Maripolarama

“Maripol’s portraits represent an intimate and glamorously blurry love letter…”
— The Village Voice

During the early 80s, New York’s Lower East Side was a hotbed of creative activity. Unknown artists were synthesizing the fertile ground at the legendary New York nightclubs Studio 54 , the Mudd Club , Club 57 , Palladium , and Danceteria while on their way to international fame and acclaim.

Among those emerging were Madonna, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Grace Jones, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Vincent Gallo, Anna Sui, Exene Cervenka, Kid Creole, and Diego Cortez. Maripol was part of a collective of artists, graffiti writers, street dancers, and performers who all thrived together in the explosive downtown eccentricity. As an image maker and stylist for Madonna during her “Like a Virgin” days, jewelry designer, art director, and producer Maripol relentlessly documented the movers and shakers of the early 80s scene through the lens of her instant Polaroid SX-70.

Collected for the first time in Maripolarama , Maripol’s photographs vividly depict the extraordinary personalities that inhabited the “forever” hip, arty Manhattan clubland during the post-punk era when hip hop was in its earliest stages and graffiti covered the landscape. Whether it’s Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry, Basquiat, or Madonna modeling a bright pink wig, Maripolarama provides lively and inspiring insight into a time long gone.