Celebrating the forthcoming Aperture title The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion, this conversation will address the radical transformation taking place in fashion and art today. The featuring of the Black figure and Black runway and cover models in the media and art has been a marker of increasingly inclusive fashion and art communities. In the book, curator and critic Antwaun Sargent opens up the conversation around the role of the Black body in the marketplace; the cross-pollination between art, fashion, and culture in constructing an image; and the institutional barriers that have historically been an impediment to black photographers participating more fully in the fashion (and art) industries.

The panel will include Antwaun Sargent and photographers and New School alumni Quil Lemons and Micaiah Carter. The event will be moderated by educator Kimberly Jenkins.

This conversation is presented by Aperture Foundation and the Photography Program of Parsons School of Art and Design at The New School.

Kimberly Jenkins is an educator who specializes in the sociocultural and historical influences behind why we wear what we wear, specifically addressing how politics, psychology, race, and gender shape the way we “fashion” our identity. Based in New York, with a background in cultural anthropology and art history, she is a lecturer at Parsons School of Art and Design. In Fall 2016, Kim debuted the undergraduate course Fashion and Race, examining the implications of the social construct of race in fashion history, business, and image-making. In Spring 2019, Kim worked as an education consultant for Gucci to support their efforts on cultural awareness and sensitivity.

Antwaun Sargent is an independent writer, curator, and critic whose work has been published in the New Yorker, New York Times, W, Vogue, VICE, and various museum catalogues, among other publications.

Aperture Foundation’s public programs are supported, in part, by generous donations from our Board of Trustees, our members and other individuals, and from corporate foundations and private foundations including: Grace Jones Richardson Trust, and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Image: Quil Lemons, New York, 2017, from The New Black Vanguard (Aperture, 2019); © Quil Lemons

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Aperture Members are invited to an exhibition preview on Friday, November 22, from 6:00–7:00 p.m., for the 2019 Portfolio Prize Winner Mark McKnight’s exhibition, and the 2019 Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards Shortlist. Mark McKnight’s black-and-white images of bodies and landscapes challenge Eurocentric ideas about male beauty—and aim to make “straight” photography a little less straight. The PhotoBook Awards Shortlist comprises thirty-five volumes, celebrating the book’s contribution to the evolving narrative of photography.

6:00 – 7:00 p.m. Member preview reception

6:30 p.m. Remarks by Mark McKnight, Brendan Embser, and Lesley A. Martin

7:00 – 8:30 p.m. Public opening

Mark McKnight (born in Los Angeles, 1984) was born to a New Mexican mother who struggled with their Southwestern, diasporic roots. In turn, McKnight grappled with reconciling his own identity, both as a mixed-race person of color and as a gay man—particularly one who neither exemplified nor desired the idealized, Eurocentric cultural standard of male beauty that is perpetuated even within gay culture. Since McKnight was raised in an environment that privileges white, heterosexual masculinity, his work operates as a site of resistance to those values. McKnight completed a Fulbright Scholarship in Finland in 2009, and he has also completed artist residencies at Storm King Art Center (2017) and Light Work (2019). In 2018 McKnight gave the first in a series of public lectures titled “Queer Eye,” in which he confronted the shortsighted legacy of “straight,” modernist photographic practice while proposing a queered historical revision; that same year he held two solo exhibitions that received favorable national reviews. His work was the subject of both a two-person gallery exhibition at Roger’s Office in Los Angeles and a multi-museum survey and catalogue. His most recent group exhibition, Close to Home (Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, 2019), dealt with the themes of identity and abstract narrative. His work is currently represented by James Harris, Seattle.

About the Aperture Portfolio Prize

The purpose of the Aperture Portfolio Prize is to identify high-quality work by new voices in contemporary photography. When choosing the first-prize winner and runners-up, Aperture’s editorial and curatorial staff look for innovative bodies of work that haven’t been widely seen in major publications or exhibition venues.

The Portfolio Prize is open to Aperture magazine print subscribers and to Aperture Members at the $250 Friend level or above. For more information about the prize, visit aperture.org/portfolio-prize.

About The PhotoBook Awards

The Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards, celebrates the book’s contribution to the evolving narrative of photography. Initiated in November 2012 by Aperture Foundation and Paris Photo, the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards celebrate the photobook’s contribution to the evolving narrative of photography, with three major categories: First PhotoBook, PhotoBook of the Year, and Photography Catalogue of the Year.

Image: Mark McKnight, Bodyfold, 2018; from the series Decreation

Aperture Foundation’s public programs are supported, in part, by generous donations from our Board of Trustees, our members and other individuals, corporate foundations and private foundations including the Grace Jones Richardson Trust.

Join Aperture for the opening receptions of both the 2019 Portfolio Prize Winner Mark McKnights’s exhibition and the 2019 Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards Shortlist. Mark McKnight’s black-and-white images of bodies and landscapes challenge Eurocentric ideas about male beauty—and aim to make “straight” photography a little less straight. The PhotoBook Awards Shortlist comprises thirty-five volumes, celebrating the book’s contribution to the evolving narrative of photography.

Mark McKnight (born in Los Angeles, 1984) was born to a New Mexican mother who struggled with their Southwestern, diasporic roots. In turn, McKnight grappled with reconciling his own identity, both as a mixed-race person of color and as a gay man—particularly one who neither exemplified nor desired the idealized, Eurocentric cultural standard of male beauty that is perpetuated even within gay culture. Since McKnight was raised in an environment that privileges white, heterosexual masculinity, his work operates as a site of resistance to those values. McKnight completed a Fulbright Scholarship in Finland in 2009, and he has also completed artist residencies at Storm King Art Center (2017) and Light Work (2019). In 2018 McKnight gave the first in a series of public lectures titled “Queer Eye,” in which he confronted the shortsighted legacy of “straight,” modernist photographic practice while proposing a queered historical revision; that same year he held two solo exhibitions that received favorable national reviews. His work was the subject of both a two-person gallery exhibition at Roger’s Office in Los Angeles and a multi-museum survey and catalogue. His most recent group exhibition, Close to Home (Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, 2019), dealt with the themes of identity and abstract narrative. His work is currently represented by James Harris, Seattle.

About the Aperture Portfolio Prize

The purpose of the Aperture Portfolio Prize is to identify high-quality work by new voices in contemporary photography. When choosing the first-prize winner and runners-up, Aperture’s editorial and curatorial staff look for innovative bodies of work that haven’t been widely seen in major publications or exhibition venues.

The Portfolio Prize is open to Aperture magazine print subscribers and to Aperture Members at the $250 Friend level or above. For more information about the prize, visit aperture.org/portfolio-prize.

About The PhotoBook Awards

The Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards, celebrates the book’s contribution to the evolving narrative of photography. Initiated in November 2012 by Aperture Foundation and Paris Photo, the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards celebrate the photobook’s contribution to the evolving narrative of photography, with three major categories: First PhotoBook, PhotoBook of the Year, and Photography Catalogue of the Year.

Image: Mark McKnight, Bodyfold, 2018; from the series Decreation

Aperture Foundation’s public programs are supported, in part, by generous donations from our Board of Trustees, our members and other individuals, corporate foundations and private foundations including the Grace Jones Richardson Trust.

Aperture Gallery and Bookstore will be closing at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 27, 2019.

Join Aperture and Schilt Publishing for a special event to celebrate the launch of Fred Baldwin‘s memoir, Dear Mr. Picasso: An Illustrated Love Affair with Freedom. 

Noted photographer and co-founder of FotoFest, Fred Baldwin has recently published his memoir, Dear Mr. Picasso: An Illustrated Love Affair with Freedom (Schilt Publishing). The book begins with Baldwin’s encounter with Pablo Picasso in 1955, a life-changing event that emboldened Baldwin to embrace a peripatetic life as a photojournalist. His remarkable “picture stories” led him to locations where few or no photographers had gone before. Baldwin’s book is illustrated with hundreds of black-and-white and color photographs from his vast archive.

In a conversation with Fred Ritchin, Dean Emeritus of the International Center of Photography (ICP) School, Baldwin will show images and recount some of the extraordinary experiences of his career. Books will be available for purchase. A book signing will immediately follow the discussion.

Fred Baldwin was born in 1929 in Switzerland where his father served as a United States diplomat. A Marine rifleman, Baldwin was wounded and decorated twice during the Korean War. After earning his B.A. from Columbia College, New York in 1956, he began a freelance photography career that continued until 1987. Baldwin worked for LIFE, National Geographic, GEO, STERN, Esquire, and Sports Illustrated, among others. He and his long-time collaborator, Wendy Watriss, co-founded FotoFest in 1983.

Talk and Book Signing with Judy Glickman Lauder

Beyond the Shadows: The Holocaust and the Danish Exception

Join us for an evening with Judy Glickman Lauder, whose photographs are now on exhibit in Beyond the Shadows: The Holocaust and the Danish Exception. The exhibit tells the story of Danish citizens’ rescue of the large majority of Jews residing in Denmark who were otherwise bound for transport to concentration camps. Judy Glickman Lauder will discuss her photographs and her experiences photographing Holocaust sites since the 1980s. She will sign her book, Beyond the Shadows: The Holocaust and the Danish Exception, which will be available for purchase.

Judy Glickman Lauder grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and spent much of her childhood behind the lens of her father’s camera. She began exhibiting her work in the 1970s and received the Fellowship distinction of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain in 1993. Her photographs have been incorporated into over 300 private collections nationally and internationally.

RSVP here.

New Ways of Seeing – Photography Now will feature a conversation between Michael Hoeh, Zanele Muholi and Paul Mpagi Sepuya, moderated by Antwaun Sargent.

These conversations offer a platform for dynamic dialogues between prominent members of the international art world, each offering their unique perspective on producing, collecting, and exhibiting art. The series include artist talks, panels, and discussions with a range of speakers including artists, gallerists, curators, collectors, architects, art lawyers, critics, and many other cultural players.

Programmed for the first time by private art dealer and author Ed Winkelman.

Aperture Foundation Gallery and Bookstore will be closing at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 24, 2019.

Aperture Gallery and Bookstore will be closed for the Holidays starting December 25, 2019. We will reopen Thursday, January 2, 2020.

Aperture Foundation, in collaboration with Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, is pleased to present a conversation between acclaimed writer Garth Greenwell and photographer Mark McKnight, winner of the 2019 Aperture Portfolio Prize.

Join us in celebrating Greenwell’s newest book, Cleanness, and McKnight’s exhibition at Aperture Gallery, on view through January 18, 2020—coinciding with his first solo show at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, January 10–February 16, 2020. Greenwell and McKnight will speak together about the mystery and beauty of rendering queer life in words and photographs.

Mark McKnight (born in Los Angeles, 1984) is a modern-day modernist. His black-and-white photographs of skin and sand, brick and tar, with their rich tones and sparkling light, are redolent of twentieth-century masterworks, those pictures by men like Edward Weston, who cast the world in silver-gelatin. But for McKnight, who was born in Los Angeles to a New Mexican, Hispana-identified mother, something was missing from Weston’s vision. Something that would ignite a flame of recognition in a young queer man with ideas about male beauty more expansive than the Eurocentric standard. Something that would make “straight” photography a little less straight. “McKnight challenges us to find grace in what might at first seem a graceless image, to linger on the elegance of the curves of a man’s flesh,” Greenwell writes in Aperture magazine, “to imagine, between body and shadow, a surreal pas de deux.” McKnight’s first book, Heaven is a Prison, will be published by Loose Joints in fall 2020.

Garth Greenwell is the author of What Belongs to You (2016), which won the 2017 British Book Award for Debut Book of the Year, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, it was named a Best Book of 2016 by over fifty publications in nine countries, and is being translated into a dozen languages. Greenwell’s newest book, Cleanness—about an American teacher in Sofia, Bulgaria, who navigates a life transformed by the discovery and loss of love—is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. His fiction has appeared in the New Yorker,  Paris Review, A Public Space, and VICE, and he has written criticism for the New Yorker, London Review of Books, and New York Times Book Review, among other publications. Greenwell wrote about McKnight’s work for Aperture magazine, issue 236 (Fall 2019). He lives in Iowa City.

The purpose of the Aperture Portfolio Prize is to highlight artists whose work deserves greater recognition and identify trends in contemporary photography. Click here for more information about the 2020 Aperture Portfolio Prize.

Aperture Foundation’s public programs are supported, in part, by generous donations from our Board of Trustees, our members and other individuals, and from corporate foundations and private foundations including: Grace Jones Richardson Trust, and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Image: Mark McKnight, if water forgets how to play mirror, 2018, from the series Decreation