Curiosity: Aperture 211

Between science and art, revisiting photography's role in discovery and experimentation.

This edition of Aperture focuses on "Curiosity." Taking its name from the Mars Rover, which has reminded us that a fundamental purpose of photography is to show us something new, the articles and portfolios ask: what can we learn by revisiting photography's role in discovery, experimentation and exploration?

The issue toggles between past and present, and between science and art, and features Jennifer Tucker on Victorian science photography, spectacle and rational amusement; Kelley Wilder on what it means for photography to make visible the invisible; Brian Dillon on the cosmic and the mundane; a conversation between artist Trevor Paglen and the eminent science historian Peter Galison; a selection from Harold "Doc" Edgerton's lab books; David Campany on photographic abstraction and perception; curator Joel Smith's guide to "photographic nothing"; and portfolios by British photographer Stephen Gill, Amsterdam-based artist Eva-Fiore Kovakovsky, curator Lynne Cooke on Horst Ademeit's mysterious annotated Polaroids and much more.