5 Books Published by Aperture Books on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

Through engaging testimonials and anecdotes from photographers, curators, printers, and colleagues, Object Lesson: On the Influence of Richard Benson pays homage to this legendary Renaissance man and his lasting impact on generations of photography educators and practitioners.

Richard Benson’s name is synonymous with the evolving history and philosophy of photographic reproduction—from making platinum prints for prominent photographers like Paul Strand and books with lifelong collaborators such as Lee Friedlander, to his own experiments with inkjet and digital offset processes. In 1979, Tod Papageorge invited Benson to teach at Yale University’s Department of Photography; together, they shaped one of the preeminent photography programs in the world. Benson would go on to become the dean of the Yale School of Art in 1996. By the time of his death in 2017, Benson had inspired over three decades of students and artisans through his teaching and mentorship. In words and images, Object Lesson stands as a testament to Benson’s wit, wisdom, and incomparable obsession with how photographic images render and connect us to the world.

Includes text, image, and interview contributions by Michele Abeles, Marion Belanger, Barbara Benson, Richard Benson, Dawoud Bey, Andrew Borowiec, Lois Conner, Matt Connors, Tim Davis, Ben Donaldson, Dru Donovan, Martina Droth, Shannon Ebner, John Gambell, John Goodman, Bryan Graf, Gail Albert Halaban, Gary Haller, Heyward Hart, Robert Hennessey, Peter Kayafas, Lisa Kereszi, Justin Kimball, David La Spina, John Lehr, Susan Lipper, Salvatore Lopes, Peter MacGill, Tanya Marcuse, Sarah Meister, Paul Messier, Andrea Modica, Matthew Monteith, Abelardo Morell, Arthur Ou, Thomas Palmer, Tod Papageorge, Ted Partin, Bradley Peters, John Pilson, Kristine Potter, Caitlin Price, Sergio Purtell, John Robinson, Jeff Rosenheim, Sasha Rudensky, Gary Schneider, David Benjamin Sherry, Steve Smith, Mark Steinmetz, Sarah Stolfa, Ka-Man Tse, James Welling, and Jeffrey Whetstone.

In the fifth installment of The Photography Workshop Series, Dawoud Bey—well known for striking portraits that reflect both the individual and their larger community—offers his insight on creating meaningful and beautiful portraits that capture the subject and speak to something more universal.

Aperture Foundation works with the world’s top photographers to distill their creative approaches to, teachings on, and insights into photography—offering the workshop experience in a book. Our goal is to inspire photographers at all levels who wish to improve their work, as well as readers interested in deepening their understanding of the art of photography. Through images and words, he shares his own creative process and discusses a wide range of issues, from lighting and location to establishing relationships with subjects, and practical strategies for starting a larger portraiture project.

In The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion, curator and critic Antwaun Sargent addresses a radical transformation taking place in fashion and art today.

The featuring of the Black figure and Black runway and cover models in the media and art has been one marker of increasingly inclusive fashion and art communities. More critically, however, the contemporary visual vocabulary around beauty and the body has been reinfused with new vitality and substance thanks to an increase in powerful images authored by an international community of Black photographers.

In a richly illustrated essay, Sargent opens up the conversation around the role of the Black body in the marketplace; the cross-pollination between art, fashion, and culture in constructing an image; and the institutional barriers that have historically been an impediment to Black photographers participating more fully in the fashion (and art) industries.

Fifteen artist portfolios feature the brightest contemporary fashion photographers, including Tyler Mitchell, the first Black photographer hired to shoot a cover story for American Vogue; Campbell Addy, founder of the Nii Agency and journal; and Nadine Ijewere, whose early series title, The Misrepresentation of Representation, says it all. Alongside a series of conversations between generations, their images and stories chart the history of inclusion, and exclusion, in the creation of the commercial Black image, while simultaneously proposing a brilliantly reenvisioned future.

Photographs by Campbell Addy, Arielle Bobb-Willis, Micaiah Carter, Awol Erizku, Nadine Ijewere, Quil Lemons, Namsa Leuba, Renell Medrano, Tyler Mitchell, Jamal Nxedlana, Daniel Obasi, Ruth Ossai, Adrienne Raquel, Dana Scruggs, and Stephen Tayo
And including conversations with Shaniqwa Jarvis, Mickalene Thomas, and Deborah Willis.

“From Beyoncé to Barack Obama, it’s hard to think of a black figure who does not owe their prominence, in some measure, to the ethos of ’Black is Beautiful’” —Ekow Eshun, Financial Times

In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, Kwame Brathwaite used his photography to popularize the political slogan “Black Is Beautiful.” This monograph—the first ever dedicated to Brathwaite’s remarkable career—tells the story of a key, but under-recognized, figure of the second Harlem Renaissance.

Inspired by the writings of activist and black nationalist Marcus Garvey, Brathwaite, along with his older brother, Elombe Brath, founded the African Jazz Arts Society and Studios (AJASS) and the Grandassa Models (1962). AJASS was a collective of artists, playwrights, designers, and dancers; Grandassa Models was a modeling troupe for black women, founded to challenge white beauty standards. From stunning studio portraits of the Grandassa Models to behind-the-scenes images of Harlem’s artistic community, including Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, and Miles Davis, this book offers a long-overdue exploration of Brathwaite’s life and work.

“These feel like images you might have dreamed, both of the kind that slip away and the ones you manage to keep tenuously in your grasp, slippery, otherworldly… Before our eyes, Zanele Muholi transforms into a mother, a domestic worker, an Afrofuturist, an oracle. It’s fiction and it is not.” —Yrsa Daley-Ward, The New York Times Book Review

Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness is the long-awaited monograph from one of the most powerful visual activists of our time. The book features over ninety of Muholi’s evocative self-portraits, each image drafted from material props in Muholi’s immediate environment. A powerfully arresting collection of work, Muholi’s radical statements of identity, race, and resistance are a direct response to contemporary and historical racisms. As Muholi states, "I am producing this photographic document to encourage individuals in my community to be brave enough to occupy spaces—brave enough to create without fear of being vilified… To teach people about our history, to rethink what history is all about, to reclaim it for ourselves—to encourage people to use artistic tools such as cameras as weapons to fight back."

With more than twenty written contributions from curators, poets, and authors, alongside luxurious tritone reproductions of Muholi’s images, Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness is as much a manifesto of resistance as it is an autobiographical, artistic statement.