This event is free for students with ID and Members of Aperture at the $50 level and above.

Aperture Foundation, in collaboration with the Photography Program at Parsons the New School for Design, is pleased to present a talk with artist Sandy Kim. A self-identified “spark plug,” Kim authors images as provocative as they are insightful. Her subjects are her friends, and they revel in the casual pleasures of youthful antagonism. One image, in which two dirt-covered twenty-somethings smoke cigarettes, portrays outright youthful cynicism, in which health and hygiene are cast aside. Another image, in which a blue beam of light erupts from a woman’s head, playfully affects a sense of magical realism. For all the impatience and abuses depicted in Kim’s photographs, the radiant glow of humor, creativity, and possibility shines through.

Sandy Kim holds a BFA in graphic design from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. Immersed in San Francisco’s vibrant music scene, Kim gained international exposure for her intimate portraits of the band Girls. Her work has since been featured in publications such as Purple Fashion, FADER, New Yorker, New York Times, Vogue Italia, Pitchfork, Nylon, Guardian, Elle,Wired, and Rolling Stone, among many others. She lives in New York.

Image: Sandy Kim