A Message from Aperture’s New Executive Director

Hello, Aperture.

Today is my second First Day at a New Job, and I’m giddy with anticipation. My first First Day was in September 1994, fresh out of college, when I walked into the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art. We used typewriters—on occasion, floppy disks at shared computers, no internet or email!—John Szarkowski stopped by regularly, and people smoked in their offices. Every Thursday morning, the curatorial staff would gather to look at portfolios that photographers had dropped off and mailed in from all over the world. I couldn’t believe how fortunate I was to spend my days around amazing photographs and brilliant people. That feeling never waned—and in my new role leading Aperture, I imagine it never will.

Aperture has been inextricable from conversations around photography since 1952, something I first grasped in high school, where Aperture magazine was both a teaching tool and a source of inspiration. As an undergraduate, I studied with Peter Bunnell, who had worked closely with Aperture’s founding editor, Minor White, soaking up stories of his connections with by-then-legendary figures. I wrote my thesis about Danny Lyon’s portraits, and avidly perused library copies of Diane Arbus’s Aperture monograph (1972), Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (Aperture, 1986), and Sally Mann’s Immediate Family (Aperture, 1992). It would be many years before I purchased my own copies of these books, which didn’t require a major investment, thanks to the fact that Aperture keeps them in print.

Aperture has also been a significant link between most of my favorite projects over the last decade, most recently with the exhibition and book on one of Aperture’s founders, Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures (MoMA, 2020). I appreciated the opportunity to fine-tune my ideas for the magazine about Horacio Coppola (in Aperture #213), Regina Silveira (#215), and the Club Fotográfico de México (#236), and to contribute to The Photographer’s Playbook: 307 Assignments and Ideas (2014) and Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Photograph (2021). Nearly all the artists I’ve had the pleasure of working with recently are deeply connected to MoMA and Aperture: Sara Cwynar and Stephen Shore, Dawoud Bey and Danny Lyon, Rosalind Fox Solomon and LaToya Ruby Frazier, Irina Rozovsky and Zora J Murff, Richard Misrach and Wendy Red Star, Hank Willis Thomas and Tina Barney. Last fall, I had the privilege of moderating a conversation with the incomparable Dr. Deborah Willis and the editors of To Make Their Own Way in the World: The Enduring Legacy of the Zealy Daguerreotypes (Aperture/Peabody Museum Press, 2020) and of being a juror for the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards. Although no one associated with those events knew it at the time, I was applying for this job. The professionalism of the Aperture staff, their sense of purpose, and their commitment to the medium, combined with our shared admiration for all of the artists I mentioned above and many more, made me redouble my efforts to persuade the search committee to choose me as Aperture’s next executive director. I’m so grateful they did.

As a way of getting to know you—our community—and introducing you to our team, I will be hosting a series of seven conversations on Instagram Live. Beginning on May 19, join us every Wednesday at 1:00 pm EDT at @aperturefnd to hear from:

Lesley A. Martin, Creative Director
Denise Wolff, Senior Editor
Michael Famighetti, Editor of Aperture magazine
Kwame Brathwaite Jr., Board Trustee
Sara Cwynar, Artist
Richard Misrach, Artist
Wendy Red Star, Artist

While these conversations are happening, I’m going to send out a survey and ask that you kindly take the time to reply. Among the new programs I’m planning is an Aperture Book Club—and your interests and opinions will guide it! I look forward to hearing from you as we embark on this next chapter in Aperture’s history.

Photography brings us together, across continents and decades. No medium can equal its ability to register our individuality and represent the various stories that we refer to cumulatively as history. I cherish the time I spent at a museum where we grappled with the ways photographs rest uneasily within the boundaries of art. As the new executive director of Aperture, I am deeply committed to looking critically and closely at what feels familiar and what feels strange in photography, to broadening our understanding of the medium through the highest-caliber publications and programs, and to leading an organization where conversations between artists, editors, and our audience is central. I believe in our capacity and our responsibility to harness the power of this medium, which we are fortunate to champion, in pursuit of a more just, more joyful world.

Yours,
Sarah Meister