Barbara Ess died yesterday at the age of seventy-three. Ess founded the No Wave magazine Just Another Asshole, featuring New York artists, writers and musicians. It was published as a multi-format periodical, taking the form of a 'zine, a tabloid, a commercial magazine, a paperback book, and an LP.
Contributors to Just Another Asshole included Kathy Acker, Judith Barry, Dara Birnbaum, Eric Bogosian, Glenn Branca, Brian Buczak, Rhys Chatham, Michael Gira, Jack Goldstein, Kim Gordon, Dan Graham, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Carla Liss, Thurston Moore, Cookie Mueller, Peter Nadin, Richard Prince, Lee Ranaldo, Jane Sherry, Kiki Smith, Michael Smith, Wharton Tiers, Martha Wilson, David Wojnarowicz, and countless others.
While it's tempting to imagine a great tombstone that simply read "Just Another Asshole", Ess was also well-known for her life-long dedication to pinhole camera photography, and for teaching at Bard College since 1997.
As a musician she contributed tracks to the Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine, and in 2001 collaborated with filmmaker Peggy Ahwesh on the album Radio Guitar, which Thurston Moore released on his Ecstatic Peace label.
In 2005 she published I Am Not This Body, a book of her pinhole photographs.
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