Esopus 16 Now On Newsstands

May 2, 2011

The latest issue of Esopus is currently shipping to subscribers and will be on newsstands in several weeks. Painstakingly printed with specially formulated inks on eight different paper stocks—and incorporating numerous foldouts and 24 removable inserts—Esopus 16 showcases contemporary artists’ projects, rare archival material, visual essays, writing on film, a fiction debut, and an audio CD compilation.

The issue contains artists’ projects by Kathe Burkhart (a 32-page booklet), Roland Flexner (18 mesmerizing images printed with metallic ink), and Alix Pearlstein (25 photos related to the artist’s performance at Esopus Space in late 2010). Esopus 16 also features never-before-seen mail art sent by the late, legendary artist Ray Johnson to artist/optician Robert Warner; 100 still frames from French director Olivier Assayas’s lauded 1994 film Cold Water [L’eau froide] introduced by filmmaker Stacy Cochran; a new installment of “Modern Artifacts” documenting a historic radio broadcast by President Franklin D. Roosevelt related to the opening of the Museum’s new building in 1939; fascinating found photographs from the collection of artist Scott Daniel Ellison; vivid sticky note drawings by Bob Irey; stirring short fiction by first-time author Katherine J. Lee; and the latest iteration of Angus Trumble’s regular “Year in Retrospect” column, which wryly chronicles the year 1417.

The issue’s CD, featuring music by 13 contemporary composers, was curated by emerging composer/pianist Anthony Cheung, whose illuminating essay about contemporary composition opens the issue. Representing the first foray into contemporary classical music by Esopus, the compilation includes selections from important pieces by a range of groundbreaking composers working over the past 20 years, including Tristan Murail, Unsuk Chin, Augusta Read Thomas, Marcos Balter, Ryoji Ikeda, and Bernhard Lang.