During an era of political upheaval, a portrait session at Foto Estudio Luisita, run by sisters Luisa and Chela Escarria, was a rite of passage for actors, dancers, pioneering trans performers—and the occasional adorned dog.
From JEB’s pathbreaking archive of lesbian photography to Ren Hang’s subversive fantasies, we look back at must-read articles from Aperture’s archive.
Lin Zhipeng, the photographer known as 223, looks for beauty, connection, and the impulse of friendship.
Creating tender scenes with friends and lovers, the LA-based artist offers a stirring vision of everyday ritual.
Decades before Grindr, Instagram, and erotic selfies, the photographer was famous for his extreme sexual-artistic practice.
What do the late artist’s emotional photo-text letters reveal about the craft of self-expression?
From Zanele Muholi’s radical statements of identity to Nan Goldin’s iconic visual diary, Aperture highlights artists whose work illuminates LGBTQ+ perspectives.
Eleven curators, writers, and artists reflect on images of queer identity past and present.
In her newest series, artist and activist Zackary Drucker pays homage to a trans icon.
In the 1970s, Sunil Gupta photographed moments of desire and liberation in New York’s gay capital.
James Bidgood’s queer and candy-colored photographs were camp before camp was stylish.
A long-overdue exhibition expands the canon of gay photography.
Mahmoud Khaled considers the legacy of the “Cairo 52,” the men who were arrested in 2001 at a gay-friendly nightclub.
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.
Reclaiming domestic space through installations in his parents’ home, Guanyu Xu explores queer identity and censorship across China and the US.
Meet the winner of the 2018 Aperture Portfolio Prize.
Matthew Leifheit conjures history and fantasy in the fabled gay enclave.
Remembering Laura Aguilar’s unapologetically queer bodies.
This spring, Aperture presents “Counter Histories,” an issue produced in collaboration with Magnum Foundation and informed by their ongoing Counter Histories grant initiative, featuring artists from around the world who tell new stories about how the past informs the present.
