Barbara Ess (born Barbara Eileen Schwartz; April 4, 1944 – March 4, 2021) was an American photographer. She often used a

pinhole camera A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens but with a tiny aperture (the so-called '' pinhole'')—effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through the aperture and projects an inverted image ...

and was known for her No Wave musical and editorial work.

Education

Ess earned a B.A. at the University of Michigan and attended the London School of Film Technique.

Photography

Barbara Ess was known primarily for her large-scale ambient and shadowy photographs that were often made with a

. They usually were printed with just one earthy color, such as amber]or muted blue-black. They are shown internationally in solo and group exhibitions and reviewed extensively. Her images are intentionally left vague and unresolved. As such, they initiate a range of emotions from dream anxiety and helplessness, to being captivated by a fantasy and the romantic aesthetic quality of her old-fashioned pinhole method. Her pictures hark back to the nineteenth-century approach to fine-art photography known as

Pictorialism Pictorialism is an international style and aesthetic movement that dominated photography during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. There is no standard definition of the term, but in general it refers to a style in which the photographer ha ...

and to the well-known amateur photographer

Julia Margaret Cameron Julia Margaret Cameron (''née'' Pattle; 11 June 1815 – 26 January 1879) was a British photographer who is considered one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is known for her Soft focus, soft-focus close-ups of famous ...

. The Pictorialists and Cameron often included nature, women, and children as subject matter, creating

tableau vivant A (; often shortened to ; plural: ), French for "living picture", is a static scene containing one or more actors or models. They are stationary and silent, usually in costume, carefully posed, with props and/or scenery, and may be theatrica ...

imagery that evoked moody, open-ended narratives. Of her intent as a photographer, Ess said "In a way I try to photograph what cannot be photographed." She received grants from LINE, Creative Artists Public Service Program, and Kitchen Media, and fellowships from Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation and the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

(photography). She taught photography at Bard College since 1997.

Music

Ess performed and recorded

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad music genre, genre of Punk Music, punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde s ...

music with bands starting in 1978, including The Static, Disband,

Y Pants Y Pants were an American all-female no wave band from New York City active from 1979 to 1982. The trio, made up of photographer/musician Barbara Ess, visual artist Virginia Piersol (aka Virge Piersol), and filmmaker Gail Vachon, developed a uni ...

and Ultra Vulva. She often performed at art galleries, at the

Mudd Club The Mudd Club was a nightclub located at 77 White Street in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It operated from 1978 to 1983 as a venue for underground music and counterculture events. It was opened by Steve Maas, Die ...

and at Tier 3. Ess remained musically active throughout the 1980s, contributing tracks to ''

Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine Launched from the Lower East Side, Manhattan in 1983 as a subscription only bimonthly publication, the ''Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine'' utilized the audio cassette medium to distribute no wave downtown music and audio art and was in activity f ...

'' and collaborating with

Peggy Ahwesh Peggy Ahwesh (born 1954 in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania) is an American experimental filmmaker and video artist. She received her B.F.A. at Antioch College. A bricoleur who has created both narrative works and documentaries, some projects are scrip ...

on 2001's ''Radio Guitar'' for the

Ecstatic Peace! Ecstatic Peace! is a record label based in Easthampton, Massachusetts, founded in 1981 by American musician Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. The label name is borrowed from a line in Tom Wolfe's 1968 nonfiction novel '' The Electric Kool-Aid Aci ...

label.

Editorial work: Just Another Asshole

Just Another Asshole Just Another Asshole was a no wave mixed media publication project launched from the Lower East Side of Manhattan from 1978 to 1987. Barbara Ess organized and edited seven issues of Just Another Asshole, which formed thanks to an open, collaborativ ...

was a no wave mixed media publication project launched from the Lower East Side of Manhattan from 1978 to 1987. Barbara Ess organized and edited seven issues of Just Another Asshole, which formed thanks to an open, collaborative submission process. Issues 3 and 4 were co-edited by Jane Sherry and issues 5 through 7 were co-edited by

Glenn Branca Glenn may refer to: Name or surname * Glenn (name) * John Glenn, U.S. astronaut Cultivars * Glenn (mango) * a 6-row barley variety Places In the United States: * Glenn, California * Glenn County, California * Glenn, Georgia, a settleme ...

. Issue formats include: zine, LP record, large format tabloid, magazine, exhibition catalog, and paperback book.

Collections

Ess' work is in the collections of the

Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's o ...

, the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

, and the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and wa ...

, among others.

Bibliography

* ''I Am Not This Body: The Pinhole Photographs of Barbara Ess'' by Guy Armstrong,

Michael Cunningham Michael Cunningham (born November 6, 1952) is an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for his 1998 novel '' The Hours'', which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. Cunningham is a senior lectur ...

Thurston Moore Thurston Joseph Moore (born July 25, 1958) is an American musician best known as a member of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label. Mo ...

and Barbara Ess (June 15, 2005)

Footnotes

References

*Andrea Karnes, "Barbara Ess," Camera Austria 27 (October 1988): 17 *

Carlo McCormick Carlo McCormick is an American culture critic and curator living in New York City. He is the author of numerous books, monographs and catalogues on contemporary art and artists. Pedagogic and art writing activities McCormick was Senior Edito ...

, "The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984", Princeton University Press, 2006

External links

* *

Barbara Ess (with Barbara Barg) - You Who Know No Pain (7:07) track on

#1 {{DEFAULTSORT:Ess, Barbara 1948 births 2021 deaths 20th-century American photographers 20th-century American women artists 20th-century American musicians 20th-century American women musicians 21st-century American photographers 21st-century American women artists American women photographers Postmodern artists Photographers from New York City Musicians from Brooklyn American experimental musicians American noise musicians Feminist musicians University of Michigan alumni Artists from Brooklyn National Endowment for the Arts Fellows Bard College faculty American post-punk musicians American women academics Women in punk