Where Travel Meets Transformation
Explore the Magnum Square Print Sale in partnership with Aperture, a photography project at the intersection of transformation and passage.
A RECURRING THEME FOR THIS MAGAZINE is that travel can be transformative. By journeying from one place to another, we change how we see the world, what we think we know, and ultimately who we are. This fall, the photographers’ collective Magnum Photos, in collaboration with not-for-profit publisher Aperture, is exploring the concept of passage for the Square Print Sale and an exhibition hosted by Airbnb Magazine at Aperture Gallery, which runs from October 29 until November 2. “The theme embraces the points where we cross from one side to another — a river, an ocean, a border,” says Chris Boot, executive director of Aperture. Boundaries traversed may even be transitions of time, perception, or identity. “The images spark personal epiphanies, connections, and transformations,” says Anne Bourgeois-Vignon, global digital director of Magnum Photos. The interpretations may differ, but each one invites us to open our eyes to discovery and change.
The photos below are selections from Crossings. [Shop the sale here.]
Larry Sultan
Meander, Corte Madera, from the series Homeland, 2006
Copyright Estate of Larry Sultan, Courtesy Casemore Kirkeby, SF, and Estate of Larry Sultan.
“I hire day laborers to be actors in my landscape photographs. I drive to lumberyards and big-box hardware stores where, every day, men wait nearby to be picked up for hourly work. They gather on the edge of a vacant lot or the grassy verge at the freeway entrance — marginal, transitional zones invisible to most of us. I direct these men’s actions while drawing from my childhood wanderings as well as interpretations of their experiences as exiles. The resulting dramas are small and mundane; they are rituals related to place and domesticity, but they allude to the poignancy of displacement and the longing for home.”
Tyler Mitchell
Untitled (Twins), Brooklyn, 2016
“I set out with a fictional image in my head of black men having a full and free range of expression. It started with adorning twins Torey and Khorey in pearls, fabrics, and natural light to create a world where documentary and fantasy intersect.”
Todd Hido
Untitled, #11669–1778, Denver, 2016
“I’ve lived in California about 20 years, and over time I’ve realized how important it is to get out of the sun and into the snow. Denver’s got plenty; it also has a grittiness that I love. I am bringing together exact opposites on the color wheel: red and green, warm and cool. It’s curious how those basics of color theory are at work here, making opposites attractive together.”
Nico Krijno
Mignonne from Above, 2013
“My wife and I were visiting a friend who has a mansion in the country. While the party was happening outside, we snuck away and made this picture inside. (As Mignonne finished putting her clothes on, someone walked in to offer us wine.) I’m fascinated by the tension I sense beneath the surface of things. I’m playing with harmony and chaos.”
Carolyn Drake
Untitled, Great Salt Lake, Utah, 2016
“I made this picture in 2016, on the north arm of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. This part of the lake stopped receiving fresh water over 50 years ago, when the Southern Pacific Railroad built a causeway that split it in two and made the upper half incredibly saline, a haven for a red-algae called Dunaliella salina. A couple of months after I was there, a bridge was constructed that allowed the water in the upper portion of the lake to start mixing with the fresher water in the lower lake, where another species of algae tints the water green. It is a picture of man in nature that feels strikingly unnatural; the natural order is askew. Humans will force the two species of algae to meet, coexist, fight for dominance, evolve, die off.”
Cristina De Middel
Itakiti, from the series This Is What Hatred Did, 2014
“My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954), by Amos Tutuola, is about the nightmare of a child who is lost in a jungle full of ghosts and spirits; it is also a critique of the reality of Nigeria back in the ’50s, when it was written. We are told of a place that should never exist, where someone is where one should never be. This boy is trapped for 30 years surrounded by monsters and only manages to escape by vanishing and crossing back into the world from where he came. How do you make a picture of someone vanishing? I tried with smoke and fire, but the best result was from sparkles, combined with the limitations of the camera. One of the most important aspects of photography, for me, is its imperfection and how this opens the gate to creating images that our vision could never generate.”
Ethan James Green
Three Boys in Maheshwar, India, 2018
“These three guys reminded me of myself when I was younger, all serious about clothes and hair. I found it interesting the way they threw their arms around each other, in a place where male friendships seem to be expressed more intimately than they are in the U.S. They have smartphones in their hands, too. Boys of the same age all over the world will understand exactly what’s going on and relate to it.”
Yann Gross
Tatiana and Belene, from the series Venus & Furs, 2011
“I’ve always had a penchant for subverting clichés and setting figures incongruously in a landscape rendered hackneyed by centuries of convention.”
Abelardo Morell
Eclipses on Wood, Newton, Massachusetts, August 21, 2017
Courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery Center.
“This picture, which I made during the 2017 solar eclipse, uses the most rudimentary form of optics: A small hole letting light into a dark interior will yield images of things happening outside. What is projected through these openings onto wood is the eclipse, and there are as many eclipses as holes. As early as 300 B.C., Aristotle wrote about this phenomenon: ‘Why is it that during eclipses of the sun, if one views them through a sieve or a leaf — for example, that of a plane-tree — or through the two hands with the fingers interlaced, the rays are crescent shaped in the direction of the earth?’”
Kwame Brathwaite
Untitled (Sikolo with Carolee Prince Designs), 1968
Courtesy of Philip Martin Gallery.
“Sikolo Brathwaite is my wife and muse. The headpiece was designed by Carolee Prince, whose exquisite South African–inspired beadwork was also worn by Nina Simone. This picture is part of the Black Is Beautiful narrative — an embrace of African ancestry.”
Jonas Bendiksen
People Waiting for the Morning Bus in the Freezing Siberian Winter, Birobidzhan, Russia, 1999
“I made this image during my nine-month stay in the small town of Birobidzhan in the late ’90s. This was the first real story I ever tried telling with photographs. Day after day I wandered around looking for the small, magical moments of everyday life. I still look at this picture, 20 years later, and wonder where these three people were going. Where did they work? What did he carry in his bag printed with champagne glasses?”
Christopher Anderson
Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, 2018
“I crossed the Sahara Desert on a dump truck with migrants. I tried to cross the Caribbean with 44 Haitians who were trying to make it to America. (We sank.) I have crossed my fingers and I have crossed lines, but my favorite crossing remains the threshold of my home. This image was made while crossing through Charles de Gaulle, returning from somewhere…I can’t remember.”
Lúa Ribeira
Dinah Dancing at Home, London, 2015
“This image is part of Noises in the Blood (2015–17), a series that explores Jamaican dancehall culture in the United Kingdom by focusing particularly on the integral role played by women. I became interested in finding new ways to represent the dances and the transformations of appearance undertaken by women during the bashment celebrations. Often presented by the mainstream media as merely a sexualized trend, instead I discovered a ritual influenced by Caribbean and African diasporic performance. Dinah is a young performer currently studying in London to become a professional dancer. Her passion is dancehall, and she is a recognized dancehall queen in the British scene. With heritage from Jamaica, India, and the U.K., Dinah has formed a characteristic style by mixing influences from yoga positions, dancehall movements, and contortionism. I visited her home in London many times, where we would organize simple photo shoots.”
Martin Parr
Ferry Between Helsinki and Stockholm, 1991
“In the early ’80s, I was teaching in Helsinki and would often go to Stockholm for the weekend on the ferry. This would involve buying cheap alcohol and consuming it en route. The Finnish love a sauna, and this guy is popping out to catch the cool.”
This portfolio draws from Crossings, the Magnum Square Print Sale in partnership with Aperture Foundation, in which signed or estate-stamped 6-by-6-inch prints by leading photographic artists are offered at $100 during the dates October 29 to November 2, 2018.
For the complete artists’ statements, go to shop.magnumphotos.com.
