Aperture magazine, based in New York City, is an international quarterly journal specializing in photography. Founded in 1952, Aperture magazine is the flagship publication of Aperture Foundation.[1]
The headquarters of Aperture magazine and the Aperture Foundation and Gallery are at 547 West 27th Street, 4th floor, New York, NY 10001.
Publication
Aperture is published four times a year, in Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. It features photographs by established and emerging photographers, as well as artists experimenting with photo-related media. Each issue is usually themed and includes writings by critics, scholars, photography practitioners, and others involved in the field of photography.
Aperture has been originated to communicate with serious photographers and creative people everywhere, whether professional, amateur or student... Aperture is intended to be a mature journal in which photographers can talk straight to each other, discuss the problems that face photography as profession and art, share their experiences, comment on what goes on, descry the new potentials. We, who have founded this journal, invite others to use Aperture as a common ground for the advancement of photography.[4]
Minor White was appointed by the founders to be the editor of the magazine, which was at first published out of San Francisco.[2] The magazine's dimensions were initially modest (9 3/8 by 6 ¼ inches), and in its first two decades the photographs discussed and published in its pages were exclusively black and white (the preferred mode of most art photographers of the era). Many early issues were loosely organized around thematic concepts (such as "The Creative Approach" [vol. 2, no. 2, 1953], "The Controversial ‘Family of Man'" [vol. 3, no. 2, 1955], and "Substance and Spirit of Architectural Photography" [vol. 6, no. 4, 1958]), or were monographic publications (the first of these was vol. 6, no. 1, 1958, on Edward Weston).[5]
In 1953, the editorial offices moved to Rochester, New York. (White joined the staff of the George Eastman House, and in 1955 began teaching at the Rochester Institute of Technology.)[6] White was assisted with the magazine's editorial and production tasks by Peter C. Bunnell.[6] From the outset, the magazine was appreciated by its readers as "a much needed forum for serious photographers.”[7] In 1962, vol. 10, no. 4, a monograph on photographer Frederick Sommer, was the first of many issues to be published also as a trade book.
Aperture, Inc., became a nonprofit foundation in 1963.[1] In 1964, Michael E. Hoffman, a former student of White, became the foundation's publisher and executive director; he would shape the magazine and all other aspects of the foundation until his death in 2001.[8] In 1965, Aperture launched a full-fledged book-publishing program (with Edward Weston: Photographer, The Flame of Recognition, edited by Nancy Newhall) that evolved in tandem with the magazine over the following decades.[9] Beginning in the mid-1960s, the magazine's production was overseen by Stevan A. Baron (who supervised the production of nearly all of Aperture's publications until his retirement in 2003).
In 1966, Aperture's production department was moved to New York City;[1] before the end of the decade, the foundation itself established headquarters in Millerton, New York. The magazine faced perpetual financial challenges in this period; there was discussion of ceasing publication in 1967, but White was encouraged by the creativity and business acumen of Hoffman, writing in an editorial: "When Michael Hoffman became the publisher of Aperture, its physical growth was assured and a new cycle was started."[1] In 1975, Helen Levitt’s photographs of New York City were published as the first full-color portfolio in the magazine (vol. 19, no. 4, 1975). This era also included monographic issues on the work of Edward S. Curtis (vol. 16, no. 4, 1972); Clarence John Laughlin (vol. 17, nos. 3–4, 1973); and P. H. Emerson (vol. 19, nos. 1–2, 1975), as well as an issue devoted to the theme of "The Snapshot" (vol. 19, no. 1, 1974, edited by Jonathan Green).
1976–2001
On June 24, 1976, Minor White died of a heart attack after a prolonged illness.[6]:13 In the same year, with issue 77, the magazine moved to a new numbering system (no longer published in annual volumes, issues were now numbered as individual publications) and its format was enlarged to 11⅜ by 9 9/16 inches. In 1979, with issue 82, a new design by Malcolm Grear was unveiled; from this point, Aperture’s format and look remained basically unchanged for more than twenty years.[1]
Under Michael Hoffman, Aperture was developed by editors including Carole Kismaric, Steve Dietz, Lawrence Frascella, Mark Holborn, and Nan Richardson, while Hoffman always played an integral part in each issue’s conception (and was sometimes credited as Editor on mastheads). Hoffman's life partner of 20 years, Diane Lyon, AKA Diane Hoffman, provided assistance. Chief among a group of designers for the magazine in this period was Wendy Byrne (also a principal designer of many Aperture books).
In 1984, Aperture's headquarters moved to a five-story brownstone at 20 East 23rd Street in New York;[10] in 1989, the building’s second floor was transformed into the Burden Gallery, named for longtime Aperture supporter Shirley C. Burden.[11] The 23rd Street building was Aperture's home until 2005.
Issues of Aperture during this period were still organized around thematic concepts, such as "Swimmers" (issue 111); "New Southern Photography" (issue 115); "Beyond Wilderness" (issue 119); or monographs of individual photographers. Most issues were edited by members of Aperture's in-house editorial staff; others were guest-edited by outside aficionados; among the editors were Mark Holborn, Nan Richardson, and Melissa Harris. Charles Hagen was the chief editor of the magazine from 1988 to 1991.
Harris became the magazine's principal editor in 1992; under her guidance over the following two decades Aperture would place increased focus on social issues, as well as photo-based work, film, video, and new forms of digital media. Harris furthered the magazine's longtime practice of including writings by both photography specialists and others, with a view to widening Aperture’s audience and scope. From 1992 to 2002, Harris generally edited two issues of the magazine a year, and invited outside editors to organize and conceptualize the remaining two. Among the guest editors during this time were Rebecca Busselle, Peggy Roalf, Michael Sand, Diana C. Stoll, and Andrew Wilkes. Along with Wendy Byrne, Roger Gorman and Yolanda Cuomo were also frequently employed as issue designers in this period.
Harris and Hoffman were married in 1998.[12] The magazine was redesigned by Cuomo with issue 159 (Spring 2000); from this point and through the next thirteen years, Cuomo remained the magazine's art director, and issues of Aperture were no longer thematically focused. During this period, the magazine continued to explore photography in its many varied forms, as the medium underwent radical changes with the advent of digitization, the Internet, and social media.
After 36 years as publisher and executive director of Aperture, Michael Hoffman died unexpectedly of complications from meningitis on November 23, 2001, at the age of 59, as preparations were underway for Aperture magazine's fiftieth anniversary. He was survived by Harris, as well as by his two children (by Katharine Carter, his first wife), Matthew Perkins Hoffman and Sarah Warren Hoffman.[8] In Aperture 167 (Summer 2002), curator, critic, and frequent contributor to ApertureMark Haworth-Booth observed:
Michael E. Hoffman was a brave, bold, and occasionally bloody-minded photography publisher.... Hoffman moved mountains to create marvelous publications—over 450 books and exhibition catalogs, plus more than a hundred issues of the magazine. He charmed to raise money. He cajoled and inspired authors, photographers, designers, editors, printers, and co-publishers. He was driven and visionary. He delighted and infuriated the readers of his publications and the visitors to his elegant and original exhibitions. He changed the cultural landscape and many lives for the better.[13]
2002–2012
In celebration of the magazine's jubilee year, 2002, Aperture published the book Photography Past/Forward: Aperture at 50, featuring vintage photographs as well as never-before-published works, and a comprehensive history of the magazine and the foundation by veteran Aperture contributing editor R. H. Cravens. The publication appeared also as issues 168 and 169 of the magazine. Aperture’s fiftieth anniversary was commemorated with a series of exhibitions at fifty venues throughout New York City.[14]
In the years following Hoffman’s death, the foundation was headed by a series of interim directors, and then by Ellen Harris (2003–7)[15] and Juan García de Oteyza (2008–10).[16] In 2005 Aperture moved to its present location at 547 West 27th Street, in New York’s Chelsea district.[17] In 2010 Chris Boot was named Executive Director of the foundation, beginning his duties in 2011.[18]
Along with its print edition, Aperture began a subscriber-based online version of the magazine via Zinio with issue 201 (Winter 2010); and then via Nook with issue 207 (Summer 2012).
Since Fall 2011, The PhotoBook Review—a newsprint book-review publication—has been distributed twice a year to subscribers of Aperture, with every other issue of the magazine.
In 2012, Aperture’s sixtieth anniversary was commemorated with the publication of Aperture Magazine Anthology—The Minor White Years: 1952–1976: a collection of writings and documents from the journal's first quarter-century of publication, edited by Peter Bunnell.[5] The magazine’s editorial staff put plans in place for a major relaunch of Aperture, with a new focus on the changing state of photography.[19] Melissa Harris assumed the title of Editor in Chief at Aperture Foundation, and Michael Famighetti stepped into the role of Editor of Aperture magazine.[20]
2013–present
Issue 210 (Spring 2013), titled "Hello, Photography", inaugurated Aperture’s relaunch, with a return to thematically based issues and a new focus on photography’s contemporary practitioners and platforms.[21] Since then, Aperture has distinguished itself from numerous other photography magazines that have emerged since 2000, with its stated aim to serve as a "guide to the world of contemporary photography that combines the finest writing with inspiring photographic portfolios."[22] The magazine's current designers are Henrik Kubel and Scott Williams of the British firm A2/SW/HK; the magazine's new format features an increased number of pages, separate sections devoted to "Words" and "Pictures" (printed on different paper stocks), and a larger trim size: 12 x 9 ¼ inches. Beginning with issue 210, the digital version of the magazine has been distributed via Kindle.
Notable issues
Aperture vol. 1, no. 1 (1952)
This inaugural issue of the magazine includes an introductory text by Aperture’s founders, Minor White’s essay "Exploratory Camera", and Nancy Newhall's "The Caption", as well as photographs by Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Lisette Model, and Minor White
Aperture vol. 10, no. 4 (1962)
Monographic issue conceived, designed, and written by photographer Frederick Sommer (also released as a trade book, Frederick Sommer)[23]
Double issue, edited by Nancy Newhall, devoted to the work of Weston (an expanded version of this issue was published as a trade book in 1965, Edward Weston: Photographer, The Flame of Recognition)[24]
"Light",7 vol. 14, no. 1 (1968)
The first of four issues of Aperture that accompanied exhibitions organized by Minor White at the Hayden Gallery at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)[6]:11
A monographic double issue, guest-edited by James Baker Hall, devoted to the work of self-taught Kentucky photographer Meatyard; published also as a trade book
"New Southern Photography", no. 115 (Summer 1989)
Edited by Charles Hagen and Nan Richardson, this issue focuses on both established and emerging artists practicing in the U.S. South
"The Body in Question", no. 121 (Fall 1990)
This issue, the first edited by Melissa Harris, addresses the topics of censorship and images of the body[25]
"40th Anniversary", no. 129 (Fall 1992)
Commemorating four decades of Aperture’s publication, this issue includes a compendium of photographs and writings by friends of the magazine, with a commissioned cover image by artist Robert Rauschenberg ",
A retrospective compilation of photographs, with a textual history of Aperture's first half-century by author R. H. Cravens (also published as a hardcover trade book, titled Photography Past/Forward: Aperture at 50)[26]
Aperture, no. 204 (Fall 2011)
Published on the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks, this issue includes a portfolio of photographs and critical writings addressing the radically altering state of photography, titled “The Anxiety of Images”
"Hello, Photography", no. 210 (Spring 2013)
The first issue of Aperture’s relaunch, this publication includes photographs and writings addressing the myriad new forms and directions the medium is taking
"Documentary, Expanded", no. 214 (Spring 2014)
Produced with guest-editor Susan Meiselas, this issue considers the impact of new media on socially engaged documentary work
Related exhibitions
Numerous thematic issues of Aperture magazine have been produced to accompany related exhibitions, presented at Aperture's own Burden Gallery and Aperture Gallery, and at other venues. Notable among these exhibitions:
Light,7 Hayden Gallery, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1968 (with Aperture vol. 14, no. 1, 1968)
Aperture magazine has been published independently since its inception in 1952; since 1963 it has been a central function of Aperture Foundation. The following have held the title of Publisher on the magazine's masthead:
Michael E. Hoffman
Betty Russell
Michelle Dunn Marsh (Associate Publisher, 2006–7; Copublisher, 2008–11)
Dana Triwush (Copublisher, 2008–11; Publisher, 2011–present)
Diane Arbus was an American photographer. She photographed a wide range of subjects including strippers, carnival performers, nudists, people with dwarfism, children, mothers, couples, elderly people, and middle-class families. She photographed her subjects in familiar settings: their homes, on the street, in the workplace, in the park. "She is noted for expanding notions of acceptable subject matter and violates canons of the appropriate distance between photographer and subject. By befriending, not objectifying her subjects, she was able to capture in her work a rare psychological intensity." In his 2003 New York Times Magazine article, "Arbus Reconsidered", Arthur Lubow states, "She was fascinated by people who were visibly creating their own identities—cross-dressers, nudists, sideshow performers, tattooed men, the nouveaux riches, the movie-star fans—and by those who were trapped in a uniform that no longer provided any security or comfort." Michael Kimmelman writes in his review of the exhibition Diane Arbus Revelations, that her work "transformed the art of photography ". Arbus's imagery helped to normalize marginalized groups and highlight the importance of proper representation of all people.
Edward Henry Weston was an American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers" and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his 40-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of subjects, including landscapes, still lifes, nudes, portraits, genre scenes and even whimsical parodies. It is said that he developed a "quintessentially American, and especially Californian, approach to modern photography" because of his focus on the people and places of the American West. In 1937 Weston was the first photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, and over the next two years he produced nearly 1,400 negatives using his 8 × 10 view camera. Some of his most famous photographs were taken of the trees and rocks at Point Lobos, California, near where he lived for many years.
André Kertész, born Andor Kertész, was a Hungarian-born photographer known for his groundbreaking contributions to photographic composition and the photo essay. In the early years of his career, his then-unorthodox camera angles and style prevented his work from gaining wider recognition. Kertész never felt that he had gained the worldwide recognition he deserved. Today he is considered one of the seminal figures of 20th century photography.
Minor Martin White was an American photographer, theoretician, critic, and educator. He had an intense interest in how people viewed and thought about photographs and a personal vision guided by several spiritual and intellectual philosophies.
Nancy Wynne Newhall was an American photography critic. She is best known for writing the text to accompany photographs by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, but was also a widely published writer on photography, conservation, and American culture.
Theodore Brett Weston was an American photographer.
Beaumont Newhall was an American curator, art historian, writer, photographer, and the second director of the George Eastman Museum. His book The History of Photography remains one of the most significant accounts in the field and has become a classic photographic history textbook. Newhall was the recipient of numerous awards and accolades for his accomplishments in the study of photo history.
Barbara Morgan was an American photographer best known for her depictions of modern dancers. She was a co-founder of the photography magazine Aperture.
Aperture Foundation is a nonprofit arts institution, founded in 1952 by Ansel Adams, Minor White, Barbara Morgan, Dorothea Lange, Nancy Newhall, Beaumont Newhall, Ernest Louie, Melton Ferris, and Dody Warren. Their vision was to create a forum for fine art photography, a new concept at the time. The first issue of the magazine Aperture was published in spring 1952 in San Francisco.
Nathan Lyons was an American photographer, curator, and educator. He exhibited his photographs from 1956 onwards, produced books of his own and edited those of others.
Anne Wilkes Tucker is an American retired museum curator of photographic works. She retired in June 2015.
Philip Gefter is an American author and photography historian. His books include What Becomes A Legend Most, the biography of Richard Avedon; and Wagstaff: Before and After Mapplethorpe, the biography of Sam Wagstaff, for which he received the 2014 Marfield Prize, the national award for arts writing. He is also the author of George Dureau: The Photographs, and Photography After Frank, a book of essays published by Aperture in 2009. He was on staff at The New York Times for over fifteen years, where he wrote regularly about photography. He produced the 2011 documentary film, Bill Cunningham New York.
Mark Haworth-Booth is a British academic and historian of photography. He was a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London from 1970 to 2004.
Willard "Herc" Detering Morgan was a photographer, writer, editor, and educator and the husband of photographer Barbara Morgan, known for her documentation of Martha Graham's dances.
Dody Weston Thompson was a 20th-century American photographer and chronicler of the history and craft of photography. She learned the art in 1947 and developed her own expression of “straight” or realistic photography, the style that emerged in Northern California in the 1930s. Dody worked closely with contemporary icons Edward Weston, Brett Weston and Ansel Adams during the late 1940s and through the 1950s, with additional collaboration with Brett Weston in the 1980s.
Friends of Photography was a nonprofit organization started by Ansel Adams and others in 1967 to promote photography as a fine art. During its existence the organization held at least 330 photography exhibitions at its galleries in Carmel and San Francisco, California, and it published a lengthy series of monographs under the name Untitled. Among those who were featured in their exhibitions and publications were well-known photographers Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock, Ruth Bernhard, Harry Callahan, Roy DeCarava, Lee Friedlander, Emmet Gowin, Mary Ellen Mark, Barbara Morgan, Aaron Siskind, Paul Strand, Brett Weston, Edward Weston and Minor White, as well as then newly starting photographers such as Marsha Burns, William Garnett, Richard Misrach, John Pfahl, Lorna Simpson, and Jo Ann Walters. The organization was formally dissolved in 2001.
Ralph M. Hattersley, Jr. (1921-2000) was an American photographic educator, commentator, journalist and photographer.
Light Vision was a bi-monthly Australian photography magazine that existed between 1977 and 1978.
Matthew Leifheit is an American photographer, writer, magazine-editor, publisher, and professor. He is based in Brooklyn, New York.
Jonathan Green is an American writer, historian of photography, curator, teacher, museum administrator, photographer, filmmaker and the founding Project Director of the Wexner Center for the Arts. A recognized authority on the history of American photography, Green’s books Camera Work: A Critical Anthology (1973) and American Photography: A Critical History 1945–1980 (1984) are two notable commentaries and frequently referenced and republished accounts in the field of photography. At the same time Green’s acquisitions, exhibitions and publications consistently drew from the edges of established photographic practice rather than from its traditional center. He supported acquisitions by socially activist artists like Adrian Piper and graffiti artist Furtura 2000, and hosted exhibitions on Rape, AIDS, new feminist art, and the work of photographer, choreographer and dancer Arnie Zane, the Diana camera images of Nancy Rexroth, the Polaroids and imitation biplanes of folk artist Leslie Payne, and the digital photographic work of Mexican photographer Pedro Meyer. This alternative focus help prime Green and the competition jury to choose an unconventional, deconstructive architect, Peter Eisenman, previously known primarily as a teacher and theorist, as the architect for the Wexner Center for the Arts. Green has held professorial and directorial positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ohio State University, and University of California, Riverside.
1 2 Peter C. Bunnell, ed., Aperture Magazine Anthology—The Minor White Years, 1952–1976 (New York: Aperture, 2012), index of issues, ISBN978-1-59711-196-6.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Peter C. Bunnell, Minor White: The Eye That Shapes (Princeton, N.J.: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1989), p. 7, ISBN0-943012-10-4.
↑ Jacob Deschin, "Photographers Need a Receptive Public in Order to Get Their Ideas Across", The New York Times, June 21, 1953
1 2 "Michael Hoffman, Director of Art Photography Publisher, Dies at 59", The New York Times, November 29, 2001.
↑ Edward Weston: Photographer, The Flame of Recognition. Aperture Monograph (Rochester, N.Y.: Aperture, 1965). Also issued as Aperture, vol. 12, nos. 1–2, edited by Minor White; special editor Nancy Newhall, ISBN978-0-912334-02-8.
↑ Anthony Ramirez, "A Patron of the Arts Needs a Patron", The New York Times, February 16, 1997.
↑ "Shirley Burden, 80, a Writer-Photographer", obituary, The New York Times, June 5, 1989.
↑ R. H. Cravens, Photography Past/Forward: Aperture at Fifty (New York: Aperture, 2002), p. 197, ISBN978-0-89381-996-5.
↑ Mark Haworth-Booth, "In Remembrance: Michael E. Hoffman, 1942–2001", Aperture 167 (Summer 2002), p. 12.
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