Aperture 166

Science of Light: The Cultural Context of Aperture’s Founding
by Frederick Kaufman
Kaufman’s close look at the cultural climate in which Aperture was born fifty years ago is brought to life visually through a diverse selection of images, from Atomic detonation to the beat generation, each capturing the spirit of the times.

A High Old Time, Reynolds Price remembers Eudora Welty
Welty’s elegant portraits of everyday life in a depressed Mississippi, accompanied by Reynolds Price’s letter to the great American writer and photographer on her seventy-fifth birthday, evoke Welty’s wit and her appetite for life.

Robert Capa’s Falling Soldier: A Detective Story
by Richard Whelan
Amid reports that “the greatest war photograph of all time” was, in fact, staged, Robert Capa’s biographer turns detective to restore the great photojournalist’s integrity, employing many of Capa’s most famous works as evidence.

Windows
by Janet Sternburg
Like a visual memoir, Sternburg’s color photographs of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico evoke the ghostly essence of this mountain town’s past.

Adrian Piper: Goodbye to Easy Listening
Interview by Diana C. Stoll
Augmenting a selection of provocative images culled from a three-decade career, this noted conceptual artist talks about art as a vehicle for political inquiry and photography as the ideal medium to draw attention to her charged subjects.

A Word About Angels
by Carole Naggar
Naggar reveals the timely moments when angels appear in images by Joel-Peter Witkin and Sylvia Plachy, among others.