Brendan Embser, Author at Aperture

The photographer speaks with his brother, the journalist Jake Halpern, about growing up in a city of surreal sights and memorable characters.

The photographer’s multilayered still lifes interrogate the trade routes between Africa, the Caribbean, and the US—and show how memory emerges through the senses.

Aperture’s executive director, who steps down in May 2021, speaks about his career in photography and how images impact our lives beyond the appreciation of art.

The renowned scholar speaks about her early career in photography, confronting racism in publishing, and why books about Black life are vital.

David Benjamin Sherry, Manorathadayakas, 2008

In 2010, photography was at a turning point. How did an ambitious survey at MoMA PS1 anticipate a generation of artists who define the field today?

After moving from New York to Atlanta, Nydia Blas adopts a magical outlook as a tool for resilience.

When the Indigenous artist Krista Belle Stewart discovered a community of Germans reenacting “Indian” traditions, she felt an uncanny sense of wonder, humor, and indignation.

Hank Willis Thomas, You Don’t Have to Try So Hard, 2015

Working with archival imagery or deftly staged portraits, an array of artists lay bare the sinister underpinnings of white respectability.

Sister Corita Kent, Mary’s Day Procession, 1964

In the 1960s, Sister Corita Kent made photographs and silk-screen posters that crackled with energy at a time of unrest.

Louisiana-based artist Dawn DeDeaux’s images of astronauts appear as harbingers of a new frontier.

As actors, directors, and communities tell their own stories on-screen, they produce new narratives—and an Indigenous gaze.

The influential artist’s videos and site-specific works excavate colonial histories in North America.

In a new series made in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, the photographer searches for signs that could be taken for wonders.

Beginning in the 1960s, Michael Schmidt dedicated his work to the city’s history and its citizens—and moved beyond the conventions of documentary photography.