Renowned Arts Journal ESOPUS Launches Partnership with The New York Public Library

The Library’s Pforzheimer Collection Highlighted in Latest Issue, Public Events Scheduled for Library Branches

MAY 23, 2017  – Critically-acclaimed arts journal ESOPUS kicked off its partnership with The New York Public Library this month with the release of ESOPUS 24, its spring 2017 issue, featuring the inaugural installment of “Public Access,” a regular feature highlighting items from the Library’s esteemed research collections.

The first “Public Access” – which aims to make readers feel like they’re venturing into a curatorial division of the Library and exploring its collections – features life-sized images of a “friendship album” from the Library’s Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle, a collection of books, manuscripts, ephemera and more connected to poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, his contemporaries (including his second wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley), and the time period during which he wrote.

ESOPUS 24 launched with an event at the Library on May 9, and a copy of the issue will be available for viewing in all of the Library’s 92 locations, thanks to an anonymous gift from an Esopus Foundation donor.

In addition to the issue itself, the Library is offering programs inspired by the pages of ESOPUS 24 at its branches:

  • On July 12, photographer Clayton Patterson – featured in the issue  – will talk with ESOPUS editor Tod Lippy at Tompkins Square Library in the East Village about his photographs of drag performers at the historic Pyramid Club, formerly located near the branch. An exhibition of the same photographs will open at the branch in October.
  • In August, extraordinary Italian translator Ann Goldstein – also featured in ESOPUS 24 – will host a program at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue, translating from Italian various items from the Library’s research collections.
  • In September, an exhibition curated by artist Marco Maggi will be held at the Jefferson Market Library in the West Village. The show will present ESOPUS readers’ artworks created from materials (adhesive die-cut forms and a blank removable page) included by Maggi in Drawing Set, his artist’s project for ESOPUS 24.  

“The Library is proud to partner with, and be featured in, ESOPUS, a truly unique, exquisite and mission-driven journal that will help us share our collections with new audiences around the world,” said Carrie Welch, the Library’s Chief of External Relations. “To take the creative spirit in its pages and transform it into programs in our branches is an important way to make art accessible to all.”

“We are thrilled to partner with The New York Public Library to produce the ‘Public Access’ series and to expand this collaboration by programming events related to ESOPUS 24 at its branches,” said ESOPUS editor Tod Lippy. “It is a remarkable opportunity for us to reach and engage with the broad and diverse public the Library has served for well over a century. We're particularly excited to provide copies of the issue to each of the Library’s 92 branches, thanks to a generous gift from one of our most dedicated supporters.”

ESOPUS – a New York City based, critically-acclaimed annual journal with subscribers in all 50 states and 27 countries – was founded in 2003 with the goal of providing an unmediated space for a wide variety of creative disciplines; as a result, the journal never includes commercially-driven editorial content or advertisements. Approximately 10 percent of each print run of ESOPUS is donated to underserved communities and school libraries across the United States.

The journal has featured work from a variety of artists, from Ed Ruscha to Neko Case to literary wunderkind and 2015 Library Lion Karl Ove Knausgaard. It already has a regular content partnership with the Museum of Modern Art.

About The New York Public Library

The New York Public Library is a free provider of education and information for the people of New York and beyond. With 92 locations—including research and branch libraries—throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, the Library offers free materials, computer access, classes, exhibitions, programming and more to everyone from toddlers to scholars, and has seen record numbers of attendance and circulation in recent years. The New York Public Library serves more than 18 million patrons who come through its doors annually and millions more around the globe who use its resources at www.nypl.org. To offer this wide array of free programming, The New York Public Library relies on both public and private funding. Learn more about how to support the Library at nypl.org/support. 

About ESOPUS

Called “a thing of lavish, eccentric beauty” by The New York Times, ESOPUS has garnered critical praise and a fervent following for its unfiltered, dynamic presentation of a wide range of creative expression since its founding in 2003. Past issues have featured projects by prominent contemporary artists, including Jenny Holzer, John Baldessari, Marilyn Minter and Kerry James Marshall; themed CDs of brand-new music contributed by the likes of Grizzly Bear, Jens Lekman and Low; and fiction, poetry, filmmaking, playwriting and art from hundreds of emerging and established voices, ranging from Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner to dance choreographer Christopher Wheeldon. The annual publication, which counts subscribers in all 50 states and 27 countries, was founded with the goal of providing an unmediated space for a wide variety of creative disciplines, and as a result never includes commercially driven editorial content or advertisements. Single issues of ESOPUS are offered at a subsidized cover price in order to make the magazine available to a wider audience.

About The Esopus Foundation Ltd.

Founded in 2003, The Esopus Foundation Ltd. is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing an affordable, accessible forum through which artists, writers and musicians can make a direct connection with the general public. In addition to the publication of ESOPUS, the Foundation has also programmed exhibitions, events, and performances with institutions including The Kitchen, the Museum of Modern Art, P.S.1/MoMA, White Columns, Pioneer Works Center for Art and Innovation, and the Museum of the Moving Image. From 2009 to 2012, the Foundation ran Esopus Space, an intimately scaled exhibition and performance venue in Greenwich Village. The Foundation's institutional supporters include the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York Council on the Humanities, the Coby Foundation, VIA Art Fund, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation.