Aperture's Blog, page 108

Delirious Tokyo

In a new exhibition, Daido Moriyama returns to his icons and obsessions.

By Russet Lederman

Daido Moriyama, Color, 2017
© Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and courtesy of Luhring Augustine, New York and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo

In Tokyo Color at Luhring Augustine Bushwick, Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama revisits the themes that have consumed much of his fifty-year career—urban street life, intimacy, pattern, and light. Divided into three distinct bodies of work, the prints and projections that fill the gallery include new large-scale color images taken on his frequent nighttime walks in Tokyo’s Shinjuku neighborhood, a slideshow projection of early color works from the late 1960s through the 1980s, and an undated selection of recently printed black-and-white photographs from his erotic “tights” series. Selected and installed according to Moriyama’s specific instructions, this exhibition presents an artist’s reflections on his long-established photographic language and iconography.

 

Daido Moriyama, Color, 2017
© Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and courtesy of Luhring Augustine, New York and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo

Moriyama first rose to prominence through his association with Provoke, a short-lived avant-garde publication from 1968–9 that fundamentally reshaped postwar Japanese photography. Although well-known for his grainy and blurred black-and-white photographs from the late 1960s to the ’70s, Moriyama has long included color photography in his practice. In 2008, armed with a new digital camera, his nightly Shinjuku walks began to capture a slightly different energy as a brash digital palette seeped into his images of garish signs, shop windows, tangled wires, and flamboyant urban denizens. The city and its frenetic energy collided with an immediacy that exposed an unnerving and threatening presence in everyday scenes.

Daido Moriyama, Color, 2017
© Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and courtesy of Luhring Augustine, New York and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo

The recent color work in Tokyo Color takes this impulse to a new level of intensity. Installed in grids on three gallery walls, Moriyama’s color photographs confront the viewer with an immersion akin to billboards: Shinjuku’s daily deluge of brightly painted faces, fanciful clothing, neon signage, and fashionable shop mannequins. Saturated colors fight for the viewer’s attention as the exponents of modern consumer culture are transformed into a collection of abstract patterns that define the texture of a bustling city. A sensation of direct experience is quickly replaced with visual overload.

Daido Moriyama, Tights, 2017
© Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and courtesy of Luhring Augustine, New York and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo

The jarring visual patterns of Shinjuku are both expanded and restrained on a fourth wall, which lines up a selection of sixteen black-and-white photographs from Moriyama’s ongoing “tights” series. Begun in the 1980s, these elegant portraits of curved legs and torsos enveloped in patterns of crisscrossing lines convey a subtle yet powerful eroticism. The photographs are abstract, formal compositions, directing the eye around and between undulating legs, feet, and rear ends, all highlighted against dense black backgrounds and grainy surfaces. In “tights,” Moriyama’s patterns and stark lighting simultaneously reveal and obscure a precise reading of body parts—with the only roadmap often provided by the black seam of a stocking. Earlier works printed in 2017, these highly seductive images are especially complementary when placed adjacent and opposite to the brash Shinjuku photographs. “The black-and-white tells about my inner world, my emotions and deep feelings,” Moriyama says, “whereas the color photographs are much more about the experience of being in the streets, the overload of posters and signs and advertisements as you wander through the city.”

Daido Moriyama, Color, 2017. Installation view at Luhring Augustine Bushwick
© Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and courtesy of Luhring Augustine, New York and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo

Capturing the essence of Shinjuku has engaged Moriyama since he first arrived in Tokyo in the early 1960s from his native Osaka. As a young freelance photographer, he began his now-routine practice of nightly wanderings and bar crawls through Shinjuku’s seedier quarters. Many of his best-known photographs from the 1960s and ’70s began as color images that were later converted to black-and-white. Projected on a hanging screen that bisects the gallery space is a slideshow of 128 color photographs from his earliest wanderings. Purplish in tone and challenging to see clearly in the well-lit gallery space, these images, which were first published in Camera Mainichi magazine, offer a primer of Moriyama’s continual engagement with the city. Gritty and rundown street corners, 1970s signage, bodies in various states of undress, legs in fishnets, motorcycle gangs, and the lowlifes from Shinjuku’s notorious Kabukicho district flash across the screen. Seen together in one space, the three distinct series that comprise Tokyo Color provide a rare glimpse of a mature photographer revisiting his own history and taking stock of his lifelong thematic obsessions.

Russet Lederman teaches art writing at the School of Visual Arts, New York.

Daido Moriyama: Tokyo Color is on view at Luhring Augustine Bushwick through October 22, 2017.

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6 Men Who Think They’re the Second Coming of Jesus Christ

From Zambia to Japan, photographer Jonas Bendiksen tells their stories.

Jonas Bendiksen, Bupete Chibwe Chishimba, known as Jesus of Kitwe, Zambia, 2016
© the artist/Magnum Photos

Jesus of Kitwe

Jesus of Nazareth was a carpenter by trade. Upon his return two thousand years later, he operates two unlicensed taxis in Kitwe, Zambia. When he was twenty-four, Bupete Chibwe Chishimba received a revelation from God that he was the second coming of Jesus. Jesus also goes by the names Parent Rock of the World, Mr. Faithful, and Mr. Word of God.

Jonas Bendiksen, Disciples shut the curtains in front of INRI Cristo after he has delivered the sermon of the day, Brazil, 2014
© the artist/Magnum Photos

INRI Cristo

INRI takes his first name from the initials of the inscription Pontius Pilate placed on the cross to spite Jesus two thousand years ago: Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum, or Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. His first awakening as the Christ came in 1979 during a fast in Santiago de Chile. Subsequently, INRI spent many years as a wandering preacher before settling in what he calls New Jerusalem, which is located outside of Brasília, Brazil.

Jonas Bendiksen, Dolores, David Shayler’s femme persona, in a church, Windsor, England, 2015
© Jonas Bendiksen/Magnum Photos

David Shayler/Dolores Kane

David Shayler the Christ, a former MI5 agent, had the revelation that he is Jesus in 2007. In Galatians 3:28 Paul the apostle writes, “nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Thus the Messiah today has an alter ego named Dolores Kane, who embodies the feminine aspects of divinity. Like Jesus of Nazareth, David and Dolores move in circles far outside of society’s establishment.

Jonas Bendiksen, Jesus Matayoshi holds his election sermons from the top of his campaign vehicle, Tokyo, 2016
© Jonas Bendiksen/Magnum Photos

Jesus Matayoshi

Jesus Matayoshi was born in Okinawa, Japan, in 1944. In 1997, he founded the World Economic Community Party, which bases its policies on Matayoshi’s identity as Jesus Christ reborn. Matayoshi, also known as The Only God, will bring about the End Times and God’s Kingdom through the democratic political process. Matayoshi is famous for his vigorous campaign style. He often instructs his opponents to commit suicide and threatens hellfire upon sinners.

Jonas Bendiksen, Moses Hlongwane, otherwise known simply as Jesus, on the day of his wedding to one of his disciples, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, 2016
© the artist/Magnum Photos

Moses Hlongwane

In 1992, when Moses was working as a small-time jewelry salesman, God came to him in a dream with the word that he is the Messiah. Now, Moses Hlongwane is known to his forty or so disciples in South Africa as The King of Kings, The Lord of Lords, or simply: Jesus. According to Moses’s teachings, Judgment Day is approaching fast. The resulting End of Days is in part triggered by the conclusion of Moses’s successful search for a wife.

Jonas Bendiksen, On January 14, Vissarion’s birthday, his disciples enter the community’s innermost and holiest village, Obitel Rassveta, or The Abode of Dawn, Russia, 2015
© the artist/Magnum Photos

Vissarion of Siberia

The man born as Sergei Torop had his first revelations that he was Jesus Christ just as the USSR collapsed around him. In the early 1990s he founded the Church of the Last Testament, renamed himself Vissarion, and settled with his disciples in an off-the-grid utopian eco-village in the Siberian woods, the Abode of Dawn. The community now numbers some five thousand followers.

Jonas Bendiksen is a photographer based in Oslo. This feature is adapted from Jonas Bendiksen: The Last Testament, published by Aperture in September 2017.

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Aperture Honors Fred Smith (1942–2017)

Memories of the late Aperture Foundation trustee.

I first took note of the voice—booming, self-assured. Then, a quick glance: polished, suit and tie, sitting next to me at the counter at Novitá, extolling the virtues of George W. Bush to the hostess over lunch. This was in 2004.

When he went outside to smoke, I shared with the hostess my own opinions of the president, which were far at the other end of the spectrum. The tall, sharp-featured, fair-haired man came back in, heard about 25 per cent of my diatribe, and in that sonorous voice demanded, “Who are you?” We started talking, or perhaps politely bickering. I discovered he was interested in photography, and had once been a subscriber to Aperture—I was the magazine’s editor-in-chief at the time. This earned him some points, for sure. He discovered that, like him, I had gone to Yale. This apparently earned me some points. As he got up to leave, he challenged me to send him a recent issue of Aperture: “Fred Smith. Park Avenue.” I laughed at that. And then, just before the door closed behind him, the chaser: “I’m the only one.”

I sent Fred Smith of Park Avenue some issues—carefully chosen issues, featuring political content that would, I was certain, provoke him. Some days later, he called me, this time extolling Aperture’s excellence (but making it clear he was not in complete agreement with our content). He proceeded to generously offer a financial contribution to the magazine. (We had, after agreeing to disagree as far as Bush was concerned, already discussed Aperture Foundation’s financial health. He knew that this would be welcome.). I told him perhaps he shouldn’t offer his money until he really knew and understood what he was giving to. He should come in, meet people, see our books, see what we really do, everything we do . . . and then we could take it from there.

At that point Fred was at Credit Suisse and Aperture was more or less around the corner, on Twenty-Third Street at the base of Madison Avenue. Shortly after, he came in and met the team. And this was, as they say, the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Fred Smith and Aperture Foundation.

As a trustee, Fred did not just want to support Aperture financially—he made this very clear to me in our early discussions.  He wanted to really engage, to share his remarkable talents and perspective. He wanted to give his most valuable possession—his time. We needed, and soon came to depend on his input, no question about that. And I like to think that, in some way, Aperture benefited him, too. He seemed to have fun working with us, and we could always count on Fred’s clarity and honesty.  Over more than twelve years of collaboration, Fred became an invaluable member of our family. Intelligent, judicious, ethical, articulate, open-minded, and present, Fred was not remotely censorious, understanding and believing in our strict church/state separation between funding and editorial content. I quickly came to learn that his politics were not as one-sided as they’d seemed on the day we met, when I had wanted to throw my water at him at Novitá. His mind was always open to new ideas, and he was a fervent believer in human decency, in opportunity.  He was an uncompromising supporter of Aperture’s mission; indeed, I think he cared about it as much as the staff does. And in turn, Aperture’s staff loved, respected, and appreciated Fred Smith. He was truly “the only one.” He will be greatly missed.

—Melissa Harris, editor-at-large, Aperture Foundation

Fred Smith was already on the Aperture Board when I joined. As I got to know my fellow Board members Fred seemed an anomaly, a self-proclaimed non-photography person on a Board of passionate collectors. But that self description was deceiving. Fred had, through his association with Aperture, developed a respect for the history and role of photography and a love of certain photographers and had even built a small, very personal, collection of photographs. Although Fred came to Aperture after a chance encounter with then editor-in-chief Melissa Harris, he only joined the Board after study and from a sense that he could help Aperture in a significant way through his financial expertise. Fred treated his role as Treasurer with the same intensity and care that he applied to the financing transactions that he worked on during his years as an investment banker. After I became Chair of the Aperture Board I spoke to Fred frequently, consulted with him on decisions and valued his wise input.

Fred was a true humanist. He cared about the role Aperture played in the world, and the importance of the visual image. He also cared about the people who worked at Aperture. He would stop by the office frequently to check in, he knew everyone who worked there and he formed deep friendships.

In the weeks since his death, many of Aperture’s Board members have expressed how hard the news of Fred’s death hit them and how much they will miss his calm and rational presence at our meetings and how they will especially miss his deep, reassuring voice. Fred was a huge presence at Aperture.

—Cathy Kaplan, chair, Board of Trustees, Aperture Foundation

I first met Fred in 2010 when interviewing for the position of chief financial officer at Aperture. Prior to the meeting, I had reviewed the interviewers’ bios, many of which were impressively long and detailed. In contrast, Fred’s was brief: Fred Smith, Banker. The man behind the bio was equally succinct, direct, and unvarnished. During the interview, he asked penetrating questions and listened carefully to the answers. By the end of the interview, I felt strongly that here was someone with whom I would like to work. This conviction was confirmed tenfold over the following seven years as we worked closely together and became—I like to think—friends.

Fred brought wisdom and perspective to all of our interactions and projects.  One of his greatest gifts was his uncanny power to distill the most complex ideas into a few simple sentences, providing clarity and direction to both Board and staff.

Although clearly knowledgeable and influential in his role as Treasurer and Finance Committee chair, Fred never pulled rank on anyone. He respected and trusted the staff’s knowledge and listened carefully to our input. He was also crystal clear about the difference between Board oversight and staff execution, which freed us to do our jobs, albeit within a clear policy framework.

Fred approached everything he did with dedication and enthusiasm. Although by profession a financier, he was passionate about music, books, his family, the English language, Aperture, and, of course, golf and politics, not necessarily in that order.  Fred loved to test ideas and theories, loved to debate, loved to be challenged and learn new things.  I can still hear him hoot with laughter when someone poked an indignant hole in one of his theories; or see him cock his head and concede, “Well now, that’s true”, when shown an alternative way to approach an issue.  He was extraordinarily open to learning and growing, and as a result seemed perennially young and engaged.

One of my favorite memories of Fred is from Aperture’s 2014 gala. With the dinner and auction over and the tables cleared, the band’s decibel output had increased to the point where a number of the older patrons had begun an orderly rout. Not Fred. Surrounded by his children and their friends, he leaned back in his chair, pounding the table with his fist in time with the rhythm, a huge grin on his face. I do believe he closed the place down.

I miss his frequent calls (“Hi, MC, just checking in to see how things are going”), his calm, clarity, and financial acumen, his humor, and his steadfast devotion to the Aperture cause. We all miss him more than words can express.

—Mary Colman St. John, chief financial and administrative officer, Aperture Foundation

I first met with Fred Smith during interviews for the job of executive director at Aperture, in 2010, along with the then recently-appointed Chief Financial Officer, Mary Colman St. John. In the hour or two we spent together, I learned that Aperture’s finances were being looked after by sound minds and good people, and that we really liked and immediately trusted each other. Since then, apart from the couple of weeks each year that Fred disappeared to Jamaica to be with his family and play golf (always scheduled so as not to interfere with his commitments to Aperture), I worked with Fred every week. He became one of the most important business partners of my working life, parsing and re-imagining of Aperture’s economics and playing a key role in charting the institution’s path forward.

Fred was devoted to Aperture, but, unlike other supporters and trustees, wasn’t consumed with interest in art and photography. Or so we thought. Later on, I came to know him as a man of great taste and artistic judgment, but he never let that show, nor interfere with good organizational decision-making. Why did he bother? It took a while for me to understand that his devotion was a decision of heart and mind. As a retired banker, with considerable talents and experience, he needed a project to occupy him. He chose us because we believed in something and because he liked us. And having made the decision, he applied his wise counsel to our affairs for however many hours necessary, week after week, for over a decade. Thousands of hours. He scrutinized every detail of our activities and took time to understand our economics at a granular level, which he in turn interpreted to our other trustees, responsible for the organization’s governance.

Aperture’s history is publicly characterized by great artists—Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin, Sally Mann, among many others; by the charisma of its former directors, Minor White and Michael Hoffman, and its editors; and by the leadership of its Board chairs. Although I don’t think most people engaged with Aperture beyond our Board knew the name of Fred Smith, yet he was central to Aperture’s story, and has shaped it. We will miss him terribly.

—Chris Boot, executive director, Aperture Foundation

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The Theater of Everyday Life

In France, photographer Alessandra Sanguinetti injects elements of fairy tales and fantasy into quotidian scenes.

By Susan Bright

Alessandra Sanguinetti, The vendor, Jardin des Tuileries, Paris, 2016
© and courtesy the artist

“Infraordinary.” This term, drawn from a 1970s essay by French experimental writer Georges Perec, requires that we pay attention to all that is considered neither ordinary nor extraordinary. It demands that we reconsider what is significant and what is not. This is what Alessandra Sanguinetti does in Le Gendarme Sur La Colline (Aperture, 2017). Through her work, a transformation takes place: she assembles a series of fragments and details from a host of different lives, showing us that what can be historic, significant, and revelatory is not the stuff of headlines, but that of the quotidian. The infraordinary becomes the key player in each scene. What is crucial is her manner of injecting the everyday with elements of fairy tales and theater—two ancient methods of storytelling. By seizing on the possibilities of the magical and the promise of performance, she takes familiar and everyday French lives and landscapes and transforms them into notable and even exotic frames, often tinged with fantasy. She evades the grotesque or judgmental in this transformation. What happens instead is a reading of heightened possibility in the minutiae of the everyday.

Alessandra Sanguinetti, Matinée I, Paris, 2016
© and courtesy the artist

Sanguinetti conveys the idea of theater literally as well as stylistically, with oblique hints to the charged atmosphere alongside the required equipage. We can see the lushness of the red velvet curtain suggested through textures on chairs and walls, lone drapes in tower blocks, and a tablecloth mournfully lifted to mark the end of a meal, as if in intermission. The white sheet with the reproduction Eiffel Towers becomes a stage, while the audience in the theater represents the increasingly diverse population of France. The people in several of the portraits appear to be lit by spotlight, as if they are starring in a performance of their own lives. These photographs are infused with hushed tones that recall the slight impatience and anticipation echoing the beginning of the next act. Arcane costumes highlight notions of performance that take on a mournful edge when out of context. A guard, all dressed up in his red jacket, seems to have forgotten his words and been rejected from the scene as tourists line up to enter a château, which in itself is a performance of the past.

Alessandra Sanguinetti, Weighing in, 57.00 kg, 2016
© and courtesy the artist

In this work, France is also solemn, deep in contemplation. While fantastical and opaque traditions and rituals are played out in half-forgotten corners of the country, the newer developments, people, and customs contrast with and frame the theatrical reenactment of the country’s past and continuing traditions. But among the mournfulness, there is also humor in the characters, costumes, and performances. The lightweight jockeys in Chantilly look like titular kings. Perhaps they live in the model castle that follows several pages later? One puff of wind by a mythical wolf and they would all but disappear. Set in the eve of systemic shifts all across Europe, and a rise of nationalism globally, Le Gendarme Sur La Colline shows us the fragility of France—as delicate as the jigsaw on the frontispiece of the book. In the first images of a small family circus as well as the portraits throughout the book, France is depicted as both strange and mythical, and everyday and familiar.

Alessandra Sanguinetti, Château de Saumur, Maine-et-Loire, 2016
© and courtesy the artist

Susan Bright is a curator and writer whose recent books include Art Photography Now and Feast for the Eyes: The Story of Food in Photography. This feature is adapted from the Aperture book Le Gendarme Sur La Colline.

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Remembering Robert Delpire, Publisher of the Greats

Aperture commemorates the life of Robert Delpire (1926–2017), the publisher, editor, and curator, whose vision defined twentieth-century photography. In this interview from 2012, Melissa Harris spoke with Delpire about his projects with luminaries including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, and William Klein.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Delpire, 1960
© the artist/Magnum Photos

Over the past sixty years, the eyes and instincts of Robert Delpire (1926–2017) have shaped much of the world’s understanding of photography. A prolific publisher and exhibition organizer, with a razor-sharp comprehension of the graphic arts, Delpire has had a defining hand in the careers of many of the master photographers of recent history. He began his own trajectory in the early 1950s—incongruously—as a student of medicine in Paris. At that time, the Maison de la Médicine (like the “houses” of other university faculties) hosted both cultural and sports activities; Delpire had a taste for competitive sports and frequented the place. The Maison—to justify itself to the ministry of education—produced a modest semiannual bulletin, and found itself in need of someone to take over the publication’s production. At the age of twenty-two, Delpire agreed to take the gig, but soon transformed the bulletin into a luxe magazine, which he called Neuf. With the brash confidence of youth, he approached and convinced a stunning array of luminaries to contribute: writers such as André Breton, Henry Miller, and Jean-Paul Sartre; photographers such as Robert Doisneau, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Werner Bischof.

Within a few years, the former medical student realized he had found his calling and launched what would become one of the most important photography and graphic-arts publishing companies of its time: Éditions Delpire. Among its earliest ventures were the publication of Brassaï’s first-ever monograph, and several books with the Magnum pantheon, including Cartier-Bresson, whose close friendship with Delpire over the following half century resulted in countless collaborations, among them the seminal publication Henri Cartier-Bresson: Photographe (1979). In 1958 Delpire took a chance on a project by a little-known Swiss photographer named Robert Frank: that book, Les Américains—The Americans—would of course set the world of photography on fire; more than fifty years later, it remains a provoking standard of the medium. Delpire later worked with William Klein, beginning with his Moscow and Tokyo books of the mid-1960s, and with Josef Koudelka to produce numerous publications, from 1975’s Gitans (Gypsies) to 1999’s groundbreaking collection of panoramas, Chaos.

Cover of Neuf, no. 5, December 1951
Courtesy Delpire Éditeur

A perspicacious businessman, in the 1960s Delpire initiated a publicity company that soon was managing such lofty clients as Citroën, Cacharel, and L’Oréal. He also found time to art-direct magazines (notably the contemporary-arts journal L’Œil), to produce films (among them William Klein’s Cassius le grand [Cassius the Great, 1964] and Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo? [Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?, 1966]) and to open and run a gallery on Paris’s rue de l’Abbaye, showcasing work by photographers Koudelka, August Sander, Walt Kühn, Duane Michals, Guy Bourdin, and others, as well as a bevy of illustrators. In the following decade, working with editor/publisher of Le Nouvel Observateur Claude Perdriel, Delpire began producing photography-driven special editions of the magazine; these Spécial Photo issues featured a range of powerful images, from the antique masterpieces in the collection of André Jammes to work by more recent artists such as Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, and Lee Friedlander.

In 1982 French minister of culture Jack Lang invited Delpire to head the newly created Centre National de la Photographie in Paris; over the course of his fifteen years in that position, Delpire mounted more than 150 exhibitions. Also in the early 1980s, Delpire launched Photo Poche books: a series of gorgeous yet modestly tailored publications on photography and graphic arts, engaging and accessible in both price and spirit to the common reader—a milestone in the world of arts publishing.

Melissa Harris conducted this interview with Robert Delpire via correspondence, over the course of a year.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Delpire, Paris, 1957
© the artist/Magnum Photos

Melissa Harris: What is the relationship between a book and an exhibition?

Robert Delpire: One might think that it is easy to extrapolate the organization of an exhibition from the layout made for the corresponding book. Curiously, this is wrong. The reading of photographs fixed on a wall is totally different from the one you get in turning the pages of a book. It’s a question of perspective, certainly, but also a consequence of the visitor’s position in front of a panel on a wall. But also, importantly, a photograph printed in a book is received by the reader as a unique offering. In a museum or in a gallery, the visitor’s eye is constantly solicited by prints, which are often of different sizes, and which he or she can choose to look at in a different order than the sequence proposed by the curator.

MH: How do you work with that? Do you sequence an exhibition with multiple entry points in mind?

RD: In planning an exhibition, one can work toward effecting a cinematographic vision—in a succession of images, there is often a narrative—as a way of taking advantage of the three-dimensional structure of the space. The solutions to the problem are quite traditional. In an exhibition, one has the possibility of creating a contrast between medium-size pictures and big prints. This solution is very simple to do—and so it is commonly used.

Still, there are no strict rules. One has constantly to adapt convictions or ideas to the situation, to the lighting, to the size of the room. Another interesting element that allows one to give a special ambiance to a show is the color; it is easy to paint the walls, and it is sometimes very effective. When I was in charge of the Centre National de la Photographie, I decided to paint the walls a flaming red when we presented a selection of Marc Riboud’s photographs of China (1996). The result was amazing. But it doesn’t work every time. For the Robert Frank exhibition (1983), I had the idea to cover the walls with craft paper. I liked the result, but Robert hated it and asked me to take the paper off. He wanted a classic hanging, so that’s what we did.

When possible—but it is rarely the case—it is very exciting for a curator or an art director to create the space itself, by building walls, or making them curved, for instance. It’s a privilege to think not only in terms of flat scenography but of the very architecture of the exhibition. I have had this opportunity in some circumstances. At the Palais de Tokyo, the space is large and I organized a show with this kind of freedom for William Klein’s Le commun des mortels (The common man, 1987). And also at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France for the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition (2003).

Robert Frank, Les Américains (The Americans), 1958
Courtesy Delpire Éditeur

MH: Do you feel that there are relationships among photography and painting, sculpture, music, mathematics, and so on? Or are there absolute distinctions?

RD: The absolute distinction is due to an obvious fact: photography is made from reality—no matter what distance a photographer wants to create between what he or she is photographing and what he or she has in mind. Of course the painter and the filmmaker also take advantage of a visual basis in reality, but there are many ways to transform a drawing or a film and adapt them to a concept. René Magritte said: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”—“This is not a pipe.” He was right. And a collage made by Robert Rauschenberg or John Heartfield could be said to be situated at the frontier of photography and painting. But for a photographer, it is impossible to forget about the “performance” of a negative: its first function is to register reality. Consequently there are millions of photographs carefully archived in agencies or foundations or in public repositories that are without any interest—apart from a documentary interest in lifestyles, architecture, fashion.

MH: Do you think about beauty and photography—not in terms of pretty pictures, but something more profound? What is it? Truth? Is there such a thing as a truthful photograph, an evidentiary photograph, an objective photograph?

RD: Beauty and photography. Or beauty in photography? It’s a difficult subject. All the professionals (or almost all) are aware that it is not enough to be in front of a beautiful landscape or an elegant lady to make a good photograph. In a certain sense, it’s too easy to make an image with a camera. And the digital process makes it even easier. This facility explains the enormous success of photography among amateurs.

But to make more than a simple statement in a photograph, one has to enhance the significance of a fact, the psychology of a person, the specificity of a subject. And everything becomes much more difficult. Making a good photograph requires sensitivity, patience, vivacity, graphic sense, not to mention technical knowledge. The talent is “the cherry on the cake,” as we say in French . . . We publishers are looking for the cherries.

I’m also attracted by certain authorless photographs that I’ve discovered. Among the uninteresting prints—badly developed, torn—we sometimes find marvels. Family albums, souvenirs of wars or vacations, portraits, and situations that make up a person’s intimacy, tenderness, passion—sometimes to the point of indecency, because there was no one there witnessing. But I’ve never sought to establish a connection between the work of great photographers and the naïveté of the amateur . . . it’s their status as art brut that has seduced me and not their relation to photography considered as fine art.

Presentation of the Commandeur des Arts et Lettres medal to Robert Delpire. From left to right (standing): unidentified man; French Minister of Culture Philippe Douste-Blazy; Elliott Erwitt; Sarah Moon; Robert Delpire; René Burri; Bruno Barbey; William Klein; (squatting): Sebastião Salgado; Harry Gruyaert, 1966

MH: What are the possible dynamics between photography and text—how and when do they enhance each other? And how do these considerations enter into your design and sequencing as you are working?

RD: It is generally admitted that a good photograph needs no words, not even a caption. Nevertheless, when working on a magazine or a book, the publisher often hesitates—text or no text? It seems evident that a so-called reportage photograph will benefit by being seen in context. To know that those dead bodies piled on a street curb are victims of the Mafia and not demonstrators killed by the police is no minor detail and will influence the way the image is interpreted.

And when a photograph aspires to formal artistic achievement, and when the author wants to express his or her personal emotions, a commentary may be useful to deepen the reader’s understanding of the image. Positive: it might create empathy. Critical: convincing arguments can cut down any sympathy with what is shown in the photograph.

In the Nouvel Observateur Spécial Photo we chose to accompany images with extensive captions by various writers, who, in my opinion, succeed both in giving adequate information about the photographers and in clearly pointing out the specific features of each document.

In general, I am careful to put text and image together that will function in concert with one another—not text that simply comments on the photographs. Ever since I have been involved in the making of books and magazines, I have tried to find the writer who by nature feels close to a given photographer, and whose analysis will increase the reader’s interest in the subject matter.

MH: What would you cite as a major text on the interpretation of images?

RD: The first ones that come to mind are Roland Barthes and André Jammes. I also am very interested in Susan Sontag.

Josef Koudelka, cover of Exils (Exiles), 1988
Courtesy Delpire Éditeur

MH: When you are working, do you rely primarily on your intuition? When, if ever, is your process more intellectual? More emotional?

RD: Fundamentally, I am an intuitive person. Each time I have to make a choice, for instance to select a good photograph on a contact sheet, to build a sequence, even to make a general decision concerning a book to publish, I am always most comfortable if I follow my first impulse. It would be very pretentious to say that I am always right—but if I do make a mistake it’s always in accordance with my feelings, my deep convictions (even if I don’t express them). My way of working is much more emotional than intellectual. I feel more than I know.

MH: When does a photograph—or any kind of image or story—get under your skin?

RD: There are so many elements in a photograph that can get under your skin. Compassion, pity, empathy, seduction. It depends on your mood, on your mental state, on your physical health . . . But in fact, I am not being sincere when I say that! As far as I am concerned, when a photograph touches me profoundly, I do remember it, whatever the circumstances. When we were looking at contact sheets, Cartier-Bresson used to say ironically to me: “You are really stubborn. Twenty years after a first edit, you mark red crosses on all the same images.” My answer was: “That’s the advantage of being narrow-minded.”

But please don’t ask me to list my favorite photographers—there are too many. It’s the reason I sometimes scratch my skin. There are photographers who are mere witnesses, who see things and scoop up events. And those who say what they think in their photos—those are the artists . . . For them, the “I” is so cumbersome that they can’t separate themselves from it.

President François Mitterand at the Centre National de la Photographie after the opening of the exhibition in honor of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s eightieth birthday, December 1988
Courtesy Delpire Éditeur

MH: I interviewed William Eggleston a couple of years ago, and we ended up talking about John Cage and Bach. Music is key for many artists, although not always in a literal way. Does music enter into your process?

RD: When I first met the head of Citroën, Pierre Bercot, he greeted me in an icy fashion. But we started talking about Bach’s Cello Suites—and his opinions changed about the ads I was proposing for the company’s publicity campaign.

MH: In a project, what are the responsibilities of the publisher, the curator, the designer, the artist?

RD: I’d like to change the hierarchy of those responsibilities. The first person responsible for a book project is the artist. The others are the publisher, the designer, the printer, and the separator—the person who makes the film from which the book will print. Each specialist in his field of ability or competence has the same objective: to enhance the specificity of the author’s talent or to make an image more significant. In this respect, the separator and the printer play a very important role in the results—and I am very grateful to them.

William Klein, cover of Contacts, 2008
Courtesy Delpire Éditeur

MH: Do you like to collaborate?

RD: Yes, I do. I have always liked working on a team.

When I was young, I loved sports at a high level of competition. I was on a team that was five-time champion of France in basketball—and we played against the Harlem Globetrotters! I played only team sports.

The first magazine I did was Neuf. At the time, each of the university faculties had to justify their existence by publishing a little bulletin. No one wanted to take on the bulletin for the faculty of medicine. The department director proposed the job to me—it seemed at first like a punishment, and I said no. And then, oddly, I accepted—on condition that it would be a magazine with good texts and good illustrations . . . There was just one delicate catch: I had no competence. No experience in publishing. Nothing even related. I came from a milieu in which the word “culture” didn’t exist. So why? Honestly, I have no idea what was behind my decision . . . So, in the unconsciousness of youth, I asked for texts from Claude Roy, Jacques Prévert, André Breton; photographs by Cartier-Bresson, Doisneau, Brassaï; drawings from André François, Saul Steinberg. And I was astonished to be so warmly welcomed. I understood only much later that what seemed at the time such a heavy handicap, my young age, was an exceptional trump.

I created a publishing and advertising agency, and the company grew bigger and bigger. In the 1970s we were in charge of the communications for Citroën International, Habitat, Cacharel, L’Oréal, et cetera. But I discovered that I couldn’t stand working with 140 people. I hated to be in an elevator without knowing if the people in there with me were colleagues or visitors! So I reduced our activity to publishing and art direction. But then when Jack Lang asked me to manage the Centre National de la Photographie, I said I’d take the job for two years—and then I stayed for fifteen. It was the best period of my professional life: working again in a team, but with a reasonable number of collaborators.

After all these adventures, I can say that I have the good fortune to collaborate always with people I like.

Sarah Moon, Robert Delpire’s wall at home, 2011
© the artist

MH: Finally, could you tell us about the genesis of Le Nouvel Observateur Spécial Photo?

RD: Again, this is a story of friendship. I met publisher Claude Perdriel when he had just created Le Nouvel Observateur with Jean Daniel. I found that I was in complete agreement with what Claude was doing—emotionally, literarily, and politically. At his request I became involved in the layout, in particular with the covers. Some years later, when designer Herb Lubalin came to work with me, I asked him—the greatest graphic designer of the century—to revise the type, which he did masterfully.

For a long time, we discussed with Perdriel the place that a magazine like Le Nouvel Observateur should grant to photography—how texts and illustrations could relate to each other, and how to preserve the integrity of the text, but also benefit from the impact of images, which often reveal the context of current events so profoundly. We eventually arrived at the conclusion that Le Nouvel Observateur could publish an issue conceived for and dedicated to photography. Out goals were to show—without excessive didacticism but with the desire to educate about the history of the medium—a selection of photographs that would comprise images from both great, well-known individuals and lesser-known artists, in order to reveal photography’s astonishing history and importance, which has constantly been reaffirmed. This is how Le Nouvel Observateur Spécial Photo came to be, starting in 1977, and after a long break, I have it started once more.

And now, we are in the present.

Melissa Harris is editor at large of Aperture Foundation.

This article originally appeared in Aperture Issue 207, Summer 2012.

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Inside Aperture Connect Meet-Up with Photo Collector W. M. Hunt

On September 13, Aperture Connect Members came together for a private after-hours meet-up at the Walther Collection Project Space in Chelsea, for a tour of Body, Self, Society: Chinese Performance Photography of the 1990s. The Walther Collection’s director of exhibitions and collections, Remi Onabanjo, answered questions as the group sipped wine and viewed iconic works by Ai Weiwei, Cang Xin, and Zhuang Hui before continuing on to an exclusive visit with W. M. Hunt.

Surrounded by over 2,000 pieces of archived work, W. M. Hunt, photography collector, curator, and consultant, engaged Members in an informal Q & A after discussing his beginnings as a collector of photography. Hunt spoke on the process of writing his book The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the Unconscious (2011) while the group viewed and passed around various objects from his holdings, including the very piece that started the vast collection.

W. M. Hunt is a frequent lecturer on the art of collecting and an adjunct professor at the School of Visual Arts, New York. An exhibition of his collection was launched to critical acclaim at the Rencontres d’Arles in 2005 before traveling to the Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland, and Foam, Amsterdam.

Aperture Connect comprises young professionals who are photography and publishing enthusiasts, ages 21 to 37. Join as a Connect Member today and receive invitations to exclusive events like this one.

Aperture Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that relies on the generosity of individuals for support of its publications, exhibitions, and public and educational programming.

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How Do We See War?

In the age of drone strikes and nuclear threats, artists such as An-My Lê and Peter van Agtmael challenge expectations of photographing conflict.

By Carly Lovejoy

Peter van Agtmael, A Marine with a Village Elder, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2009
© the artist/Magnum Photos

“I gravitate toward situations that are complicated and in some ways overwhelm my capacity to describe,” explains An-My Lê, whose photographs of Vietnam War reenactments are currently on view in Before the Event/After the Fact: Contemporary Perspectives on War at the Yale University Art Gallery. The exhibition interrogates the space where the limits of representation structure our ideas about war. It’s a space occupied by Peter van Agtmael’s photographs of the U.S.’s presence in Iraq and Afghanistan—a space where, as the curator Judy Ditner noted, the works “challenge our expectations of what a war photograph is” and raise questions about “how photography wields power, and how that can be disrupted.”

In Before the Event, Lê’s works stand alongside images made by the collaborative duo Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, who were embedded in the British army and whose project, The Day That Nobody Died (2008), deals with the military’s restriction of the work the photographers could produce. Elsewhere, Harun Farocki’s videos investigate military training software, while the design studio SITU Research endeavors to analyze public spaces, using video and photography to establish accountability in events of civil unrest. In August, Ditner led me through the installation as we spoke about the five contributors’ approaches to representing war and the stakes in making images about conflict.

An-My Lê, Film Set (“Free State of Jones”), Battle of Corinth, Bush, Louisiana, 2015
Courtesy STX Entertainment

Carly Lovejoy: Before the Event poses questions about how to represent conflict in a way that is useful for interpreting all the images we’re confronted with in the media.

Judy Ditner: I think that’s true. The exhibition focuses on works that were made since 2000, in large part addressing ongoing conflicts and current issues. The artists challenge our knowledge and expectations of the military operations that they depict: the ongoing American and British presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, the civil and political unrest in Ukraine, the Israel–Palestine conflict, and events that persist in the American psyche, from the Civil War to Vietnam. These works take a conceptual approach to the problem of representing war, attempting to think or beyond mass media images of recent conflicts.

An-My Lê, Ambush II, from the series Small Wars, 1999-2002
Courtesy STX Entertainment

Lovejoy: Why did you want visitors to encounter An-My Lê’s photographs at the outset of the exhibition?

Ditner: We tend to think of war photography as capturing either a fatal moment or the height of action, but a lot of this work shows the banal aspects of military life. In Before the Event/After the Fact, most of the images depict the training and preparation for war, or the long process of sorting out the events and our responses to them afterwards. Lê’s works establish the exhibition’s themes. She has two series on view, both of which appear to record scenes of combat. The first, from her series Small Wars (1999–2000) depicts a group of Vietnam War re-enactors, in the Virginia countryside. The Civil War is the ostensible subject Lê’s other two photographs—made on the set of Free State of Jones, a Civil War movie released in 2016—but really there’s a larger question about representation as a means of understanding this history, and the ways in which this conflict continues to impact politics and social relations in America.

Harun Farocki, still from Serious Games I: Watson Is Down, 2009
© the artist

Lovejoy: Harun Farocki’s two videos Serious Games I and Serious Games IV reveal how the government digitally imagines the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Can you speak about these pieces?

Ditner: Farocki’s project Serious Games I–IV was filmed in 2010 at Twentynine Palms, the Marine training base in southern California and at Fort Louis, near Seattle. The videos show how first-person computer game software and virtual reality programs are used to train young Marines for combat and to train therapists to work with veterans suffering from PTSD. Farocki juxtaposes this footage with his own interspersed titles, raising questions about what these digital reconstructions of Iraq and Afghanistan might mean for the way that we approach conflict.

Harun Farocki, still from Serious Games IV: A Sun with No Shadow, 2010
© the artist

Lovejoy: In Serious Games IV: A Sun with No Shadow, Farocki uses the titles to point out that the software for video games used for PTSD therapy is a little cheaper—the objects themselves don’t cast shadows in the digital reconstructions. Whereas with Serious Games I: Watson is Down, in the software meant for training, all the objects have shadows and the graphics are more expensive. These videos demonstrate how capitalism affects the military’s visual representations of conflict. Did you choose to put these videos next to each other?

Ditner: I was interested in the direct relationship between these two works: some of the footage overlaps—the same tank crew training is seen in both videos. Farocki’s nuanced commentary directs our attention to the absence of shadows. This seems almost a formal question, but in fact points to the financial investment, and thus, priority. It’s not in recovery, or how the U.S. military treats veterans.

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, The Day Nobody Died V (detail), 2008
© and courtesy the artists

Lovejoy: The Day Nobody Died by Broomberg and Chanarin has two parts: a video that follows a package as it changes hands throughout the military, and next to it, an abstract artwork, part of the long roll of photographic paper that was inside the package. Tracing the shipment of the abstract piece illustrates the vast network of the military—socially and physically.  

Ditner: In 2008, Broomberg and Chanarin embedded with the British military in Afghanistan. Their fifth day in Afghanistan was the first day on which there were no fatalities, they made the exposure that became The Day Nobody Died V, June 10, 2008. Broomberg and Chanarin created this work by briefly exposing a rolled, twenty-foot section of photographic paper to sun. The photograph was not made from a negative, but by transporting the paper all the way to Afghanistan so that, although completely abstract, it bears a physical relationship to the place. The image subverts expectations of war photography and calls attention to the limits of photojournalism and of the embedding process itself, which was invented by the army to control how journalists cover conflict.

The accompanying video records the soldiers who helped transport the box, and offers a glimpse into the discipline and daily routines of a deployed soldier, while the gaps in the footage point to the constraints placed on what embedded photographers are allowed to record.

SITU Research, still from Report: Euromaidan Event Reconstruction, 2017
Courtesy the artists

Lovejoy: How does SITU Studio approach image-making in their piece Euromaidan Event Reconstruction?

Ditner: SITU is an architecture and design studio in Brooklyn. An increasingly important branch of their work focuses on spatial and forensic analysis in the service of human rights investigations. Euromaidan Event Reconstruction (2017) relates to the protests demanding re-integration with the EU that took place in central Kiev, Ukraine between November 2013 and February 2014. On February 20, approximately forty-seven civilians were killed. SITU worked with the Ukrainian legal team representing civilian families to reconstruct the events for court. SITU worked with Carnegie Mellon’s Center for Human Rights Science to analyze over sixty-five hours of video captured by closed-circuit television cameras, protesters, citizen journalists, and news broadcasts. The reconstruction employs video footage, digital models, medical reports, and a host of other relevant data to assess whether the Ukrainian military coordinated to fire on the unarmed protesters. The material has been partially redacted as the case in ongoing, as part of a long series of trials prosecuting former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Extracting data from these videos and spatial analysis of the surrounding environment challenges conventional definitions of war photography, and in many ways, limits and definitions of photography itself.

Carly Lovejoy is a Brooklyn-based artist working in video, animation, and photography.  

Before the Event/After the Fact: Contemporary Perspectives on War is on view at the Yale University Art Gallery through December 31, 2017.

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In Putin’s Russia, an Island of Tolerance

Dasha Yastrebova captures a fleeting moment in Moscow’s queer underground.

By Miss Rosen

Dasha Yastrebova, Stylist Natasha Sych, 2007
Courtesy the artist

In 2007, when the Solyanka Club opened in Moscow, it was a time of great hope. The first generation of post-Soviet teenagers came of age in a moment when anything seemed possible, mostly because the government was willing to overlook many social and cultural activities. Solyanka, a restaurant during the day and a nightclub after dark, burst forth. It quickly became the home for an underground, bohemian community of artists, photographers, designers, musicians, performers, and filmmakers who embraced those whom the Russian government persecuted, specifically queer culture, drag queens, and people who identified as transgender. Even then, Solyanka was an island of tolerance in a country plagued by prejudice and persecution.

At the age of eighteen, while shooting for magazines like Russian Vogue, Dasha Yastrebova started going to Solyanka. She photographed there for a year, and most of this work has never been seen before. Here, Yastrebova speaks about this intriguing moment in Russian history, a period of personal and creative freedom that has since disappeared.

Dasha Yastrebova, Agasfer, the founder of fetish gay parties in Moscow, and Andrey Yarden, jeweler, 2007
Courtesy the artist

Miss Rosen: Thinking back to Moscow in 2007, you must have felt as if you were living the high before the fall. How would you describe the political and social changes the city was going through?

Dasha Yastrebova: There was a feeling of rising, a flourish in the air. Young people were not forbidden to do anything, as the government did not perceive the new generation of teenagers as a threat. The country was not liberal; there were no new liberal laws; there was the same authority, but the government overlooked some parts of social and cultural life. So, temporarily, young people had a chance to freely express themselves, and we were too young, inspired, and energetic to believe it would come to an end.

Before the 2008 financial crisis, entrepreneurs funded cultural events, in which we could participate. The government allowed advertisements for cigarettes and alcohol, for example, and I worked several on Philip Morris campaigns.

We had a lot of free time, were interested in everything, and wanted to do something useful. Many new vehicles for expression began to appear: the first youth magazine was Look At Me; the first art-place was Moscow Contemporary Art Center Winzavod; and the first nightclub, Solyanka. Young people felt that there was an untilled field of opportunities. There were people from the older generation who also wanted change. It was also the beginning of a dialogue with the authorities—it was actually possible to pitch your ideas. The new generation was realizing its strength and potential.

Dasha Yastrebova, Roman Mazurenko, best known as editor-in-chief of  Look At Me magazine, who also launched a Russian version of the magazine Dazed & Confused, 2007
Courtesy the artist

Rosen: Could you talk about the new Moscow you wanted to build? What did you want to see your country achieve?

Yastrebova: We were the first post-Soviet generation of teenagers and we wanted this Soviet spirit to be washed off quickly. Everything was destroyed and was in desolation; there were no places built for the youth. We lagged behind, but there was a desire to develop and to move forward.

With the advent of the first youth websites, we began to learn about the cinema, modern directors, new music, style, and fashion—how through appearance one could change cultural. For us, appearance was a manifesto, and we dreamed that all this would grow to become a mass movement.

Then, a chain reaction began. At Solyanka, designers, fashion designers, and musicians, were all discussing how it would be great to open a showroom, launch a production, record an album, shoot a video, open cultural spaces, et cetera. We wanted to do something for the city and the people, but no one knew how to execute such projects. It was a time of great experiments.

Dasha Yastrebova, Dancers in costume, 2007
Courtesy the artist

Rosen: How did the Solyanka embody the spirit of the times?

Yastrebova: At Solyanka, we learned that we were not the only “strange” ones. Solyanka was not just a club. You felt that you were inside a new flow—that it was historical, and something important was happening. On weekends, the streets near the club were filled with people. Sometimes we did not even go inside. Instead, we drank and talked on the street. People of all ages, social statuses, and subcultures gathered there: oligarchs, artists, gays, skinheads, artists, transgender people, and students. Back then, within certain spaces, all of these groups mixed and communicated without any barriers or prejudices.

During the day, Solyanka was a restaurant: three large halls with a stunning vintage, Bohemian atmosphere. It felt like you were in a different country. There were meetings and events there. We watched movies and discussed them, made friends, and dreamed of new projects and a better future.

Dasha Yastrebova, Ramona, an epic fan of fashion and a member of the gay band C.L.U.M.B.A, the morning after a party, 2007
Courtesy the artist

Rosen: How did taking photographs in this environment inspire or influence your development as an artist?

Yastrebova: Prior to this experience I had only a moments, fragments way of thinking. This was the first time I made a more long-term project. Solyanka gave me an opportunity to do something cohesive.

We did not believe in stereotypes, and the boundaries of our personalities blurred. We were interested in everything. Solyanka was an opportunity to interact with people openly. I could say, “Show me your boobs”—and the person did it. I felt the world was plastic. People were open to doing crazy things; they wanted to do something strange. We all wanted to go beyond our comfort zones.

Dasha Yastrebova, Masha Galaxy, trash-character and performer, the star of all parties, and a legend in Moscow, 2007
Courtesy the artist

Rosen: What made you decide to stop shooting at the Solyanka after just one year?

Yastrebova: At one of the parties, the security guard beckoned me, saying, “Dasha, come here, look what happened here! Maybe it will be interesting for you to take a picture.” I went into the dressing room and saw that there was a girl without pants on. I asked the guard, “Why is she naked?” She was unconscious. She looked really bad, most likely from mixing drugs and alcohol. I took a couple of photographs and left, and couple of hours later, I saw the same girl in the main room lying on a big sofa. No one cared.

I understand now how terrible it was but, at the moment, I was too drunk and took a few more pictures. When I developed a film, I was in shock. How it could happen in such a place? Why didn’t anyone cover her up or take her to a safe place? Why didn’t anyone call an ambulance? I had many questions, including, Why did I just walk up and take a photograph of a girl who is in a situation that I would not want to be in? I decided that this was the final picture, and that I needed to move on.

Dasha Yastrebova, Unidentified Lovers, 2007
Courtesy the artist

Rosen: This project was just ten years ago, but in some ways it must feel like another lifetime. As an artist, what is the greatest lesson you learned in this environment?

Yastrebova: I began to understand more about humanity in general. I realized that, despite their differences, people could have common ground. Understanding the fluidity of human consciousness helped me to avoid stereotyping people. Everything is possible.

I also learned that there could be equality, sense of freedom, both internal and external, between people regardless of social status. Tolerance and inner freedom—this, perhaps, was the main lesson.

Miss Rosen is a journalist covering art, photography, and books for Vogue Online, Dazed Digital, The Undefeated, Feature Shoot, and Crave Online.

 

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The 2017 PhotoBook Awards Shortlist

Aperture and Paris Photo are pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2017 PhotoBook Awards.

The shortlist selection was made by Gregory Halpern, whose ZZYZX won the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook of the Year Award in 2016; Lesley A. Martin, Creative Director, Aperture Foundation and Publisher, The PhotoBook Review; Kathy Ryan, longtime director of photography at the New York Times Magazine; Joel Smith, Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York; and Christoph Wiesner, artistic director of Paris Photo.

Established in 2012, the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards celebrate the photobook’s contribution to the evolving narrative of photography, with three major categories: First PhotoBook, Photography Catalogue of the Year, and PhotoBook of the Year.

Mathieu Asselin, Monsanto: A Photographic Investigation (Verlag Kettler) 2017

Zackary Canepari, REX (Contrasto Books) 2016

Teju Cole, Blind Spot (Penguin Random House) 2017

Sam Contis, Deep Springs (MACK) London, 2017

Debi Cornwall, Welcome to Camp America, Inside Guantánamo Bay (Radius Books) 2017

Albert Elm, What Sort of Life Is This (The Ice Plant) 2017

Mary Frey, Reading Raymond Carver (Peperoni Books) 2017

Jenia Fridlyand, Entrance to Our Valley (Self-published) 2017

Darren Harvey-Regan, The Erratics (RVB Books) 2017

Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen, Eyes as Big as Plates (Forlaget Press) 2017

Dawn Kim, Creation.IMG (Self-published) 2016

Laura Larson, Hidden Mother (Saint Lucy Books) 2017

Feng Li, White Night (Jiazazhi Press) 2017

Cecil McDonald Jr., In the Company of Black (Candor Arts) 2017

Virginie Rebetez, Out of the Blue (Meta/Books) 2016

Claudius Schulze, State of Nature (Hartmann Books) 2017

Nadya Sheremetova, ed.; with Alexey Bogolepov, Margo Ovcharenko, Irina Ivannikova, Anastasia Tsayder, Igor Samolet, Yury Gudkov, Olya Ivanova, Irina Zadorozhnaia, Anastasia Tailakova, and Irina Yulieva; Amplitude No.1 (FotoDepartment) 2017

Senta Simond, Rayon Vert (Self-published) 2017

Alnis Stakle, Melancholic Road (Self-published) 2017

Mayumi Suzuki, The Restoration Will (Self-published) 2017

Brassaï: Graffiti, Le Langage du Mur,Karolina Ziebinska-Lewandowska (Éditions Xavier Barral) 2016

CLAP! 10x10 Contemporary Latin American Photobooks: 2000–2016, Olga Yatskevich, Russet Lederman, and Matthew Carson (10x10 Photobooks) 2017

Diary of a Leap Year, Rabith Mroué (Kunsthalle Mainz and Kapth Books) 2017

Hans Eijkelboom: Photo Concepts 1970, Gabriele Conrath-Scholl, Wim van Sinderen, Gerrit Willems and Dieter Roelstraete (Snoeck Verlagsgesellschaft mbH) 2016

New Realities: Photography in the 19th Century, Mattie Boom, Hans Rooseboom (Rijiksmuseum/Nai) 2017

Anne Golaz, Corbeau (MACK) 2017

Jim Goldberg, The Last Son (SUPER LABO) 2016

Nicholas Muellner, In Most Tides an Island (SPBH Editions) 2017

Mark Neville, Fancy Pictures (Steidl) 2016

Alison Rossiter, Expired Paper (Radius Books and Yossi Milo Gallery) 2017

Paul Schiek, ed., Mike Mandel, Susan Meiselas, Bill Burke, and Lee Friedlander, Subscription Series No. 5 (TBW Books) 2017

Dayanita Singh, Museum Bhavan (Steidl) 2017

Carlos Spottorno and Guillermo Abril, La Grieta (The Crack) (Astiberri Ediciones) 2016

Erik van der Weijde, This Is Not My Book (Spector Books) 2017

Henk Wildschut, Ville de Calais (Self-published) 2017

First PhotoBook

Mathieu Asselin

Monsanto: A Photographic Investigation 

Publisher: Verlag Kettler, Dortmund, Germany, 2017

Designed by Ricardo Báez

Zackary Canepari

REX

Publisher: Contrasto Books, Italy, 2016

Designed by Teun van der Heijden

Teju Cole

Blind Spot

Publisher: Penguin Random House, New York, 2017

Designed by Alex Merto

Sam Contis

Deep Springs

Publisher: MACK, London, 2017

Designed by Sam Contis and Lewis Chaplin

Debi Cornwall

Welcome to Camp America, Inside Guantánamo Bay

Publisher: Radius Books, Santa Fe, NM, 2017

Designed by David Chickey

Albert Elm

What Sort of Life Is This

Publisher: The Ice Plant, Los Angeles, 2017

Designed by Albert Elm

Mary Frey

Reading Raymond Carver

Publisher: Peperoni Books, Berlin, 2017

Designed by Hannes Wanderer

Jenia Fridlyand 

Entrance to Our Valley

Self-published, New York, 2017

Designed by Jenia Fridlyand

Darren Harvey-Regan

The Erratics

Publisher: RVB Books, Paris, 2017

Designed by Zoé Aubry & Vincent Sauvaire

Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen

Eyes as Big as Plates

Publisher: Forlaget Press, Oslo, 2017

Designed by Greger Ulf Nilson

Dawn Kim

Creation.IMG

Publisher: Self-published, Brooklyn, 2016

Designed by Dawn Kim

Laura Larson

Hidden Mother

Publisher: Saint Lucy Books, Baltimore, 2017

Designed by Guenet Abraham

Feng Li

White Night

Publisher: Jiazazhi Press, Ningbo, China, 2017

Designed by Cheng Yinhe

Cecil McDonald Jr. 

In the Company of Black

Publisher: Candor Arts, Chicago, 2017

Designed by Matt Austin

Virginie Rebetez

Out of the Blue

Publisher: Meta/Books, Amsterdam, 2016

Designed by Chi-long Trieu

Claudius Schulze

State of Nature 

Publisher: Hartmann Books, Stuttgart, Germany, 2017

Designed by SIB

Nadya Sheremetova, ed. 

With Alexey Bogolepov, Margo Ovcharenko, Irina Ivannikova, Anastasia Tsayder, Igor Samolet, Yury Gudkov, Olya Ivanova, Irina Zadorozhnaia, Anastasia Tailakova, and Irina Yulieva. 

Amplitude No.1

Publisher: FotoDepartment, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 2017

Designed by Anton Lepashov

Senta Simond

Rayon Vert

Self-published, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2017

Designed by Florence Meunier

Alnis Stakle

Melancholic Road

Self-published, Riga, Latvia, 2017

Designed by Alnis Stakle

Mayumi Suzuki

The Restoration Will

Self-published, Tokyo, Japan, 2017

Designed by Yumi Goto and Jan Rosseel

Photography Catalogue of the Year

Brassaï: Graffiti, Le Langage du Mur

Karolina Ziebinska-Lewandowska

Éditions Xavier Barral

Paris, 2016

Designed by Xavier Barral and Coline Aguettaz

CLAP! 10×10 Contemporary Latin American Photobooks: 2000–2016

Olga Yatskevich, Russet Lederman, and Matthew Carson

Publisher: 10×10 Photobooks, New York, 2017

Designed by Ricardo Báez

Diary of a Leap Year

Rabith Mroué

Publisher: Kunsthalle Mainz and Kapth Books, Beirut, Lebanon, 2017

Designed by Studio Safar

Hans Eijkelboom: Photo Concepts 1970

Gabriele Conrath-Scholl, Wim van Sinderen, Gerrit Willems and Dieter Roelstraete

Publisher: Snoeck Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Cologne, 2016

Designed by Jaap van Triest, Amsterdam

New Realities: Photography in the 19th Century

Mattie Boom, Hans Rooseboom

Publisher: Rijiksmuseum/Nai, Amsterdam, 2017

Designed by Irma Boom Office (Irma Boom/Tariq Heijboer)

PhotoBook of the Year

Anne Golaz

Corbeau

Publisher: MACK, London, 2017

Designed by Anne Golaz and Lewis Chaplin

Jim Goldberg

The Last Son

Publisher: SUPER LABO

Kamakura, Japan, 2016

Designed by Jim Goldberg

Nicholas Muellner

In Most Tides an Island

Publisher: SPBH Editions, London, 2017

Designed by Andrew Sloat

Mark Neville

Fancy Pictures

Publisher: Steidl, Göttingen, Germany, 2016

Designed by Duncan Whyte

Alison Rossiter

Expired Paper

Publisher: Radius Books and Yossi Milo Gallery, Sante Fe, NM, 2017

Designed by David Chickey

Paul Schiek, ed.

Mike Mandel, Susan Meiselas, Bill Burke, and Lee Friedlander

Subscription Series No. 5

Publisher: TBW Books, Oakland, CA, 2017

Designed by Paul Schiek and Lester Rosso

Dayanita Singh

Museum Bhavan

Publisher: Steidl, Göttingen, Germany, 2017

Designed by Dayanita Singh and Gerhard Steidl

Carlos Spottorno and Guillermo Abril

La Grieta (The Crack)

Publisher: Astiberri Ediciones, Bilbao, Spain, 2016

Erik van der Weijde

This Is Not My Book

Publisher: Spector Books, Leipzig, Germany, 2017

Designed by Fabian Bremer and Pascal Storz

Henk Wildschut

Ville de Calais

Self-published, Amsterdam, 2017

Designed by Robin Uleman

 

 

 

 

The post The 2017 PhotoBook Awards Shortlist appeared first on Aperture Foundation NY.

The Humanist Visions of Santu Mofokeng

In a series of photobooks from the revered South African photographer, stories of grace, beauty, and dignity.

By Ashraf Jamal

Santu Mofokeng, Stories: 2–4, Concert at Sewefontein—Funeral—27 April 1994
Steidl. Göttingen, Germany, 2016

Why is it that the funereal—the specter of death and dying—still clings to black experience in South Africa? Why is its photographic record still caught in these pathological optics? For all the talk in South Africa of transfiguration and transformation, a psychic shift from death to life, liberation remains in abeyance. Hopelessness continues to conspire against hope, injustice against justice. The photographic record of black South African resistance to oppression has largely been shaped by this paradox, and that includes the images that Santu Mofokeng has relayed to us since the beginnings of his career as a photojournalist.

A street photographer who turned photojournalist in the 1980s, Mofokeng, like many others, devoted himself to recording the struggle against apartheid. But his images are never overdetermined by a political agenda: while many other photographers have captured the spectacle of protest, Mofokeng has captured the more subtle sublimity of the body in pain, or the body transfigured—by political belief, by faith. He is widely celebrated as the spiritual painter of South Africa’s tormented body politic, and his uniqueness lies in his ability to capture a subject’s aura, their life hidden from view. In Stories, his multivolume, multiyear book series—the latest installment of which is titled Stories 2–4 (2016)—each individual book is devoted to a singular photo-essay. Through this, the stories of lives hidden or commonly subtracted are elevated and restored to a greater dignity, beauty, and grace.

Santu Mofokeng, Stories: 2–4, Concert at Sewefontein—Funeral—27 April 1994
Steidl. Göttingen, Germany, 2016

Each of the three volumes of black-and-white images in Stories 2–4 is thin and almost improvisational in feel, but printed with great care using lavish five colors on uncoated paper. The photo-essays comprise three gatherings in or near a South African township called Bloemhof, from the late 1980s to the early ’90s: a concert at Sewefontein; a burial; and a record of South Africa’s first democratic election, on April 27, 1994. These stories are about a collective imaginary. In a photograph from the concert, we see young men together in a line, their bodies thrumming to a beat, faces joyous. But seeing this grouping, we also remember other human chains—those of serfdom. Music, while transfigurative, is also reminiscent of human suffering. This, after all, was the origin of the blues. So while Mofokeng’s photographs are irrevocably tied to the perversities of South African history—inequality, indentureship, and psychic and physical brutalization—they’re also a challenge to global serfdom and ongoing racial inequality, in search of what Paul Gilroy has termed a “planetary humanism.”

The most potent image from these three stories is of a funeral gathering: the grieving and penitent all have their backs turned to the camera—except for one man who is bent, crumpled, drawn to the earth instead of the sky. Upon first seeing this image, I was reminded of Gustave Courbet’s painting A Burial at Ornans (1849–50); there, too, we see a gathering with a central bowed figure. The marked difference, however, is the neatly edged black hole readied for the dead in the fore- ground of Courbet’s painting. No such hole is visible in Mofokeng’s photograph, but it still feels gnawingly there; it is the grave’s absent presence that is embodied in the bent, grieving man. It is the void of which Frantz Fanon unceasingly reminded us—the indistinction which nullified black experience, emptying it and leaving little room for the imagination, for hope.

Santu Mofokeng, Untitled, from the series Pedi Dancers, ca. 1989
© the artist and courtesy Lunetta Bartz, MAKER, Johannesburg

For Fanon, colonization bound up the black experience with its own extinction; its sense of itself would always be tainted, compromised, emptied. It is this dark intuition that shapes Mofokeng’s image of grief. But it is also present in the photograph of the men at the concert—and, in retrospect, we know betrayal also resided at the very heart of a national hope, the subject of the third volume in this set: the country’s first democratic election. Here, Mofokeng gives us an empty street with a placard that reads “The Power to Fight Black,” reinforcing the bitter irony that has dogged hope and compromised black experience in South Africa since 1994.

To Mofokeng’s great credit, however, his visual record refuses to err on the side of hopelessness and despair. Rather, as Monna Mokoena, the director of Johannesburg’s Gallery MOMO, notes, “Santu’s great secret is that he is a poet who uses the camera to tease out of life its deepest meanings.” Mofokeng has never been seduced by the didacticism of reportage. Reflecting on his own photographic take on South Africa’s first democratic election, Mofokeng speaks of “an uneasy sense of euphoria . . . a combination of anticipation and dread, excitement and anxiety.” It is this twist—this glitch, this ghosting—of a profound psychic unsettlement that gives his deceptive record of everyday life in South Africa its enduring potency.

Ashraf Jamal is a cultural analyst and writer based in Cape Town.

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