Tod Lippy

Art books generally depict pieces of art, and art is generally shown in galleries. For his new artist's book, Tod Lippy (born 1963), founder of the nonprofit arts publication ESOPUS, flips the script. Private displays photographs of art galleries that Lippy has taken over the past several years. Crucially, these photographs are not of the art housed in said galleries but of the areas that are marked off-limits to visitors. These areas are indeed private, and the book’s title ripples throughout the 66-page volume to incantatory effect. Without trespassing, Lippy gestures toward the banal, if not insidious, forces behind the artworks on display: commerce and bureaucracy. His cropped photographs strip the galleries of identifying information, coalescing into an expanse of gatekeeping white space. After the procession of images, Ed Park, author of Same Bed, Different Dreams (2023), concludes the volume with a stream-of-consciousness-style afterword.

An LA Times 2020 holiday gift guide pick
A New York Times critics' pick | Best Art Books 2020

Modern Artifacts includes all 18 installments of the series, copresented with Esopus and the Museum of Modern Art Archives, that originally appeared in Esopus, the award-winning nonprofit arts annual that suspended publication in 2018.

Each of these installments focuses on a particular part of the MoMA Archives—subjects include the museum’s first guest book, its “Art Lending Service” program, activities in the museum’s garden, materials from the archives of contemporary artists such as James Lee Byars, Scott Burton and Grace Hartigan, and correspondence, photographs and other ephemera related to exhibitions such as the groundbreaking Spaces show in 1970 devoted to installation art.

The book, which features several removable inserts of archival materials printed in facsimile, also includes brand-new contributions commissioned from six contemporary artists—Mary Ellen Carroll, Rhea Karam, Mary Lum, Clifford Owens, Michael Rakowitz and Paul Ramirez Jonas—who have each created a project in the book inspired by a particular item or series of items in the MoMA Archives.

Esopus Drawings commemorates the 15th anniversary of the arts magazine Esopus. Printed on archival paper, the facsimile sketchbook features 25 drawings by Tod Lippy, the magazine’s founder and editor, that depict Esopus events, artists’ projects, and glimpses of the printing and editorial process.