Barbara Ess (1948–2021)
To The Bard College Community:
It is with deep regret that I inform the Bard College community of the death of our esteemed colleague Barbara Ess. Barbara died of cancer. With the help of her two sisters, who were with her when she died, Barbara mounted a brief, but valiant struggle against the rapid progress of the disease. She was 73 years old.
Barbara Ess joined the faculty at Bard in photography in the spring of 1997 and taught continuously for the last 24 years. She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan and pursued her postgraduate studies at the London School of Film Technique. Barbara was famous for the use of the pinhole camera and for her playful approach to both abstraction and realism. As many observers have noted, there was something fabulous, fantastic, and romantic about her imagery and her work’s indeterminate stories. Few individuals have so memorably created a body of work and a distinctive personality.
Barbara Ess had a career not only in photography, but also in music. She was a member of three bands - Y Pants, Static, and Disband. Her book I am not this Body was published by Aperture in 2001. Barbara also collaborated with her colleague from the Film Program, Peggy Ahwesh, and for nearly a decade, Barbara was a key editor at Just Another Asshole - a mixed media publication.
Barbara Ess left an indelible mark on the Photography Program and the arts at Bard. She will be greatly missed. On behalf of the entire Bard community, I wish to extend our deepest condolences to her sisters Janet Schwartz and Ellen Schwartz.
Leon Botstein
President
Remembrances
In MemoriumArtforum
March 4, 2021
Barbara Ess (1948-2021)
Barbara Ess, a boundary-pushing photographer, musician, and writer, and the creator of the No Wave experimental media zine Just Another Asshole, died today at the age of seventy-three. Ess was most widely known for her large-scale photographs made using a pinhole camera, a rarity in the art world but a device she used to great effect, producing blurred, haunting images that evoked variously dreamy anxiety, shattered romanticism, and the stuttering disquiet of the late twentieth century. READ MORE
Post Date: 03-04-2021