Aperture Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of the Aperture Digital Archive, a fully searchable online resource containing every issue of Aperture magazine since its founding in 1952. Now, for the first time, users will be able to access all 220 issues of the magazine from their desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile device.
The creation of the Aperture Digital Archive preserves one of the most historically important publications in photography, and brings it to a wider audience. “Aperture is a document of great artistic, cultural, and scholarly value,” says Dana Triwush, the magazine’s publisher, “and the archive is designed as a dynamic, interactive tool in keeping with the high standard of content and image quality for which the magazine is known.”
To bring this trove of photography to life, Aperture Foundation partnered with Bondi, a New York-based technology and creative services company whose platform powers the online archives of many top magazines. The Bondi platform presents every back issue as a full digital replica—preserving the magazine’s award-winning design—with every article and image indexed individually. Aperture worked with Bondi to add additional metadata, so that users can now search more than 15,000 images by photographer, genre, keyword, and more.
“This archive fits perfectly with the mission of the foundation, and we hope it not only becomes an inspiring resource, but also a valuable educational and creative tool for artists, writers, historians, scholars, photographers, and enthusiasts worldwide,” says Triwush. The foundation has partnered with JSTOR and ProQuest to bring the Aperture Digital Archive to college and university campuses around the world.
Select Aperture Digital Archive highlights:
–Discover favorite images and the personal stories of more than 3,000 photographers, including Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Chuck Close, Josef Koudelka, Robert Mapplethorpe, Mary Ellen Mark, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Joel Meyerowitz, Richard Misrach, Daido Moriyama, Zanele Muholi, Sebastião Salgado, Cindy Sherman, Stephen Shore, Alfred Stieglitz, Garry Winogrand, and so many more
–Experience groundbreaking issues such as “Edward Weston: Flame of Recognition,” “French Primitive Photography,” “Black Sun: The Eyes of Four,” and “Queer”
–Read the most authoritative voices on the medium through the decades, including Robert Adams, Peter C. Bunnell, Nancy Newhall, Tod Papageorge, Fred Ritchin, John Szarkowski, and Minor White, among others
–Explore the writing of critics whose perspectives provide a whole new vision of photography as a whole, including Charles Bowden, Geoff Dyer, Neil LaBute, Janet Malcolm, Greil Marcus, and Francine Prose
–1953, vol. 2, no. 2: First publication of Paul Strand‘s “Letters from France and Italy” correspondence and selected images
–1961, vol. 9, no. 2: Selections of photographs by Robert Frank, including work from The Americans and Pull My Daisy
–1975, vol. 19, no. 4: Helen Levitt‘s New York City street photography is the first four-color portfolio to be published in Aperture
–1984, issue 96: Previously unpublished work from William Eggleston forms the basis for an entire issue devoted to color photography, which also includes portfolios from William Christenberry, Lucas Samaras, and Joel Sternfeld
–1986, issue 103: The “Fiction and Metaphor” issue features a Nan Goldin interview by Mark Holborn about The Ballad of Sexual Dependency slide show, presented at the Whitney Biennial in 1985, and “Cindy Sherman‘s Tales of Terror,” an interview by Larry Frascella
–1990, issue 121: “The Body in Question” explores sexual representation and censorship at a time when political conservatives are pushing for censorship of the arts. Featured artists include Sally Mann, Robert Mapplethorpe, and David Wojnarowicz
–2011, issue 203: Richard Mosse‘s Congo work is featured in the magazine and on the cover; this same series is later published in a best-selling Aperture book. Mosse goes on to show at the Venice Biennale in 2012, and wins the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2014
–2015, issue 220: “The Interview Issue” features in-depth conversations with nine influential photographers—each of an older generation, and who continue to produce and publish—about their lifelong engagement with photography: William Klein, Boris Mikhailov, Guido Guidi, Rosalind Fox Solomon, Bertien van Manen, Bruce Davidson, David Goldblatt, Ishiuchi Miyako, and Paolo Gasparini
For full access, subscribe to the Aperture Digital Archive
9.99 USD/month, 59.95 USD/year
Includes every issue of Aperture ever published, for desktop, laptop, and tablet.