The Downtown Luminaries
Robert Carrithers
Pogo Books
Hardcover
120 pages
170 x 240 mm
2018
ISBN 9783942547611
There was a creative laboratory called Club 57 on 57 St. Marks Place near where I had lived. Creative people who came to New York at the same time I did and lived in the East Village was drawn to this place like a magnet. Every night we created something different from a one-night art show to film screenings to music happenings to wild theme parties. Keith Haring had his first art show there, where he painted on the walls for one night and the next day it was painted over for the next nights happening. We did not compete with each other; we inspired and helped each other. I recognised at the time there were very special personalities there. I started to organise to photograph them and interview 57 of them. I wanted to make a book about this called “57 Varieties”. I actually did complete the book. I put together a prototype of it with colour Xerox photos and then typed out interviews. I had to sublet my 10th street flat for a year to go away to Berlin and I left it with a friend who I trusted. I came back a year later and had found out he lost it. I was destroyed by this and just gave up on the idea, but now more than thirty years later in 2018 we now have the reality of this book, plus an exhibition at the New York Museum of Modern Art about Club 57 and its influence on culture.
About the Artist
Robert Carrithers is a photographer, film director and producer. He also works as a cameraman, writes and develops scripts and has worked as an actor. He has been deeply involved in underground music, art and club scenes going all the way back to New York in the early 1980s. He was a freelance photographer covering cultural events for various magazines and newspapers in New York, London and Paris. He photographed personalities in the club scene in New York and has had several gallery exhibits. He has lived and worked in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Paris, and Berlin.
robertcarrithers.com
(source: https://www.robertcarrithers.com/about-robert.html)
About the publisher
PogoBooks is an independent publishing company focused on affordable limited edition art books, catalogues, editions and zines in small print runs. We believe in a future printed on paper, and conceive the printed artwork as a unique artform. PogoBooks is a platform, an archive and collective for contemporary arts and photography. The Berlin-based publishing-house was founded by Claudio Pfeifer in 2010.
pogobooks.de
(source: https://www.pogobooks.de/information)
