Aperture

Founded in 1952, Aperture is an essential guide to the world of contemporary photography that combines the finest writing with inspiring photographic portfolios. Each issue examines one theme explored in “Words,” focused on the best writing surrounding contemporary photography, and “Pictures,” featuring immersive portfolios and artist projects.

Aperture

Exhibitions to See

Viewfinder • Three decades ago, Mariko Mori spoofed gender roles in Japan through playful performances staged in locations around Tokyo.

Dispatches • Will accelerating economic disparity threaten Vancouver as a vital creative hub?

Backstory • Ketaki Sheth rediscovers her photographs of the bustling center of 1990s-era Hindi cinema.

Curriculum • Oscar Wilde once wrote that every portrait is a portrait of the artist. That’s certainly true for Jack Pierson, who has made numerous “self-portraits” that are, in fact, pictures of other people—mostly young men, lithe and well lit, replying to the camera with an interrogative gaze. Pierson came of age in Boston in the 1980s and became associated with the so-called Boston School alongside Nan Goldin, David Armstrong, and Philip-Lorca diCorcia. His career-long fascination with queer glamour has yielded a deep archive of singular portraiture, selections from which were on display in a recent exhibition in New York that also included drawings, posters, sculptures, and letters from vintage signs, one reading “REAL LIFE.”

Studio Visit • Jim Goldberg speaks with Jordan Stein about his latest book. Packed with the characters of his own life, it took him twenty-four years to make.

Counter Histories

For So Many Years When I Close My Eyes

The Country

We See It All • For decades, US officials sought to suppress independence movements in Puerto Rico, spying on activists and their families. What do their formerly secret files reveal about this chapter of history?

Prasiit Sthapit • How did music propel a Maoist revolution in Nepal?

Searching for Cayenne

The “Good” Change

The Right to a Memory

Descendants

Fighting Times • A photographer reconstructs her parents’ radical past, and reckons with what to keep and what to let go.

New from Aperture

The PhotoBook Review

The Artist’s Library • Rebecca Bengal in Conversation with Ari Marcopoulos

A Peculiar Feeling of Reality • Pati Hill turns xerography into a pliable and surprising form of photographic art.

Endnote • As an investigative journalist and author of engrossing nonfiction, Patrick Radden Keefe has mined irresistible stories of rogues, kingpins, and the Sackler family’s sordid complicity with the opioid-addiction crisis. His 2018 book, Say Nothing, revisits the history of the Troubles, in Northern Ireland. Fittingly, given its memorable characters and surreal events, the book will soon be adapted as a television series.

Magnum Foundation • Since our founding in 2007 by members of the Magnum Photos cooperative, we have made more than 600 direct grants to visual storytellers from over 80 countries. We are honored to collaborate with Aperture on this special edition of the magazine that highlights work from our Counter Histories initiative. To find out about upcoming exhibitions and events, learn about grant opportunities, or join our community of support, please visit magnumfoundation.org