Aperture

Founded in 1952, Aperture is an essential guide to the world of contemporary photography that combines the finest writing with inspiring photographic portfolios. Each issue examines one theme explored in “Words,” focused on the best writing surrounding contemporary photography, and “Pictures,” featuring immersive portfolios and artist projects.

Aperture

Contributors

Exhibitions to See

Dispatches • A new festival in Baghdad hopes to rebuild the Iraqi capital’s artistic community following decades of war.

aperture • Aperture, a nonprofit organization, gratefully acknowledges the generosity of the numerous individuals, foundations, corporations, and public funders who contribute in support of our mission.

Redux • James Welling’s Light Sources remains an essential and slyly mysterious study of photography’s raw material.

Studio Visit • Bharat Sikka’s serene workspace in New Delhi is the result of chance and a few accidents.

Spotlight • Alana Perino, winner of the 2025 Aperture Portfolio Prize, crafts a haunted story of familial memory in Florida.

Curriculum

Liberated Threads

Seydou Keïta Living Archive • In midcentury Bamako, sitting for a portrait in Keïta’s studio was a defining assertion of identity.

Liz Johnson Artur London Calling

Nikki Nelms Hair Stories

Melina Matsoukas The Director • A Conversation with Solange Knowles

Nuits Balnéaires Côte d’Ivoire Dreaming

Silvia Rosi Family Album

Turning the Page • In the early 2000s, Honey magazine mixed hip-hop, street style, and high fashion.

There Are New Suns • Ja’Tovia Gary in Conversation with Fatima Jamal

Devin Allen Picture Man

Yashua Simmons Proof of Life • A Conversation with Darnell L. Moore

The PhotoBook Review

The Eriskay Connection • A Conversation with Aaron Schuman

The Factory • On the outskirts of Tokyo, a sprawling compound centers art books in everyday life.

Graphic Content • The New Typography movement revolutionized the relationship between image and text. A century later, its impact is still rippling.

Reviews

Endnote Durga Chew-Bose • Durga Chew-Bose is practiced in the art of heeding small things. A writer, editor, and filmmaker, her essays linger over gestures, memories, and daydreams, modeling a restless curiosity about the nuances of the human condition. Here, the Montreal native talks about her directorial debut, an adaptation of Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan’s bittersweet 1954 tale of hedonism and heartbreak on the Côte d’Azur.