Aperture's Blog, page 188

Storms Launch Party with Photographer Mitch Dobrowner

Photographer Mitch Dobrowner signs a copy of his photobook, Storms.

Storms book launch party.

Storms book launch party.

Storms book launch party.

Storms book launch party.

Storms book launch party.

Storms book launch party.

Storms book launch party.

Storms book launch party.

Storms book launch party.

Storms book launch party.

Storms book launch party.

Storms book launch party.

Storms book launch party.

Storms book launch party.

The launch party and book signing for Mitch Dobrowner’s photobook Storms (Aperture, 2013), a collection of awe-inspiring images taken throughout the American West, took place at Aperture Gallery on October 3. Since 2009, Dobrowner has been chasing storms with professional storm chaser Roger Hill and capturing nature’s monsoons, tornadoes, and massive thunderstorms on camera. The photobook is presented in a large-format edition and designed by Vince Frost, with an introduction by novelist and poet Gretel Ehrlich.

The launch was attended by special guest Raphael Miranda, NBC 4 New York weekend meteorologist and weather producer, and Dark & Stormy and Cyclone cocktails were enjoyed throughout the evening. In keeping with the tempest theme, the innovative Weather Live app was also on display and available for trial. The first thirty-five people to buy a copy of Storms that evening received a free download of the app.

Browse images from the event and book signing here or via Instagram (@aperturenyc).

—

Storms, photographs by Mitch Dobrowner, is now available. 

Storms

Regular Price:

$50.00

Special Online Price:

$42.50

Pillar Cloud, 2011




$1,000.00

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Site Specific: Olivo Barbieri in Conversation with Christopher Phillips

Olivo Barbieri’s Site Specific series is a ten-year project to record and reimagine over forty of the world’s cities from above, including Las Vegas, Mexico City, New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Shanghai, Tel Aviv, and Venice. On September 24, Barbieri was joined in conversation by International Center of Photography curator Christopher Phillips to discuss the series and the photobook of the same title, which was recently published by Aperture Foundation.



Phillips, who also wrote Site Specific’s introduction, spoke with Barbieri about the photographic processes the artist used to create his distinctive cityscapes, which began with the use of selective focus and tilt-shift techniques, and later evolved with the addition of digital manipulation.



The evening’s conversation also included a screening of Barbieri’s short film site specific_LAS VEGAS 05, followed by a Q&A and book signing. Browse images from the event’s reception and book signing via Instagram (@aperturenyc).



—

View “Olivo Barbieri in Conversation with Christopher Phillips, Part 2″ on Vimeo.

Site Specific




$75.00





site specific_LAS VEGAS 05, 2005




$1,000.00

Recap: Workshop with Todd Hido

Sources and Influences, a workshop with Todd Hido, ran without a hitch over the weekend of September 21 and 22, providing students with a formidable lesson in how to shape one’s career as a photographer. A skilled professor, Hido lectured on his own experiences, principles, and methods. The course enabled students to draw inspiration not only from the precedent set by their instructor, but also from new perspectives on their own portfolios.

From the students:

“Todd was extremely generous sharing his experiences as a photographer and his vast knowledge of the history of photography. He also gave each student excellent feedback. This was a terrific experience!”
“Hearing Todd explain his sources and influences really got me to think about discovering my own.”

—

To find out more about workshops and classes at Aperture, click here.

#2077, from the series House Hunting, 1997




$1,750.00

Announcing the Paris Photo—Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards Final Jury

 

We are happy to announce the final panel of judges of the Paris Photo—Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards 2013:

 

· Maia-Mari Sutnik, Photography and Special Projects Curator of Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto)

 

· Thyago Nogueira, Contemporary Photography Coordinator / ZUM Magazine Editor, Instituto Moreira Salles (Rio de Janeiro)

 

· Dr. Tobia Bezzola, Director of Folkwang Museum (Essen)

 

· Dr. Harald Falckenberg, Sammlung Falckenberg / Deichtorhallen Hamburg

 

· Gerry Badger, photographer, architect, and critic.

 

This jury will gather on Tuesday, November 12 from 3pm-5pm at the Grand Palais, to determine the PhotoBook of the Year Award (among 10 pre-selected books), as well as the First PhotoBook Award (among 20 pre-selected books). Winners will be announced on Friday, November 15 at 1 P.M.

 

Subscribe to Aperture magazine to receive your copy of The PhotoBook Review , which will feature the Paris Photo—Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards shortlist.

Haiti’s Invisible Orders

Paolo Woods has just inaugurated an exhibition of his photographs of Haiti at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland. The show is the culmination of a three-year project documenting the institutions that have filled the void left by an absent or dysfunctional government. Photosynthese has published STATE, a book of the work, itself the product of a long collaboration between Woods and Swiss journalist-writer Arnaud Robert. Aperture magazine assistant editor Paula Kupfer speaks with Woods about his experience living and working on this fabled Caribbean island.

Sister Elsa is a catholic nun that runs the Collège Saint-Louis-de-Bourdon, a school for girls that has 800 pupils between the age of 3 and 15. © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

A group of American Christians from Watermark Community Church in Dallas (TX) come to pray with Haitians in the small village of Source Matelas, near Titanyen. They spend half a day in a village, talking trough a translator to the villagers, praying with and for them, hugging children and elders and evangelizing. A lot of emphasis is placed in “freeing the Haitians from Satan." This village gets a least two visits per week from mission tourists on a trip organized by Mission of Hope, a Christian NGO. Haiti 2012 © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

A borlette office. Haitians invest two billion dollars every year in these private lotteries – nearly a quarter of the GNP. They are often referred to as “banks” since the poor invest their money in them. Camp Perrin. Haiti
© Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

Romel Jean-Pierre and Racine Polycarpe, two artists and members of the Timoun Rezistans, whose headquarters is on the Grand-Rue in Port-au-Prince. They are downloading their videos on Facebook in front of André Eugène’s sculptures that represent vodou spirits. Port-au-Prince. Haiti.
© Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

Radio Superdigital 96.9 FM. Wilkenson Charles endures the excruciating heat and wipes his perspiration with a handkerchief. Unfortunately the generator of the small communal radio is strong enough to power the antenna but not the AC as well. Les Cayes, Haiti, 2011 © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

Marianne Lehmann is a Swiss woman who moved to Haiti in 1957, several months before the election of François Duvalier. Over the years, she has built up one of the largest collections of vodou ritual objects in the world, including dolls from the Bizango secret society that contain real human skulls. Her collection has been exhibited in five European countries and Canada. Pétion-Ville.
© Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

Paula Kupfer: Why did you choose to work in Haiti?

Paolo Woods: I got there in November after the January 2010 earthquake. Every photo editor told me, “You’re crazy, we don’t want to see any more images of Haiti; we are saturated.” This was interesting for me; it forced me not to take shortcuts, visually or in terms of content. I hadn’t planned to go for the earthquake; I’m not a news photographer.

The real drama of Haiti is not the earthquake. It’s a terrible event that brought a lot of destruction, but most of Haiti has not changed: the basic problems that existed before still endure. It was a catastrophic “fifteen minutes of fame”: for the people of Haiti, and for those who came to save Haiti. I was obliged, even more, to look at Haiti from a different perspective.

I decided to live there permanently. I worked on a project in Iran a few years ago and wanted to live there but it was not possible. The regime never granted me a long-term visa. So I decided that for my next project I wanted to live where I worked. It also gives you a completely different outlook on things.

PK: Was this your first visit?

PW: I’d been to Haiti before, when I was twenty years old, and it made a very strong impression. At the time, the work by photographers who’d worked in Haiti, such as Alex Webb, made a big impression on me. All the myths about the place contain some truth, but they become so big that they cast a shadow over everything else. And then you’re tempted to go and look only for that. It’s easy for photographers to confirm the visual images they already have in their head.

PK: What were your preconceptions, and how were they confirmed or dispelled? What was most shocking or surprising?

PW: I don’t think you can deny that Haiti is poor, that it is populated by black people, that it has a tradition of Vodou. . . . What I’m trying to investigate and show is that there are other, more interesting aspects—like its unique history—and how they have been perceived. Haiti’s history has scared the world.

A house made of tarps in Canaan. In the same zone, concrete houses, schools and orphanages are being built as emigration from the capital and the provinces increases. Croix-des-Bouquets. Haiti. © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

I’m still very shocked about the role of the American evangelicals there, and their verbal violence. My father was a protestant missionary, so I know this world well. But in Haiti you have a complex and different kind of approach by the evangelicals. It is really neocolonial. There is a complete misunderstanding, the presumption of where the right and wrong is, and the overrunning conviction that they’re right and the locals are wrong and slaves of Satan—it’s infuriating.

On another level, I was surprised that Haiti, a quite macho place, has a very lively gay community. Don’t get me wrong, Haiti is not gay-friendly per se; there has been quite a bit of recent violence against gays. But in general, religion in Haiti allows for some openness: someone who prefers men does so because his personal god or spirit—his Loa—is female, and when the spirit possesses and prefers men—this is accepted. It’s a workaround that allows gay men to be accepted by their family, by society.

PK: For State, the book of this project, you worked with Arnaud Robert, a Swiss journalist that has been working in Haiti for over a decade. Was it your idea from beginning to collaborate with a writer? Did you take inspiration from other historic collaborations, such as Walker Evans and James Agee or John Steinbeck and Robert Capa? How did your photographing and his reporting feed into each other?

Tent city on a soccer field that belongs to a church. After the earthquake, inhabitants of makeshift districts (Jalousie, seen in the background) sometimes pitched tents in the camps to benefit from NGO help. The most visible camps in public squares were dismantled. Pétion-Ville. © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

PW: I’ve been obsessed with the relationship between text and images for a long time. In my previous books, developed with Serge Michel, we questioned how text and images work together in a longer form.

The examples you bring are some of the only ones that exist. I have to think also of Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor. Collaborations between writers and photographers are very common in magazines but not in books. There are nice photo books, and coffee-table books with text that no one reads. Or you have books where a writer does an investigation and calls in stock photos.

I had lot of discussions with Arnaud; we don’t always agree. He had more experience and a lot more context, and we had to confront our thoughts about the place, how it’s organized, and how to put it in perspective.

PK: The book is organized according to key figures or institutions in Haiti, such as “Presidents,” “Owners,” “Whites,” “Substitutes.” Why did you choose this approach?

PW: I worked the structure out with Robert. He had written and investigated abundantly around the issues and institutions I was photographing. We tried to create a structure that would provide insight into how the society is organized. Because your first impression—this is important—is of complete disorder. But the more you work in Haiti, the more you learn that there are orders, invisible orders that structure the society. This is why it hasn’t collapsed, especially when the state, as we understand it, is not operating, or operating deficiently.

PK: “Substitutes” covers the role of NGOs, religious groups, and private companies that have sought to establish a sense of order in Haiti, often with contradictory initiatives and dubious results. One of the series is on the pèpè trade, the sale of second-hand clothing from the U.S. Many of the photos show Haitians wearing colorful T-shirts with ridiculous phrases in English.

PW: From a linguistic point of view, it’s a straightforward, indexical project; it’s one approach to understanding a phenomenon. It says a lot about Haiti, but also the world we live in, when all these Haitians are going around with the most terrible, obnoxious T-shirts, often originally produced in Haitian factories, shipped to the U.S., and sent back as donations. All this is the result of an agreement whereby no taxes are waged on clothes made in Haiti for export to the U.S.

Pèpè T-shirt, Haiti 2013. © Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

The pèpè story went viral online some time ago. Many of the comments were making fun of Haitians. This clearly is not my intention. There’s always a view of misery, “the poor Haitians.” I hope viewers will go beyond that.

PK: How do you foresee this being received in a museum setting?

PW: Well, sharing the museum with Sebastiaõ Salgado is interesting; we have a very different approach to the world and I’m curious to see the reactions. A Haitian filmmaker will be making a film about this; he has followed me through Haiti and he will come to the opening in Switzerland, film the opening and people’s reactions, from Swiss bankers to NGO workers. In Haiti he will do the same.

PK: How will this work be shown in Haiti?

PW: As in all my projects, a big part has been bringing it back to where it came from. In the case of the Iran work, a collaboration with Serge [Michel], our big interest was to get the book back to Iranians. Of course, it’s easier to say something about Iran outside of Iran. We got a grant to get a book published in Persian but obviously couldn’t be printed in Iran. So we translated the book into Farsi, we had a PDF and hired someone—our fixer who’d left the country—to put the book on opposition websites, on the Facebook pages of prominent Iranians so people could download it for free. The New York Times correspondent in Iran, Thomas Erdbrink, told me it was one of the most widely read books; it was downloaded thousands of time, and this was one of the biggest satisfactions of the project.

For Haiti, this was also a consideration: up to this point, every Haiti story that we’ve published in foreign media we’ve given for free to the Haitian newspaper The Nouvelliste. We will bring the show to Haiti in 2014, and probably tour it to different locations around the country.

PK: Did you and Arnaud have a definitive mission or objective with this project?

I hope that people will ask themselves questions, that people can see different things in the photographs and understand the situation a bit more. The combination of text and images can be effective: some images inform the text, and sometimes it’s the opposite. It’s a lot more interesting to go through the micro to tell a story about the macro.

Ultimately, what I’m really interested is not a work, a book, or a show on Haiti. It’s a launching pad for a story that is more general, on North-South relationships, how certain forces in our economy work, and—this is probably the most important for me—how identity and state are shaped. I come from a mixed family identity, and I’ve always questioned what makes one person American, another German, and yet another Dutch, and how this shared identity between people enters into a relationship or not. Within a state organization, it’s even more complicated. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share a straight border, one traced by the colonial powers, and it divides two different countries, religions, languages, identities—and is a great vantage point to delve into these issues. I like to start with real stories.

—

Paula Kupfer is assistant editor of Aperture magazine.

Paolo Woods’s work is currently being featured at Photoville in Brooklyn, New York.

At 7pm today, Friday September 27, Woods will present this project as part of INSTITUTE Tells Stories. On Sunday September 29, Woods will appear in conversation with Fred Ritchin, also part of Photoville 2013.

Alec Soth: The Current State of the PhotoBook (Video)

 

On September 20th, 2013, Alec Soth spoke on the current state of the photobook in advance of revealing the thirty books shortlisted for the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation First PhotoBook and PhotoBook of the Year Awards.

 

Stay tuned! All shortlisted titles will be featured in the forthcoming issue of The PhotoBook Review and exhibited at Paris Photo, November 14–17, 2013. The winners in each category will be announced at the fair on November 15, 2013.

Recap: Workshop with Rinko Kawauchi

Leading up to the opening of Ametsuchi at Aperture Gallery, Rinko Kawauchi led an insightful workshop over the weekend of September 14 and 15. Students spent a rare eight hours with the Japanese artist, working through presentations and conducting a portfolio review. The course cultivated an intuitive approach to all aspects of photographic workflow, from shooting to bookmaking, and students were left with a refreshed conception of the poetics of photography.

From the students:

“Rinko’s ability to expand on ideas about process and the nature of photography was very helpful.”
“The discussion was enlightening . . .”

—

To find out more about workshops and classes at Aperture, click here.

Ametsuchi, photographs by Rinko Kawauchi, is now available.

Ametsuchi




$80.00

Recap: Rinko Kawauchi Workshop

Leading up to the opening of Ametsuchi at Aperture Gallery, Rinko Kawauchi led an insightful workshop over the weekend of September 14 and 15. Students spent a rare eight hours with the Japanese artist, working through presentations and conducting a portfolio review. The course cultivated an intuitive approach to all aspects of photographic workflow, from shooting to bookmaking, and students were left with a refreshed conception of the poetics of photography.

From the students:

“Rinko’s ability to expand on ideas about process and the nature of photography was very helpful.”
“The discussion was enlightening . . .”

—

To find out more about workshops and classes at Aperture, click here.

Ametsuchi, photographs by Rinko Kawauchi, is now available.

Ametsuchi




$80.00

Announcing The Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards Shortlist Selections

Alec Soth, photographer, photobook maker, and publisher, greeted an eager crowd at the New York Art Book Fair this past Friday to announce the thirty outstanding photobooks shortlisted for the 2013 Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards.

 

This year’s shortlist selection was made by Vince Aletti, curator, critic, and author who writes photography reviews for the New Yorker; Julien Frydman, director of Paris Photo; Lesley A. Martin, publisher of the Aperture book program and of The PhotoBook Review; Mutsuko Ota, editorial director of IMA magazine; and Barbara Tannenbaum, curator of photography at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

 

The jury felt that a diversity of approaches and styles were represented in this year’s entries, and they spent over ten hours to reach their final decisions. “Both content and form are inextricably partnered,” in the shortlisted photobooks, said Tannenbaum. “The content supports the form, the form supports the content. The design and all the aspects of the book are matched by the quality of the pictures. Both have to be very high.” Aletti summarized the list by noting, “The final selection offers a strong, international mix of genres, styles, and approaches to the photobook. It also represents a particular attention to the book as an object, in which selection of images, sequence, scale, typography, and materials are all carefully considered.”

 

The ten shortlisted titles for PhotoBook of the Year are:

 

Holy Bible

Photographers: Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin

Publisher: MACK, London / Archive of Modern Conflict, London

 

New York Arbor

Photographer: Mitch Epstein

Publisher: Steidl, Göttingen, Germany

 

Iris Garden

Photographer: William Gedney

Text: John Cage

Publisher: Little Brown Mushroom, Minneapolis

 

The Black Photo Album / Look at Me: 1890–1950

Photographer: Santu Mofokeng

Publisher: Steidl / The Walther Collection, Göttingen / New York

 

Surrendered Myself to the Chair of Life

Photographer: Jin Ohashi

Text: Nobuyoshi Araki

Publisher: AKAAKA, Tokyo

 

A01 [COD.19.1.1.43] — A27 [S | COD.23]

Photographer: Rosângela Rennó

Publisher: RR Edições, Rio de Janeiro

 

Rasen Kaigan

Photographer: Lieko Shiga

Publisher: AKAAKA, Tokyo

 

Birds of the West Indies

Photographer: Taryn Simon

Publisher: Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, Germany

 

The PIGS

Photographer: Carlos Spottorno

Publisher: Phree and Editorial RM, Madrid

 

War/Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath

Photographers: Various

Authors: Anne Wilkes Tucker and Will Michels, with Natalie Zelt

Publisher: Museum of Fine Arts Houston / Yale University Press, New Haven

 

The twenty shortlisted titles for First PhotoBook are:

 

World of Details

Photographer: Viktoria Binschtok

Publisher: Distanz, Berlin

 

A Period of Juvenile Prosperity

Photographer: Mike Brodie

Publisher: Twin Palms Publishers, Santa Fe

 

Encouble—Paraître

Photographer: Delphine Burtin

Publisher: Self-published

 

Speaking of Scars

Photographer: Teresa Eng

Publisher: If / Then Books, London

 

Pools

Photographer: Craig Fineman

Publisher: Stussy / Dashwood Books, New York

 

The Canaries

Photographer: Thilde Jensen

Publisher: LENA Publications, Truxton, New York

 

Nine Nameless Mountains

Photographer: Maanantai Collective

Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany

 

Top Secret: Images from the Stasi Archives

Photographer: Simon Menner

Publisher: Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, Germany

 

KARMA

Photographer: Óscar Monzón

Publisher: RVB Books, Paris

 

Karczeby

Photographer: Adam Pańczuk

Publisher: Self-published

 

The Fourth Wall

Photographer: Max Pinckers

Publisher: Self-published

 

History of the Visit

Photographer: Daniel Reuter

Publisher: Self-published

 

Silvermine

Photographer: Thomas Sauvin

Publisher: Archive of Modern Conflict, London

 

Beautiful Pig

Photographer: Ben Schonberger

Publisher: Self-published

 

Grays the Mountain Sends

Photographer: Bryan Schutmaat

Publisher: Silas Finch Foundation, New York

 

Dawn These Mean Streets

Photographer: Will Steacy

Publisher: b. frank books, Zürich

 

Return to Sender

Photographer: Sipke Visser

Publisher: Self-published

 

Ad Infinitum

Photographer: Kris Vervaeke

Publisher: Self-published

 

Dalston Anatomy

Photographer: Lorenzo Vitturi

Publisher: Jibijana Books in association with SPBH Editions, London and Milan

 

La Montagne Dorée

Photographer: Myriam Ziehli

Publisher: Self-published

 

—

The selected photobooks will be exhibited at Paris Photo at the Grand Palais and at Aperture Gallery in New York and will tour to other venues, to be determined. They will also be profiled in issue 005 of The PhotoBook Review, Aperture’s biannual publication dedicated to the consideration of the photobook.

 

A final jury in Paris will select the winners for both prizes, which will be revealed at Paris Photo on November 15, 2013. The winner of First PhotoBook will be awarded $10,000. Immediately preceding the announcement, the fair will host book signings of the shortlisted titles.

 

PhotoBook Awards Pre-Jury:

 

Vince Aletti reviews photography exhibitions for the New Yorker and writes a regular column about photo books for Photograph. He was a contributing author to Andrew Roth’s The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century and is the winner of the 2005 Infinity Award in writing from the International Center of Photography. In 2009, Aletti co-curated Weird Beauty: Fashion Photography Now with Carol Squiers at the ICP and was the curator of This Is Not a Fashion Photograph, among other exhibitions. His most recent book, Rodeo, featuring the work of Bruce of Los Angeles, was published this fall by ACNE Studios.

 

Barbara Tannenbaum is curator of photography at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where she recently organized DIY: Photographers and Books, an exhibition on print-on-demand photobooks. Previously, she spent twenty-six years as chief curator of the Akron Art Museum, where she organized over eighty exhibitions including the first large-scale exhibition chronicling women’s historic achievements in photography; the first solo museum show of Adam Fuss; and Ralph Eugene Meatyard: An American Visionary. Tannenbaum has edited and authored numerous publications, including Detroit Disassembled by Andrew Moore (2010). She serves on the board of the Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell Foundation.

 

Mutsuko Ota is editorial director of IMA magazine. After graduating from Waseda University, she started her career as an editor at Marie Claire. She then worked at several men’s magazines such as Esquire and GQ as a features editor on travel, gastronomy, culture, art, and photography, among other subjects. In addition to collaborating with several magazines as a freelance editor, she has also been involved in the development and production of various art projects, book and catalog editing, and film promotion throughout her career. She became the editorial director of IMA in January 2012.

 

Since March 2011, Julien Frydman has been director of Paris Photo, the international fair dedicated to photography. In April 2013, he launched Paris Photo Los Angeles at Paramount Pictures Studios. From 2006–2011, Frydman was general director of Magnum Photos Paris, where he was responsible for a team that developed the careers of eighty agency photographers throughout Europe and the United Arab Emirates. Prior to Magnum, he worked in the French Ministry for Culture and National Education and as a consulting director at the TBWA Advertising Group.

 

Lesley A. Martin is publisher of Aperture Foundation’s book program and of The PhotoBook Review. Her writing on photography has been published in Aperture, American Photo, Stay Flat, and FOAM, among other publications, and she has edited over eighty books of photography, including Reflex: A Vik Muniz Primer; Richard Misrach: On the Beach; Penelope Umbrico: Photographs; and Rinko Kawauchi: Ametsuchi.