Aperture's “Los Angeles” issue explores how one of America’s most photographed cities is also an essential hub for some of today’s most important photography and photo-based art. Part of an ongoing series of issues that profile the photographic culture of a particular city, “Los Angeles” features key figures in the photography community. Brand-new portfolios highlight Los Angeles’s unique conceptual traditions and, in some cases, consider the city as a studio. Including contributions by Janna Ireland, Carter Mull, Catherine Opie, Guadalupe Rosales, Torbjørn Rødland, Lise Sarfati, and Paul Mpagi Sepuya, “Los Angeles” captures the city’s historic and contemporary photographic vibrancy through enduring visual records of its landscape and communities.

FRONT
Agenda: Exhibitions to See
Laurie Simmons, Shoji Ueda, Gordon Parks, Luigi Ghirri

Backstory
Diana Dufour on Katrien De Blauwer

Redux
Alistair O’Neill on Deborah Turbeville’s Maquillage, 1975

Curriculum
By Susan Meiselas

BACK
Object Lessons
Ed Ruscha’s Production Notebooks, 1973–90

WORDS
Editors’ Note: Los Angeles

City of Images
Contributions by James Welling, Luis C. Garza, Awol Erizku, Dana Goodyear, Geoff Dyer, and Catherine Opie

John Divola & Mark Ruwedel
Traversing the city and the desert
A Conversation with Amanda Maddox

Back in the Days
In shapshots and portraits, an archive of Chicano life
By Carribean Fragoza

Chávez Ravine
Don Normark’s 1949 chronicle of a Mexican American community
By Yxta Maya Murray

Toward Poetic Vision
Robert Heinecken redefines the photograph
By Rebecca Morse

The Genuine in a World of Copies
Revisiting an influential exhibition of Southern California art
By Erin O’Toole

Ilene Segalove’s Modern America
Artifice and reality in Beverly Hills
A Conversation with Charlotte Cotton

PICTURES
Anthony Hernandez
Introduction by Glen Helfand

Lise Sarfati
Introduction by Brian Sholis

Barak Zemer
Introduction by Kate Palmer Albers

Christina Fernandez
Introduction by Yxta Maya Murray

Sophie Tianxin Chen
Introduction by Jennifer Piejko

Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Introduction by Andy Campbell

Carter Mull
Introduction by Jonathan Griffin

Rodrigo Valenzuela
Introduction by Matthew Schum

David Alekhuogie
Introduction by Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi

Janna Ireland
Introduction by Susan Morgan

Mona Kuhn
Introduction by Sara Knelman

Torbjørn Rødland
Introduction by Travis Diehl

Lead funding for the “Los Angeles” issue of Aperture magazine is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. Further generous support is provided in part by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Related items