The Downtown Manhattan Clic Gallery will be showing photographs by Maripol from May 17th to June 19th. Quoting from the press release: Maripol moved to New York from France in 1976, where she became a part of the New York clubbing and music scene, styling Madonna and working on films such as Downtown 81 (starring Jean-Michel Basquiat and Deborah Harry). In the mid-1980s, she opened her own boutique, Maripolitan, in the NoHo area of New York. Maripol has also been art director on music videos for Cher, D'Angelo and Elton John, among others. In 1978, before they started on the film, Maropol was art director of Fiorucci’s. That trendy emporium had given Kenny Scharf his first show of paintings, and there is a hilarious story of the young Basquiat traveling up to the store by subway with a still wet painting, and getting thrown out before his appointment. Different versions have been told by ex-girlfriend Julie Wilson (in Hoban’s biography), John Sex, and Keith Haring, and the typically amusing story is related on page 45-46 of my book (John-Michel Basquiat: A Biography). Mariol was an early collector of Basquiat’s work, and it was in her loft that poet and art critic Rene Ricard saw the artist’s Enola Gay, which turned him onto the artist and led to the 1982 Artforum article “The Radiant Child” which launched Basquiat’s quick rise to fame in the official art world.
Maripol will sign copies of her 2010 book Little Red Riding Hood, and her earlier Maripolarama (featuring Polaroid’s and other photos of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry, Madonna, Grace Jones, and other celebrities, pseudo-celebrities, and unknowns who made up the early 80s downtown club culture) at the opening, Wednesday, May 18 from 6-8pm at Clic Gallery, 424 Broome Street. |