had taken the image that would become my most published. That magic scene of thousands of butterflies, a stormy sky, a crashed Russian Soyuz space rocket, and a pair of local scrap-metal collectors gave my career wind in its sails, and gave me confidence in my vision. It also landed me in a lot of trouble—I was deported from Russia soon after I had published this story, about the fallout from the Russian space launches. Being banned from Russia led me into my first book project, Satellites (2006), which traced the borderlands of the former USSR—and the butterflies naturally became the cover. There are only a couple of images of this exact scene: the one that has been shown all over the world, and this one, which is the next frame in the roll.” —Jonas Bendiksen

Matt Black, A farmer checks his sprinklers, Sylvester, Georgia, 2017
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Matt Black

“To me, the turning point in photography comes when you stop looking and start seeing. Your work takes its own direction, rather than being directed, and unremarkable moments become clear.” —Matt Black

Rory Doyle, Big Mac Dancing — Tyrese Evans, Jeremy Melvin, and Gee McGee dance atop their horses in a McDonald’s parking lot in Cleveland, Mississippi, August, 2017
Courtesy the artist

Rory Doyle

“This image is part of my ongoing project documenting the subculture of African American cowboys and cowgirls in the rural Mississippi Delta. Just after the Civil War, one in four cowboys was African American, yet this population was drastically underrepresented in popular accounts. And it is still. But the ‘cowboy’ identity retains a strong presence in many contemporary black communities. The story is timely with the current political environment, and it’s one that provides a renewed focus on rural America. With the hit release of ‘Old Town Road’ by Lil Nas X, the topic of black cowboy history has become a mainstream topic of discussion. The project is a counter-narrative to the often negative portrayal of African Americans. Instead, I have captured a community showing love for their horses and fellow riders, while also passing down traditions and historical perspectives from one generation to the next. Ultimately, the project aims to press against old archetypes — who could and could not be a cowboy, and what it means to be black in Mississippi — while uplifting the subjects’ voices.” —Rory Doyle

Yagazie Emezi, A child’s direct stare during the parade for International Day of the Girl Child in Monrovia, Liberia
Courtesy the artist

Yagazie Emezi

“Realizing the power of photography: It speaks multiple languages and so can spur a range of emotions. Knowing that it is art, and can be and has been a weapon. And like all things powerful, with the ability to do good and bad comes responsibility. It’s a dangerous and beautiful tool, depending on who is holding it.” —Yagazie Emezi

Elliott Erwitt, California, 1956
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Elliott Erwitt

“In life’s saddest winter moments, when you’ve been under a cloud for weeks, suddenly a glimpse of something wonderful can change the whole complexion of things, your entire feeling.” —Elliott Erwitt

Bruce Gilden, Fellini, Coney Island, New York City, 1969
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Bruce Gilden

“It was 1969. I had picked up my first camera (a Miranda) two years before. That year, I had started shooting my first long-term personal essay on Coney Island. I had been looking at as many photos as I could to see what interested me visually and what direction I should go with my photography. This was the first photo I had taken that I thought at the time had artistic credibility. I was so happy to have achieved something that I felt I could be proud of. Even if all my photos are untitled, I affectionately call this image ‘Fellini’.” —Bruce Gilden

Nanna Heitmann, Yenisei River, Kyzyl, Russia, 2018
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Nanna Heitmann

“For less than a second, two athletes stand close to one another. Their eyes are closed, their heads lean on each other’s shoulders, as if they are embracing each other peacefully. I tried to capture this scene in the moment before the fight—with all its tearing and throwing each other back and forth—started.

This photograph shows two figures training in khuresh, a type of wrestling and the national sport of the Tuva Republic, a partially recognized state in southern Siberia. The people of Tuva create sagas and legends about their favorite athletes, ascribing supernatural qualities to them.” —Nanna Heitmann

Zun Lee, Jerell Willis and son Fidel enjoy the sunset over downtown New York, November 2012, from the series Father Figure
Courtesy the artist

Zun Lee

“Coming from street photography, I often privilege the single-frame narrative through random, found, or decisive moments. But even in those early days, none of my images were really random; my desire to photograph was mainly driven by a need to make sense out of my experiential knowledge. Growing into long-form storytelling marked a key turning point, as I settled into the realization of what my photographic practice was about—not so much ‘making work,’ but a practice of living and being. As such, my ‘projects’ never end. They all inform each other as complementary facets of the same body of work, an investigation of the societal forces that regulate Black life, seen through the lens of the workaday realities of Black domestic spaces.” —Zun Lee

Herbert List, View From a Window: Dance of the Dresses, Trastevere, Rome, 1953
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Herbert List

“Herbert List injured his foot in 1953, while visiting friend and fellow photographer Max Scheler in Rome. He could not leave the apartment for some time, so Scheler left him his Leica with telephoto lens to play around with, while Scheler himself was away on an assignment. It was equipment which List had not used previously. The series View From a Window, including the image Dance of the Dresses, was born of the first two rolls of 35 mm film List shot in his life. This encounter with 35 mm was a turning point toward a more spontaneous style, and revitalized List’s love for street photography late in his career.” —Peer-Olaf Richter, Herbert List Estate

Lua Ribeira, Settat, Morocco, 2019
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Lua Ribeira

“This image is from an ongoing project working with Moroccan youth who are trying to cross the border into Europe. They attempt—through various means—to jump onto the ferries or lorries that move from Melilla (a Spanish territory situated in Morocco) and Nador to the south of Spain. The majority of these kids begin their journey by train or bus from their hometowns toward the border. I made a journey with someone who was expelled from Melilla and returned to his hometown, close to Casablanca. This photograph is of one of his friends, who has not yet made the decision to travel to the border—something currently considered by many youths in Morocco.” —Lua Ribeira

Alec Soth, Sydney, Tallahassee, Florida, 2004
Courtesy the artist/Magnum Photos

Alec Soth

“In 2004, I shot one of my first traveling editorial assignments in Tallahassee, Florida. I photographed a second-rate celebrity for an equally unimpressive magazine. My photographs were terrible. After the shoot, I went to a local diner to drown my sorrows in fried chicken. When I walked in the door, I saw a beautiful young girl falling asleep at her table. This was the moment I learned that the ability to choose my own subject was essential to my creative success. The picture I made that day became one of my all-time favorites.” —Alec Soth

Magnum’s Square Print Sale, Turning Points, is now online through April 12, 2020 at 6:00 p.m. EDT. For seven days only, museum-quality, 6-by-6-inch square prints are exceptionally priced at $100. By using this link to make your purchase, you directly help support not only the artists but also Aperture’s programming, publishing, and operations.

Dawoud Bey
On the one hand, I think the project is finished when I have said visually all that I think needs to be said about that particular subject. But one never knows. Recently, I thought my project Harlem Redux [published in 2012] was done, but then I started to feel like there were gaps in terms of the kinds of pictures, range of subjects, and varying vantage points from which I wanted to tell the story about the ways the Harlem community is changing. I couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that there was more to do, and so I went back. Turns out, I made some of the strongest photographs on that visit. So sometimes you know, and sometimes you don’t.

John Chiara
It’s so hard to know! Maybe when I’ve run out of things to say and pictures I want to take. There are, of course, lots of practical and pragmatic reasons it ends: deadlines, energy, inspiration, resources. Even so, I find it very difficult to end a body of work. I might not ever truly end it because of the way I work. I can spend five or six years in a place if I’m drawn to it, even after an exhibition has ended. I revisit places. I continue following the train of thought until I feel it’s resolved.

Siân Davey
I know when a body of work is finished when the charge drops, and the thing that pulled you along is no longer there. You can feel yourself lose your connection to the narrative. At this point, the story has been told and is now in danger of repeating itself. It’s about knowing when that time has come and having the courage to let it go.

Doug DuBois
Deadlines help and are often critical to preventing something from getting overthought and overworked. I’ve been lucky to have some good book editors who, more than once, kept me from ruining a good idea. Repetition is another sign—but it’s tricky. Going back again and again to a certain subject or making variations is an important discipline. The bad repetition, the kind that doesn’t add up to anything and becomes a dead end or a compulsive gesture—that’s a sign that you are done with a project.

LaToya Ruby Frazier
It will never be finished. The meaning of an image is never fixed. It changes as history changes. We’re all connected intergenerationally—we’re connected to the images of the past and to the future. I’m thinking about time travel when I make my work—take, as an example, my work with my mother and my grandmother (The Notion of Family, Aperture 2014). I’m suggesting we are one entity; we are all markers on a timeline that is cyclical. But even within that work, things change. Take the self-portrait Huxtables, Mom, and Me (2008). I’m wearing a T-shirt that’s worn, the ink is peeling off; the mirror behind me, in which a reflection of my mom can be seen, is dusty and scratched. The image already had meaning embedded in it because of what the Huxtables meant to American society—the first public image of a middle-class Black family and the whole “Cosby effect” that I wanted to critique. Looking at it now, thanks to Bill Cosby’s sex crimes, that image has acquired a whole new layer of meaning.

Paul Graham
When the question “Does this work?” is not keeping me awake anymore. At that point you have the answer to the thing that has been troubling you, so in a way it is, or will soon be, finished, and you can start to think ahead to the future.

Todd Hido
I used to say, “When I stop getting out of the car to take the picture.” Basically, you know you’re finished when the burden of setting up the camera outweighs your drive to capture that particular image.

One note of caution: I feel that photographers and artists these days are very much on an accelerated production cycle, where we can feel pressured to have an entirely new project every couple of years. It is important to slow down around your own work, trust yourself, and ask if you really are done. Knowing when to push through and keep going is just as important as knowing when to stop. The new iterations, the small discoveries, and the nuances of my own way of working were all important realizations for me, and those only came through continued efforts.

Peter Kayafas
I think it is essential to finish, to edit and present, in whatever form, a project or body of work so that it is permanent, out of the hands of the artist, and into the public sphere. When I look back on any project that I have finished, whether it be from a few years or a few decades ago, I find that there are always things I’m proud of, as well as things I would do totally differently. It seems to me that there is no better indication of growth as an artist than to have circumstances that allow for such insights.

Justine Kurland
I teach with Nayland Blake, and I have heard him tell students, “Finishing is for furniture.” Once the problems of construction are resolved, of a table for instance, the process no longer involves thinking. Finishing is the stage where the person mindlessly applies polish but no longer pays attention. At this point you are no longer making art. Nayland is one of the most intelligent and clear-sighted artists I know. I often ask myself, “What would Nayland do?”

Bryan Schutmaat
What’s the cliché? A work of art is never finished, only abandoned. With the kind of work I do, I could shoot forever, trying to improve the photos or tweak the edit or just fuck with things endlessly. But life is short, and at some point you have to say, “Ok, this is enough.” If you feel the subject matter isn’t thoroughly explored after the completion of a project, then you can always go shoot the same kind of stuff in the future.

Alec Soth
This is a difficult question to answer. If photography were a true narrative art like filmmaking or fiction-writing, you’d have certain narrative conventions like the feature-length film, the television program, the novel, the short story, etc. But photography functions more like poetry and, like contemporary poetry, is usually free verse in nature. There are no standards for beginning, middle, and end. It’s up to each photographer to create her own structure. In the past, I’ve usually used the book as the chief structural device. Since most of the photobooks I love generally have around forty to sixty pictures, that’s been the number I tried to achieve. But I’m currently less project-orientated. Nowadays, I’m just happy to work on an individual poem and see where it takes me.

Responses have been edited for space. To read the full interviews, order your copy of PhotoWork here.

Activities for kids:

Go Photo! An Activity Book for Kids
By Alice Proujansky

Go Photo! features twenty-five creative hands-on activities inspired by photography. Aimed at children between eight and twelve years old, this playful and fun collection of projects encourages young readers to experiment with their imaginations, get messy with materials, and engage with the world in new and exciting ways.

Try “Little Me,” a fun and engaging activity from Go Photo! today.

Visual Dominoes Activity
From Aperture On Sight

Visual Dominoes is a game that challenges students to create a sequence of images by finding visual connections. To play, download, print, and cut out the deck of cards provided by Aperture. Once you have all of the images, find a specific color in one of the photographs (like red), and place it next to another photograph that has the same color in it. Now find a shape in the second photograph, and place a photograph that has that same shape in it next to that one. Keep going like this, trying to find harder elements as you go, like composition or focus (color and shape are usually the easiest to notice).

Signs and Symbols Activity
From Aperture On Sight

Lesson Five from Aperture On Sight introduces signs and symbols and how they contribute to meaning in photographic images. Understanding that photographic content can function like a symbol—representing things not seen in the picture—encourages students to look for elements in their own work that stand in for something else. Have your students look at James Mollison’s book Where Children Sleep, part of which you can view in the Lesson Five slideshow. Have each student choose an object from their bedroom, and ask them to photograph the object against a colored poster-board backdrop to create a still life “self-portrait.”

Resources for college students and adults:

PhotoWork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice
Edited and introduced by Sasha Wolf

Curator and lecturer Sasha Wolf was inspired to seek out and assemble artist responses to specific questions about their craft after hearing from countless young photographers that they often feel adrift in their own practice, wondering if they are doing it the “right” way. The responses, from both established and emerging photographers, reveal that there is no single path. PhotoWork is a collection of interviews with forty artists—Robert Adams, Dawoud Bey, Elinor Carucci, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Paul Graham, Rinko Kawauchi, Richard Renaldi, Alec Soth, and more—about their approaches to making individual photographs and a sustained a body of work. Structured as a Proust-like questionnaire, each individual answers the same set of questions; the resulting interviews provide essential insights and advice from both emerging and established photographers.

Aperture Conversations

With wide-ranging conversations and inspiring artist talks, we offer over one hundred Aperture Conversations online. To list just two examples: hear from Elinor Carucci, Paul Graham, and Gus Powell on their processes of making photographs; or delve into Diana Markosian’s exploration of immigration and identity through family.

Resources for educators:

Free Visual Literacy Curriculum

The Aperture On Sight curriculum is designed to teach visual literacy through working with photography and creating photobooks. It builds students’ abilities to communicate as visual storytellers and develops their creative and critical thinking, as well as building their capacity for academic and professional success. Educators can download all twenty lesson plans, plus a variety of resources, for free through Aperture’s website.

Workshop Books by Leading Photographers
With Free Learning Guide Companions

For The Photography Workshop Series, Aperture Foundation works with the world’s top photographers to distill their creative approaches to, teachings on, and insights into photography—offering the workshop experience in a book. Our goal is to inspire photographers of all levels who wish to improve their work, as well as readers interested in deepening their understanding of the art of photography.

Aperture has created free learning guides for almost all of the Workshop Series titles. Aperture’s Education Department staff have organized each guide thematically, highlighting salient topics from the text. Within each theme, relevant chapters, passages, and vocabulary are noted, along with guiding questions to accompany specific images.

Virtual Professional Development

Alice Proujansky, Aperture’s community partnerships coordinator and the author of Go Photo! An Activity Book for Kids, is available to provide direct educational services virtually, or over the phone. Aperture is also available to assist educators and schools in developing best practices and strategies on how to work with students who are learning from home. Proujansky was the lead curriculum writer for the Aperture On Sight program and is currently coordinator of the online program and all professional development activities. If interested, please email Alice Proujanksy and Emily Stewart, manager of education and engagement programs, at education@aperture.org.

Access free learning guides to accompany Aperture’s educational titles.

View and download the full Aperture On Sight curriculum here.

The Woman Who Made the World’s First Photobook

Why Anna Atkins deserves her place in the pantheon of great photographers.

Graciela Iturbide’s Dreams and Visions

The life and work of Latin America’s most revered photographer. This piece originally appeared in Aperture, issue 236, “Mexico City.”

For Annabelle Sellforf, Architecture is Not About Powerful Images

The art world’s favorite architect on her photographic influences, designing sought-after homes, and how buildings can actually “do something.” This piece originally appeared in Aperture, issue 238, “House & Home.”

A Japanese Photographer’s Encounters with Natural Disasters

Eight years after a devastating tsunami, Lieko Shiga investigates Japan’s haunted landscapes. This piece originally appeared in Aperture, issue 234, “Earth.”

When Women Photographers Went to War

From Gerda Taro to Susan Meiselas, a new book examines the ways eight women have expanded the field of war photography. This piece originally appeared in The PhotoBook Review 017.

How Do Portraits Keep Families of Incarcerated Individuals Together?

Drawing from her family’s experience, Nicole R. Fleetwood considers prison photographs as objects of love and belonging. This piece originally appeared in Aperture, issue 230, “Prison Nation.”

What Is A Feminist Photobook?

Carmen Winant on feminism, photobooks, and the radical gestures of world-building. This piece originally appeared in The PhotoBook Review 017.

Tania Franco Klein’s Magic Spells

Inspired by Mexico City’s Sonora Market, the photographer’s cinematic new series depicts an unshakeable belief in enchantment. This piece originally appeared in Aperture, issue 236, “Mexico City.”

The Woman Behind the First Photo Gallery

Helen Gee risked everything to open Limelight in 1954, selling prints by Ansel Adams, Berenice Abbott, and Robert Frank for less than fifty dollars each. This piece was originally published in Helen Gee: Limelight, a Greenwich Village Photography Gallery and Coffeehouse in the Fifties.

Rosalind Fox Solomon’s Confrontational Photographs Transcend Time and Place

In a conversation with Francine Prose, the photographer speaks about the trajectory of her career, as well as her recurring themes of ritual, religion, gender, and travel. This piece originally appeared in Aperture, issue 220, “The Interview Issue.”

These Radical Black Women Changed the Art World

Jessica Lynne speaks with the curators behind a landmark exhibition about the revolutionary artists who transformed American culture.

Rosalyne Blumenstein and the Art of Living

In her newest series, artist and activist Zackary Drucker pays homage to a trans icon. This piece originally appeared in Aperture, issue 235, “Orlando.”

12 Inspiring Photobooks by Women Photographers

From seminal first monographs by Diane Arbus and Nan Goldin to modern classics by Deana Lawson, Rinko Kawauchi and more.

Three Women Photographers Reclaim the American Landscape

Susan Lipper, Kristine Potter, and Justine Kurland deconstruct the mythology of the Wild West. This piece originally appeared in The PhotoBook Review 015.

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