APERTURE 40TH SPECIAL ISSUE FALL 1992-II: Richard Misrach + Mary Ellen Mark

                         Richard Misrach (click to enlarge)

White Man Contemplating Pyramids, Egypt 1989

© Richard Misrach, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, 

Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles and Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 APERTURE Cover by ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG
40th Year Anniversary Issue, Fall 1992

I recently came across APERTURE'S 40TH YEAR SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY ISSUE, published in Fall 1992. It's an extraordinary look back at Photography before the popularity of digital camera's came into the picture. ("Not until 2001 did Kodak begin selling mass-market digital cameras"–Ben Dobbin, AP). Michael E. Hoffman was still Director and Publisher of the Aperture Foundation. Hoffman published the legendary Diane Arbus Monograph by Marvin Israel and Doon Arbus in 1972, now in it's 40th-Year Anniversary printing, as well as books by Edward Weston, W. Eugene Smith, Paul Strand and Dorothea Lange, among many other greats.

The following excerpt is from Aperture's 40th Anniversary Issue: 

"1992, ABOUT APERTURE: Forty Years after it's origination, Aperture celebrates the Founders' affirming spirit. Seventy photographers published in Aperture since 1952 selected photographs especially for this Anniversary Issue. One image from each artist was chosen. The photographers also wrote their thoughts on photography in general or, if they referred, about their work in particular, much as the founders suggested should happen in their first editorial."

"...In keeping with the spirit of Dorothea Lange and other Founders who measured Aperture's success in part by the depth and expression of it's social conscience, Aperture will continue to be a forum for those photographers who are committed to confronting the crises and concerns of our time...." –THE EDITORS, Number One Hundred Twenty-Nine, Fall 1992

Also included in this issue were photographs by Josef Koudelka, Eugene Richards, Eudora Welty, Sophie Calle, McDermott and McGough, Alex Webb, Sally Mann, Maggie Steber, Chuck Close, Thomas Struth, David Turnley, Helen Levitt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Carrie Mae Weems, Joel Sternfeld, Masahisa Fukase, Jan Groover, Nick Knight, Barbara Morgan, David Wojnarowicz and Margaretta K. Mitchell. There may have been others I missed. See APERTURE'S 40TH YEAR SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY ISSUE: Part I here

Left, RICHARD MISRACH, White Man Contemplating Pyramids, 1989, as seen on page 50, APERTURE 1992 40th Year Anniversary issue. Right, ELAINE REICHEK, Red Delicious, 1991.

Left, INGE MORATH, Untitled, 1961, and right, MARY ELLEN MARK, Acrobats Rehearsing, Great Golden Circus, Ahmadabad, India, 1989, as seen on pages 32 and 33, APERTURE 1992 40th Year Anniversary issue.

APERTURE 40th Year, Fall 1992: PART I

Many thanks to the Fraenkel Gallery for your help in posting Richard Misrach's, White Man Contemplating Pyramids, Egypt 1989

APERTURE 40TH SPECIAL ISSUE FALL 1992: DAVID WOJNAROWICZ | Face in Dirt

David Wojnarowicz  |  Untitled (Face in Dirt) 1993

Courtesy of The Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W Gallery, New York

"All behind me are the friends that died; I'm breathing this air that they can't breathe; I'm seeing this ratty monkey in a cheap Mexican circus wearing a red and blue embroidered jacket and it's collecting coins and I can reach out and touch it like they can't. And time is now compressed; I joke and say that I feel I've taken out another six month lease on this body of mine; on this vehicle of sound and motion, and every painting or photograph or film I make I make with the sense that it may be the last thing I do and so I try to pull everything in to the surface of that action. I work quickly now and feel there is no time for bullshit; cut straight to the heart of the senses and map it out as clearly as tools and growth allow....I see myself seeing death; it's like a transparent celluloid image of myself is accompanying myself everywhere I go." David Wojnarowicz died of AIDS July 22, 1992

  Aperture Cover by Robert Rauschenberg
40th Year Anniversary Issue, Fall 1992

David Wojnarowicz's image "Untitled (Face in Dirt) 1990"
as seen on page 77 in Aperture's 40th Year Special Anniversary Issue

I recently came across APERTURE'S 40TH YEAR SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY ISSUE, published in Fall 1992. It's an extraordinary look back at Photography before the popularity of digital camera's came into the picture. ("Not until 2001 did Kodak begin selling mass-market digital cameras"–Ben Dobbin, AP). Michael E. Hoffman was still Director and Publisher of the Aperture Foundation. Hoffman published the legendary Diane Arbus Monograph by Marvin Israel and Doon Arbus in 1972, now in it's 40th-Year Anniversary Edition printing, as well as books by Edward Weston, W. Eugene Smith, Paul Strand and Dorothea Lange, among many other greats. In 1992, Basketball star “Magic” Johnson announced he was HIV-positive and Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen, died of complications from AIDS. 

The following excerpt is from Aperture's 40th Anniversary Issue:

"1992, ABOUT APERTURE: Forty Years after it's origination, Aperture celebrates the Founders' affirming spirit. Seventy photographers published in Aperture since 1952 selected photographs especially for this Anniversary Issue. One image from each artist was chosen. The photographers also wrote their thoughts on photography in general or, if they referred, about their work in particular, much as the founders suggested should happen in their first editorial."

"The process of bringing together a "forty years" celebration forces one to see photographs as, among other things, indicators of their time. Several photographers address AIDS in their text or images; the brutality of this devastating epidemic became all the more jolting when David Wojnarowicz died of AIDS during the preparation of this issue, having selected his photograph, but without having had the time to write his text."

"Whereas images cannot directly combat the overwhelming reality of such tragedies, history–recent and distant– has proven how powerful photographs are in revealing injustices, insisting upon action, and inspiring controversy and often, change. In keeping with the spirit of Dorothea Lange and other Founders who measured Aperture's success in part by the depth and expression of it's social conscience, Aperture will continue to be a forum for those photographers who are committed to confronting the crises and concerns of our time...." –THE EDITORS, Number One Hundred Twenty-Nine, Fall 1992

Also included in this issue were photographs by Josef Koudelka, Eugene Richards, Mary Ellen Mark, Eudora Welty, Sophie Calle, McDermott and McGough, Alex Webb, Sally Mann, Maggie Steber, Chuck Close, Thomas Struth, David Turnley, Helen Levitt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Carrie Mae Weems, Joel Sternfeld, Masahisa Fukase, Jan Groover, Nick Knight, Barbara Morgan, and Margaretta K. Mitchell. There may have been others I missed.

See APERTURE'S 40TH YEAR SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY ISSUE: Part II here

The Aperture Foundation

**Text by David Wojnarowicz was from excerpts published in Aperture's 40th Year Special Issue, page 76, and originally excerpted from an interview by Barry Blinderman with David Wojnarowicz in Tongues of Flame, University Galleries, 1990, page 49,

REBECCA NORRIS WEBB: My Dakota opens in New York at Ricco/Maresca

 Ghost Mountain

Photograph © Rebecca Norris Webb

 High Winds

Photograph © Rebecca Norris Webb

The Sky Below

Photograph © Rebecca Norris Webb

“Looking back at My Dakota, I now realize that I was photographing this dark time in my life in order to try to absorb it, to crystallize it, and, ultimately, to let go of it. Not only did my first grief change me, but making My Dakota changed me as well, both as a human being and as an artist.” –Rebecca Norris Webb

+  +  +

Rebecca Norris Webb's exhibition, My Dakota at the Ricco/Maresca Gallery, brings together works from Webb’s acclaimed book recounting the sudden loss of her brother through idyllic landscape portraits of her home state of South Dakota. My Dakota serves as a lyrical elegy, depicting the hypnagogic process of grieving and visually chronicling the fragility of life and the inexplicable changes that occur while mourning.
 

Webb moved to South Dakota at the age of 15. The artist originally found expression as a poet, before exploring photography after college. For Webb, language could not fully capture the totality of the world around her, nor satisfy her innate curiosity for visual exploration. The artist’s latest book, My Dakota, blends poetry with photographs of her home state as a multi-layered portrait that marries aesthetic representation with lyrical record. The heart of the book lies in the enigmatic photographs where the artist is seemingly searching for significance behind continuation and meaning beyond an emotional chasm. Reflections and windows play a significant role in the series as a way of capturing memory within the present while exuding a sense of abandonment and disconnect from life’s fleeting moments. Rooted in sentient exploration, each work is open to interpretation – giving the viewer an outlet to draw their personal recollections and emotive conclusions. (Courtesy Ricco/Maresca Gallery)

Rebecca Norris Webb: My Dakota

June 20 - August 17, 2013

RICCO/MARESCA GALLERY, NY

Lecture and Book Signing: Aperture Foundation, June 21, 7:00-8:30 pm. With Alex Webb and Q+A led by Sean Corcoran, Curator of Prints and Photographs, the Museum of the City of New York, and Denise Wolff, Aperture Senior Editor. Artist Talk/GalleryWalkThru: Ricco/Maresca Gallery, June 22, 5-6 pm. My Dakota is running concurrently at the North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, North Dakota, June 4 - August 6.