Tod Lippy

Tod Lippy is the creator of the award-winning nonprofit arts publication Esopus (2003–2018) and executive director of The Esopus Foundation Ltd.; the editor and cofounder of Scenario: The Magazine of Screenwriting Art (1994–97); and the founder, designer, and coeditor of publicsfear magazine (1992–94). His 2000 book, Projections 11: New York Film-Makers on Film-Making, was published by Faber & Faber, and his 1999 short film, Cookies, was selected for competition in more than 20 film festivals in the U.S. and abroad. Tod’s multifaceted practice as an artist, curator, designer, and editor is featured most prominently in the 25 issues of Esopus, which The New York Times’s David Carr declared “a thing of lavish, eccentric beauty, less flipped through than stared at” in 2004. His work for Esopus has been featured in exhibitions at venues including the Walker Art Center, Rome’s Contemporary Art Museum, and the Casino Luxembourg, and Esopus has been the subject of dedicated exhibitions at de Appel Art Center in Amsterdam (2016) and the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas (2017). From 1998 to 2002, he was an adjunct faculty member at the School of Visual Arts M.F.A. Design program; he has since lectured at many educational and cultural institutions, including the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Nasher Sculpture Center, MTV Networks, the American Library Association, and the AIGA. From 2009 to 2012, he served as curator and director of Esopus Space, an alternative exhibition and performance venue in New York City, where he mounted 18 exhibitions and staged 30 events. Tod also curated the exhibitions “Mark Hogancamp” (2006) and “Don Bachardy: One-Day Stands” (2008; jointly organized with Matthew Higgs) at White Columns in New York City; and “Mark Hogancamp: Women of Marwencol” (2014; co-curated with Janet Hicks) and “Golden Years: Photographs by Ed Rosenbaum” (2016) at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. During his August 2018 MacDowell Fellowship, Tod completed a series of drawings related to Esopus that were published that fall as a book, Esopus Drawings, which was selected as one of the best art books of 2018 by ARTNews. His first album, Here We Are, was released on October 29, 2019; its lead single, “Good Start,” was selected by KCRW as the influential station’s “Today’s Top Tune” for September 2, 2019. He is currently finishing a second album, Yearbook, and recently edited and designed Modern Artifacts, a book created with the Museum of Modern Art Archives and published by Esopus Books in June 2020.