2016 Aperture Summer Open: Photography Is Magic

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Aperture’s 2016 Summer Open was a call for contributions to the idea of photography as a magical form. This optimistic premise attracted a diverse scope of magical contemporary approaches—from pictures found in the happenstance of everyday life to elaborate stagings of studio or desktop experiments.

The photographic practices represented in the final selection for this year’s Summer Open are rich with vitality and deep curiosity for the magical medium of photography. They share a fascination with and substantial knowledge of the historical roots and the contemporary state of photography. These artists actively play with the medium’s heritage—re-animating and re-contextualizing its alchemical properties—to render ideas about its contemporary material value. They are astutely aware of the viewers’ perceptions and trains of thought, grounded in our shared context of an ever-expanding image world. They invite us to pay attention to the thriving possibility of photography as an experimental platform, rich with materiality and visual sleight of hand.

—Charlotte Cotton, curator and writer

Participating photographers:
Delaney Allen / Syl Arena / Lucy Wood Baird / Stella Baraklianou / Amelia Bauer / G. Roland Biermann / Thom Bridge / Radek Brousil / Drew Brown / Bubi Canal / Ellen Carey / Jesse Chehak / Joseph Desler Costa / Adam Ekberg / Annabel Elgar / Ailbhe Greaney / Valerie Green / Jill Greenberg / Aaron Hegert / Matthew Herrmann / Sheree Hovsepian / Noah Jackson / Jessica Labatte / Dionne Lee / Matthew Leifheit and Cynthia Talmadge/ Jo Longhurst / Jason Lukas / Chris Maggio / Irene Mamiye / William Miller / Chris Mottalini / Deepanjan Mukhopadhyay / Jennifer Niederhauser Schlup / Zachary Norman / Ryan Oskin / Megan Paetzhold / Meghann Riepenhoff / Anastasia Samoylova / Michael Schmid / Marco Scozzaro / Katie Shapiro / Tabitha Soren / Jessica Thalmann / Sonja Thomsen / Patricia Voulgaris / Marta Wlusek /  Guanyu Xu / Hyounsang Yoo / Junsheng Zhou

About the Aperture Summer Open
Aperture Summer Open is an annual open-submission exhibition at Aperture Foundation’s gallery that features a wide variety of work drawn from members of our photographic community. Selected annually by a prominent curator or editor, the exhibition seeks to reveal and report on critical themes and trends driving international contemporary photographic practice. The exhibition opens the doors of the Foundation to all photographers, both well- and lesser-known, as it fosters and promotes new ideas and talent.

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Aperture’s exhibitions are funded, in part, by an award from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Charina Endowment Fund, and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.