How can photographs provide information at a moment when ideas about truth and power have been disrupted? The curators of the 2020 Aperture Summer Open, Information, seek new bodies of work by photographers and lens-based artists who seek to portray experiences of globalization, technology, and politics, and the dynamic changes to personal and social identity charted by mass media today. Inspired by the Museum of Modern Art's 1970 exhibition Information, in which artists directly engaged with pressing global issues, this year's Summer Open seeks exciting works that broadcast new ways of viewing our present---and our future. As Kynaston McShine, curator of the original Information, famously asked, "What can you as a young artist do that seems relevant and meaningful?"

The Aperture Summer Open is an annual open-submission exhibition presented by Fotografiska New York, featuring a wide variety of work by photographers and lens-based artists from around the world. Selected by a jury of leading editors, curators, and writers, the exhibition seeks to reveal and report on key themes and trends driving contemporary photography. The exhibition opens the doors to photographers of all ages, at all points in their careers, as we seek to promote new ideas and talent.

The 2020 Aperture Summer Open is curated by Brendan Embser, managing editor of Aperture magazine, with Farah Al Qasimi, artist; Amanda Hajjar, director of exhibitions at Fotografiska; Kristen Lubben, executive director of the Magnum Foundation; and Paul Moakley, editor at large for special projects at TIME.

This year, Aperture is excited to announce that the Aperture Summer Open will be exhibited at Fotografiska New York.

What winners receive

Winners of the Summer Open will be exhibited in a group show at Fotografiska New York, opening August 4, 2020*. Winners will also be exposed to Aperture's global online audience, profiled on aperture.org, and featured across Aperture's social media channels.

*Due to the current situation with COVID-19, the Aperture Summer Open exhibition may be moved to the Fall. At this time, both Aperture and Fotografiska New York are closely monitoring the situation. We thank everyone for understanding.

About Aperture

Aperture, a not-for-profit foundation, connects the photo community and its audiences with the most inspiring work, the sharpest ideas, and with each other --- in print, in person, and online. Created in 1952 by photographers and writers as "common ground for the advancement of photography", Aperture today is a multi-platform publisher and center for the photo community. From our base in New York, we produce, publish, and present a program of photography projects, locally and internationally.

About Fotografiska NY

Fotografiska New York is the new destination for photography and culture, located in a treasured landmarked building in NYC’s Flatiron District. The Museum offers an unexpected mix of world-class art, vibrant cultural programming, exceptional dining, music, nightlife and curated retail.

Juror information

Farah Al Qasimi is an artist based in Brooklyn and Dubai, who works in photography, video, and performance. Her recent commission with Public Art Fund, Back and Forth Disco, is on view across New York City through May 17, 2020. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at Jameel Arts Centre and The Third Line, Dubai; San Francisco Arts Commission; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Helena Anrather, New York; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto; and Houston Center for Photography. Al Qasimi received her MFA from the Yale School of Art. She has participated in residencies at the Delfina Foundation, London, and at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, Maine. She is a recipient of the NADA Artadia Award and the Aaron Siskind Foundation's Individual Photographer's Fellowship. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge; and New York University's Grey Art Gallery.

Brendan Embser is managing editor of Aperture magazine. He has also edited many Aperture books, including Ethan James Green: Young New York (2019), Deana Lawson: An Aperture Monograph (2018), Chloe Dewe Mathews's Caspian: The Elements (2018), and Aperture Conversations: 1985 to the Present (2018). Embser has served on the juries of Addis Foto Fest, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Changjiang International Photography and Video Art Biennale, China; PHOTO IS:RAEL; and the Sony World Photography Awards. Formerly director of exhibitions at The Walther Collection, New York, Embser holds a BA in English from Haverford College, Pennsylvania, and an MA in Africana Studies from New York University. He has contributed essays and interviews to Another Africa, Contemporary And, n+1, Objektiv,Aperture Online, and Aperture's The PhotoBook Review. He has been cocurator of the Aperture Summer Open since 2018.

Amanda Hajjar is the inaugural director of exhibitions at Fotografiska New York, a newly opened museum of photography. She is also a juror for the 2020 Capricious Photo Award. Prior to joining Fotografiska, Hajjar worked at Gagosian Gallery, where she organized more than fifty exhibitions. Hajjar has a BA from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

Kristen Lubben is executive director of the Magnum Foundation, a nonprofit focused on documentary photography. She is also a writer, curator, and editor, whose work explores the intersections of photography, art, and politics. Prior to joining the Magnum Foundation in 2016, she was a curator at the International Center of Photography, New York, for seventeen years. She is the author and editor of numerous publications, including Magnum Contact Sheets (2011).

Paul Moakley is an award-winning visuals producer, director, and journalist. He's currently editor at large for special projects at TIME. In his previous role as TIME's deputy director of photography and visual enterprise  (2010--18), he cocreated some of the magazine's most ambitious projects, including the Emmy award-winning Beyond 9/11 multimedia project with HBO, TIME's 100 Most Influential Photos, and The Opioid Diaries. For nearly a decade, he has managed TIME's visual coverage of breaking news, presidential elections, and key franchises, such as TIME's Person of the Year, TIME 100, and the visual storytelling platform LightBox. Previously, he was senior photo editor at Newsweek and photo editor of PDN (Photo District News). Moakley has also worked as an adjunct professor at the School of Visual Arts, New York. He is the caretaker and curator of the Alice Austen House, Staten Island.

aperture.org/summeropen/faqs/