Steve McCurry Magnum Photos Procession of nuns. Yangon, Myanmar. 1994. “I asked a group of Buddhist nuns if I could follow them as they carried their alms bowls during their rounds through the streets of Yangon, Myanmar. They gather alms and food from local people who donate in order to demonstrate their humility and connection with their Buddhist faith.”
Bruno Barbey, Magnum Photos. Hands, a symbol of good luck, on a wall in Essaouira, Morocco. 1985. This image was on the cover of the National Geographic centenary issue in July 1988, as well as on the cover of Maroc (2003), which included text by Jemia and J-M.G. Le Clézio. “Leaving their mark in every land they conquered, Muslim Arabs surged out of the Middle East into North Africa in the seventh century A.D., crossing the Strait of Gibraltar into the Iberian Peninsula. Known as Moors, they ruled in Spain for almost 800 years–until 1492, when they were ousted by Their Catholic Majesties Ferdinand and Isabella. The Moors left behind a cultural legacy still evident in both Spain and Morocco, where palm prints decorate a wall in the harbor town of Essaouira.” –Thomas J. Abercrombie, “When the Moors Ruled Spain,” National Geographic (July 1988)
Alex Webb Magnum Photos Tijuana, Mexico. 1995. “I’ve long been fascinated by the transience and paradoxes of the U.S.-Mexico border. Between 1975 and 2001, I crossed the border numerous times, photographing this unique region to try to make sense of it. Even though these two countries were culturally worlds apart, it sometimes seemed that the border region was a kind of third country between them – 2,000 miles long and 10 miles wide, a place where two countries meet, sometimes easily, sometimes roughly, and often with a confounding note of surrealism. Looking back, I realize that Crossings (2003), the book I made from this work, reflects the last days of a more porous border between the United States and Mexico, so different from today’s militarized border. In 1995, while walking through the outskirts of Tijuana, I was surprised to find this box of brightly colored shoes, which seemed so out of place on this dusty, isolated embankment.
Paolo Ventura Aperture Behind the Walls #06. 2011. “Traveling musicians passed through the streets of the city where I lived between Christmas and New Year’s Eve when I was a child in the mid ’70s. We ran to the balcony and threw coins to them. I remember one of these musicians had an old black hat with wide flaps. When we gave him coins he used to bow, take off his hat and make a beautiful movement with his arm while winking at my grandmother.” –Paolo Ventura
Alec Soth Magnum Photos Del Rio, Texas, USA. 2011. “A fissured, empty, almost lunar landscape–seen from a bird’s- eye view. The camera hovers over it.’ So begins Sam Shepard’s script for one of my all-time favorite films: Paris, Texas, by Wim Wenders. I thought of this scene often while photographing from the rooftop of an RV in the border town of Del Rio, Texas. I also thought of the opening lines of dialogue in Paris, Texas. ‘Do you know which side of the border you’re on?’ Looking at the otherworldly landscape from above, this question seems more metaphorical than geographic. The border I’m most interested in crossing is the one between ordinarily life and dreams.”
Martin Parr Magnum Photos Ferry between Helsinki and Stockholm. Finland. 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.”
Graciela Iturbide Aperture Pájaros en el poste, carretera a Guanajuato (Birds on the post, highway to Guanajuato). Mexico. 1990. “I was in my car on the highway to Guanajuato, and suddenly I saw this flock of birds. I love birds, for me they represent freedom.” – Graciela Iturbide
Harry Gruyaert Magnum Photos Crossing in the Ginza district. Tokyo, Japan. 1996. “Since my first trip to Tokyo in 1996, I have always been fascinated by Japan; it’s so different from China or Korea. The attitude of the people is distinctive. You have an incredible sense of security: school children take the metro by themselves; you have the feeling you could leave your camera in a restaurant or a phone booth and would still find it there when you came back a few days later. There is also such a sense of discipline, like at this crossing where everybody waits patiently for the light to change before moving forward. Something else about Japan: nobody looks at you. It’s paradise for a photographer, but after a while you wonder if you still exist.”
David Hurn Magnum Photos The Beatles in EMI Recording Studios, later renamed Abbey Road Studios. London, England.1964. “In 1964, I was asked by a friend, who was about to direct the first Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night (Dick Lester), to photograph the film, not for press, but more from a sociological point of view. In 1963, the Beatles had gained unprecedented fame and status. It could be argued that their only next step could either be down, or to individually go in new directions. They were at crossroads in their respective careers, and yet had already transformed the music industry. Sometimes people don’t realize the magnitude of their own achievements; they are clueless to the boundaries they have already crossed to get where they are. My picture shows the four members studying pages of the script for the following days of the film’s shooting. It takes place in the Abbey Road Studio, the scene of so many of their musical triumphs.
Todd Hido Aperture Untitled, #11669-1778. 2016. “This is a relatively recent image published in Intimate Distance (2016). I shot it in Denver, which is one of my go-to stomping grounds. I have lived in California for about 20 years, and over time realized how important it is to get out of the sun and into the snow. Denver has plenty of it. There is also that grittiness that I love. This place reminds me of the apartment buildings that I used to deliver papers to on my BMX bike as a pre-teen. My images address the theme of Crossings in the most basic manner: I bring together exact opposites on the color wheel, red and green, warm and cool. It’s curious how those foundational basics of color theory are at work here; opposites are attractive together.“
Carolyn Drake Magnum Photos Great Salt Lake, Utah. USA. 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 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.”
Robert Capa International Center of Photography/Magnum Photos American soldiers landing on Omaha Beach, D-Day, Normandy, France. June 6, 1944. “The water was cold, and the beach still more than a hundred yards away. The bullets tore holes in the water around me, and I made for the nearest steel obstacle… It was still very early and very gray for good pictures, but the gray water and the gray sky made the little men, dodging under the surrealistic designs of Hitler’s anti-invasion brain trust, very effective.” –Robert Capa, Slightly Out of Focus (1947)

Magnum photos launches square print sale

30 October 2018

A series of $100USD museum-quality prints by some of the world’s leading photographic artists have been made available for purchase as part of Magnum photos' latest square print sale - but you'll need to be quick.

‘Crossings’, the November 2018 square print sale brings together a selection of over 100 images by international artists, to explore perspectives on transition and transformation in photography.

Catherine Opie
Aperture
From Here to There. 2009.
“In 2009, I went on a 10-day journey from the Port of Busan, South Korea, to the Port of Long Beach, California, on a Hanjin container ship. The ship was perhaps the most abstract
space I’ve ever occupied, a mass transportation of goods in the ethereal light of the sea. I kept track of time with my
daily diligence of photographing sunrises and sunsets, waiting and watching from darkness to lightness, then lightness to darkness. This photograph is a sunrise that centers the ship sailing into the horizon. This ever-present horizon can be seen as a transitional space that we move toward and through,
but mathematically, based on the ship’s height, is always 12 miles away until shore is reached.”
– Catherine Opie — Catherine Opie Aperture From Here to There. 2009. “In 2009, I went on a 10-day journey from the Port of Busan, South Korea, to the Port of Long Beach, California, on a Hanjin container ship. The ship was perhaps the most abstract space I’ve ever occupied, a mass transportation of goods in the ethereal light of the sea. I kept track of time with my daily diligence of photographing sunrises and sunsets, waiting and watching from darkness to lightness, then lightness to darkness. This photograph is a sunrise that centers the ship sailing into the horizon. This ever-present horizon can be seen as a transitional space that we move toward and through, but mathematically, based on the ship’s height, is always 12 miles away until shore is reached.” – Catherine Opie

Magnum Photos was founded in Paris in 1947 as an artists’ co-operative by four pioneering photographers, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, David “Chim” Seymour, and George Rodger. The legendary photoagency continues to shape photographic practice today.

Magnum invited a roster of artists published by Aperture to participate in the project alongside Magnum’s own photographers, to visually explore a common theme through both classic and contemporary artistic practices.

Tyler Mitchell
Aperture
Untitled (Twins). Brooklyn, USA. 2016.
“This image was shot in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn. I set out with an image in my head of black masculine freedom emanating from the pictures. And specifically, a fictional image of black
men having a full and free range of expression. This started with adorning these two twins, Torey and Khorey, in pearls, fabrics, and natural light to create a world where documentary and fantasy intersect.”
– Tyler Mitchell — Tyler Mitchell Aperture Untitled (Twins). Brooklyn, USA. 2016. “This image was shot in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn. I set out with an image in my head of black masculine freedom emanating from the pictures. And specifically, a fictional image of black men having a full and free range of expression. This started with adorning these two twins, Torey and Khorey, in pearls, fabrics, and natural light to create a world where documentary and fantasy intersect.” – Tyler Mitchell

The project will create an unprecedented visual dialogue, spanning depictions of physical crossings from one side to another—a road, a river, a border, an ocean—and the personal crossings that manifest in growth, revolt, mutation and self-realisation, the voyages of the mind that have the power to spark change and transformation.

Shared themes emerge across the images, from an examination of contemporary shifts in our understanding of selfhood and identity, to more macroscopic topics such as migration. In this way,‘Crossings’ asks both literal and metaphorical questions about the human ability to move, transform and build connections.

Joel Meyerowitz
Aperture
New York City, 1965.
“A girl on a Vespa on her way to ‘who knows where,’ when the light stopped her at the 72nd street crossing near the Dakota, where John Lennon would one day cross paths with his fate. She takes this moment to finesse a fingernail before she resumes her downtown journey, while I, stopping at the same crossing, but on foot, leap into the street to capture this vision of a dream girl before time takes her on her way.”
– Joel Meyerowitz — Joel Meyerowitz Aperture New York City, 1965. “A girl on a Vespa on her way to ‘who knows where,’ when the light stopped her at the 72nd street crossing near the Dakota, where John Lennon would one day cross paths with his fate. She takes this moment to finesse a fingernail before she resumes her downtown journey, while I, stopping at the same crossing, but on foot, leap into the street to capture this vision of a dream girl before time takes her on her way.” – Joel Meyerowitz

The resulting selection of works is at the crossroads of documentary and conceptual practices.

For five days only, these images will be available as signed, or estate-stamped, 6x6” prints. For the first time this year, the prints will be also exhibited at the Aperture Gallery in New York, in a special exhibition hosted by Airbnb Magazine for the duration of the sale, in a show open to the public from October 27th.

‘Crossings’ Magnum’s Square Print Sale in Partnership with Aperture runs from 9AM EST Monday 29 October until midnight EST Friday 2 November 2018. Signed and estate stamped, museum quality, 6x6” prints from over 100 artists will exceptionally be available for $100, for 5 days only, from shop.magnumphotos.com.

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