Brian Sholis

Latest Stories

Margaret Bourke‑White, Flame Burner Ann Zarik, 1943

An Exhibition Revives the Legacy of “Life” Magazine

The newsmagazine’s iconic and influential photo-essays were a collective effort. For contemporary artists, they’re rich territory for the interrogation of print media.

How Have Photography Curators Responded to Demands for Diversity?

After the social uprisings of 2020, museums from New Orleans to Toronto consider how collections and exhibitions might reframe art history—and better represent a changed cultural landscape.

Walker Evans, Independence Day, Terra Alta, West Virginia, 1935

A New Look at Walker Evans

In her recent book, Svetlana Alpers explores the cultural figures that influenced Evans’s renowned photographs.

Do Blue-Chip Photographers Prop up Global Capitalism?

In his recent manifesto, Jörg Colberg takes aim at three prominent photographers for their “visual propaganda.”

Gregory Halpern’s Lyrical Chronicle of a Rust Belt City

In Buffalo, the photographer finds imaginative possibilities in the city’s postindustrial landscapes.

Bill Owens, My wife is a realtor, 1972

Why Janet Malcolm’s Photography Criticism Still Resonates

Forty years after the publication of her collected essays on photography, Malcolm’s writing offers the pleasure of seeing a great mind grapple with the medium.

Torbjørn Rødland: Inducing Wonder

Exploring the symbolism of cultural mythologies and human nature, Torbjørn Rødland is a modern-day surrealist.

Lisa Oppenheim: Elemental Process

Lisa Oppenheim teases apart the individual steps of picture-making, wringing from the medium’s technical apparatus a surprisingly broad range of meanings.

2013 Portfolio Prize Runner Up: Akihiko Miyoshi

Read a statement by Brian Sholis, Editor.

Okwui Enwezor on “Rise and Fall of Apartheid”

Aperture speaks with curator Okwui Enwezor about the exhibition “Rise and Fall of Apartheid” at International Center of Photography.

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Aperture 254

Aperture Releases “Counter Histories,” Produced with Magnum Foundation Spring Issue Presents Photographers Who Uncover Personal and Political Histories (New York—March 6, 2024) What creative possibilities are offered by the gaps, absences, and silences in historical records? This spring, Aperture magazine presents “Counter Histories,” an issue produced in collaboration with Magnum Foundation and informed by their…