During the early eighties New York’s Lower East Side was a hotbed of fun.
Among those emerging were Madonna, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Grace Jones, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Vincent Gallo. Maripol was part of a collective of artists, graffiti writers, street dancers, and performers who all came out of downtown new york in the eighties. As a stylist for Madonna during the “Like a Virgin” period, jewelry designer, art director for fiorucci, Maripol documented the early eighties scene through the lens of her instant Polaroid SX-70.
Here’s the deal – I love polaroid cameras. Although they were the most ungodly expensive cameras in the world they were instant and that made them cool. The images were also indestructible, people would put them in fish tanks, pour acid on them (see Lucas Samaras) – hell, I’m sure people at Studio 54 did coke off of them.
So yeah, Polaroids were cool.
So cut to the chase – on May 19, 2006 at The SOHO Grand Gallery, a show of Maripol’s enlarged Polaroid Prints will be on display.
There is a book too – contributions by: Anna Sui, and Glenn O’Brien. Try this link to amazon.com
PLEASE HELP ME
I’m looking for back issues of a magazine called “The Manipulator” it was printed during the eighties and its size was something like 22″ x 17″ printed on good quality newsprint (high end newsprint) Can you help? email me at: mlangley@mediastudio.com – thanks