Two Elizabeth Peyton covers grace the new issue of Elephant magazine

In his beautifully-written editor’s letter for the new issue of Elephant magazine, Marc Valli laments the lack of soul in the New York art scene. The city remains, he contends, “ the richest art centre in the world,” but it no longer offers the same heady possibilities of the city’s creative apogee in the 1960s and 70s.

“I can’t avoid the feeling that we are at an impasse,” Marc writes, “because the art without the lifestyle, without studios and parties, and the idea of life making art and art making life, without that ebb and flow, the game just doesn’t seem to be worth the bother.” His solution is actually to admit defeat, to “retreat to fondle our dreams, commuters of the imaginary, taking unholy communion alongside Jack and Jackson and Mark and Barney and Willem and Miles and Monk and Bird and Yoko and Andy and Robert and Jasper and Jeff and Jean-Michel and Brice and Bruce and Felix and Patti and Vito and Susan and Don and Brett and Lou and Elizabeth and Nico and Nan and Dash and Dan…and all the other gods and ghosts and heroes and anti-heroes who make the daily adventure of making art still worth one’s while.”

Of course in most magazines this kind of editor’s letter would set an odd tone for an issue devoted to celebrating the New York art scene, but in Elephant it falls on the very final page, and so provides instead a poignant elegy (as Marc himself describes the essay) to what comes before. But what does come before is by any standards a brilliant celebration of the city and its art scene. The highlight is Elizabeth Peyton curating 14 of her new images – inspired by Flaubert and the idea of “hope in the shadows” – and two of the works from this Dark Incandescence series are featured on the dual covers.

Elsewhere there’s a focus on 20 artists who make New York, with designers Astrid Stavro and Pablo Martin’s bold typographic openers spelling out the city’s name connecting things neatly. It’s well worth grabbing copy if you can – heck with two Elizabeth Peyton covers it’s probably worth getting both.