Out of the Shadows

OUT OF THE SHADOWS

“Marcus Leatherdale’s portraits reflect the iconography we, the sitters, created. On a deeper level, his portraits reflect him. It was a symbiotic relationship. Metaphorically, literally, we were all naked and masked in those days. To understand Marcus, look where he turned his lens.”

Claudia Summers

ISBN: 978-1-78884-034-7

ËxHSLHSIy840347zv;:;:!:!:! £35.00/$50.00

www.accartbooks.com

Marcus Leatherdale: Photographs New York City 1980-1992

Marcus Leatherdale photographed the creative idols of NYC in the 1980s and early 1990s, including Andy Warhol, Madonna, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cookie Mueller, Leigh Bowery, Divine, Debbie Harry and many more.

Marcus Leatherdale: Photographs New York City 1980-1992

OUT OF THE SHADOWS

Marcus and I had known each other casually in San Francisco. We were both part of the insular SF punk scene. We began to eye one another in a new light when we kept running into each other at disco-soul diva Sylvester shows at The Palms on Polk. Punks didn’t do disco.

In the spring of 1978 we separately moved to New York City. It was kismet when Marcus and I ran into one another on Bond and Bowery the day I arrived in New York. We immediately became inseparable. We, along with all the other misfits who had flocked to the city, dreamed big. Bankrupt, the city roiled and boiled, yet there was a dark radiance to its entropy. Flowers continued to pop and bloom amidst all the city’s cracked and grimy disorder.

Marcus and I moved into a loft at 281 Grand Street, a couple of blocks east of the Bowery.

I bought English Ovals at Moisha’s, a door away from Hotel Providence. Skid row bums staggered and flopped into the streets. Wino wine. Wild Irish Rose. Night Train. Thunderbird.

I remember vanquished gazes. Bird’s alive. What’s the price? Thirty twice. I once called 911 for a sick, broken gentleman at the corner of Bowery and Grand. The operator laughed, hung up on me. When I looked north the midtown skyscrapers towered in the distance. In the nearby park I could hear the songs of thousands of sparrows, the fluttery beat of their tiny wings, the heartbeat of the park where dealers hawked red-stamped Poison. Gardens of fat green melons ripened in abandoned lots. Children played games in the park, in the streets, in derelict lots filled with car skeletons, bricks and dogs. Poetry slashed on park benches, on sidewalks, on sides of crumbling brick tenements. Pray etched into every payphone. SAMO©’s enigmatic illuminations graced buildings. Transvestites. Hookers. No Wave. Assholes. Sex. Deities. Salsa blared from boomboxes; from storefronts noise guitar scratched the moon and sun. Purple morning glories bloomed in our side windows during the dog days of August.

Steam billowed through our kitchen window from the Chinese sweatshop, along with the harsh song of Cantonese, the whir of sewing machines.

OUT OF THE SHADOWS

Marcus and I had known each other casually in San Francisco. We were both part of the insular SF punk scene. We began to eye one another in a new light when we kept running into each other at disco-soul diva Sylvester shows at The Palms on Polk. Punks didn’t do disco.

In the spring of 1978 we separately moved to New York City. It was kismet when Marcus and I ran into one another on Bond and Bowery the day I arrived in New York. We immediately became inseparable. We, along with all the other misfits who had flocked to the city, dreamed big. Bankrupt, the city roiled and boiled, yet there was a dark radiance to its entropy. Flowers continued to pop and bloom amidst all the city’s cracked and grimy disorder.

Marcus and I moved into a loft at 281 Grand Street, a couple of blocks east of the Bowery.

I bought English Ovals at Moisha’s, a door away from Hotel Providence. Skid row bums staggered and flopped into the streets. Wino wine. Wild Irish Rose. Night Train. Thunderbird.

I remember vanquished gazes. Bird’s alive. What’s the price? Thirty twice. I once called 911 for a sick, broken gentleman at the corner of Bowery and Grand. The operator laughed, hung up on me. When I looked north the midtown skyscrapers towered in the distance. In the nearby park I could hear the songs of thousands of sparrows, the fluttery beat of their tiny wings, the heartbeat of the park where dealers hawked red-stamped Poison. Gardens of fat green melons ripened in abandoned lots. Children played games in the park, in the streets, in derelict lots filled with car skeletons, bricks and dogs. Poetry slashed on park benches, on sidewalks, on sides of crumbling brick tenements. Pray etched into every payphone. SAMO©’s enigmatic illuminations graced buildings. Transvestites. Hookers. No Wave. Assholes. Sex. Deities. Salsa blared from boomboxes; from storefronts noise guitar scratched the moon and sun. Purple morning glories bloomed in our side windows during the dog days of August.

Steam billowed through our kitchen window from the Chinese sweatshop, along with the harsh song of Cantonese, the whir of sewing machines.

NEW YORK MINUTE… A New York Minute is an instant… or as Johnny Carson once said, “it’s the interval between a Manhattan traffic light turning green and the guy behind you honking his horn”.

NEW YORK MINUTE… flash… heartbeat… instant…

What happens in a New York Minute can last for years… or even decades.

In a flash… one split second, New York’s attention went from ‘Uptown Sophisticates’… Studio 54, Bonds International, Danceteria, Ice Palace 57, ETC. and ‘Downtown Punks’ to PUNK! Downtown had CBGB’s, The Mud Club, Area, The Pyramid… all filled with Black Lipped Beauties… Pink & Green Haired Cuties, and some of the Coolest Kids on Earth.

Marcus Leatherdale arrived from Canada via San Francisco at exactly the right time. Hip & Alarmingly Charming, Marcus managed to straddle two worlds, Uptown & Downtown, first working for Warhol’s Interview magazine and Details magazine, he was an invited guest to many of the most rarified and exclusive parties in town.

Being interesting, interested AND gorgeous didn’t hurt and before long Marcus was more than NY’s celebrity studio chronicler, Marcus was now also their friend… never a paparazzi.

Marcus photographed every important person in town, from World Known celebrities Jodie Foster, Debbie Harry, Warhol, Haring, Madonna, Iman and Divine to downtown denizens like Joey Arias, John Kelly, Lydia Lunch, and Dianne Brill, cryovac’ed into the tightest rubber dress ever seen… and the beat goes on.

After photographing the Crème de la Crème of the World, Marcus turned his camera to his extraordinarily beautiful and complex still lives, exploring hope, life/death, struggle/conquest and eminent loss.

After many years of systemic blight and re-population by beatniks, hippies, junkies, thieves, and squatters, the East Village was finally being repopulated by artists… soon followed by galleries, then collectors and the inevitable tourists.

Now was the time to accommodate them with additional services.

I convinced a friend from Paris to let me open a restaurant for her, EVELYNE’S, which the NY Times referred to as “The favorite watering hole of the eccentric Limousine set”, where we entertained virtually every Movie Star and Fashion Designer in town, many of the same people Marcus was photographing.

While we were still building EVELYNE’S, I was laying a garden patio and before putting up the fence, befriended a neighbor, Zette, who invited me to come and see a photo of him by a young photographer, Marcus Leatherdale.

I arrived to find many wonderful images of downtown figures, including my new friend, Zette, as St. Sebastian, an enigmatic figure AND my favorite Debussy opera… “archers, send me your arrows… the deeper the wound, the deeper your love”.

Without hesitation, I bought it… the first photograph Marcus had sold… in his first NY gallery exhibition.

Needless to say, we became friends, and I became one of his biggest collectors.

Restaurant life is HELL, so after a few years I was burned out and decided to get back into the art business. I opened Bridgewater Fine Arts, in the East Village, which eventually became Bridgewater/Lustberg in SoHo. My partner, Jamie Lustberg, loved Marcus and his work as much as I did and we gave him a show every year, as he developed his Indian series and numerous other photographic explorations.

St Sebastian – Zette 1985

VIVA MARCUS! Paul Bridgewater

NEW YORK MINUTE… A New York Minute is an instant… or as Johnny Carson once said, “it’s the interval between a Manhattan traffic light turning green and the guy behind you honking his horn”.

NEW YORK MINUTE… flash… heartbeat… instant…

What happens in a New York Minute can last for years… or even decades.

In a flash… one split second, New York’s attention went from ‘Uptown Sophisticates’… Studio 54, Bonds International, Danceteria, Ice Palace 57, ETC. and ‘Downtown Punks’ to PUNK! Downtown had CBGB’s, The Mud Club, Area, The Pyramid… all filled with Black Lipped Beauties… Pink & Green Haired Cuties, and some of the Coolest Kids on Earth.

Marcus Leatherdale arrived from Canada via San Francisco at exactly the right time. Hip & Alarmingly Charming, Marcus managed to straddle two worlds, Uptown & Downtown, first working for Warhol’s Interview magazine and Details magazine, he was an invited guest to many of the most rarified and exclusive parties in town.

Being interesting, interested AND gorgeous didn’t hurt and before long Marcus was more than NY’s celebrity studio chronicler, Marcus was now also their friend… never a paparazzi.

Marcus photographed every important person in town, from World Known celebrities Jodie Foster, Debbie Harry, Warhol, Haring, Madonna, Iman and Divine to downtown denizens like Joey Arias, John Kelly, Lydia Lunch, and Dianne Brill, cryovac’ed into the tightest rubber dress ever seen… and the beat goes on.

After photographing the Crème de la Crème of the World, Marcus turned his camera to his extraordinarily beautiful and complex still lives, exploring hope, life/death, struggle/conquest and eminent loss.

After many years of systemic blight and re-population by beatniks, hippies, junkies, thieves, and squatters, the East Village was finally being repopulated by artists… soon followed by galleries, then collectors and the inevitable tourists.

Now was the time to accommodate them with additional services.

I convinced a friend from Paris to let me open a restaurant for her, EVELYNE’S, which the NY Times referred to as “The favorite watering hole of the eccentric Limousine set”, where we entertained virtually every Movie Star and Fashion Designer in town, many of the same people Marcus was photographing.

While we were still building EVELYNE’S, I was laying a garden patio and before putting up the fence, befriended a neighbor, Zette, who invited me to come and see a photo of him by a young photographer, Marcus Leatherdale.

I arrived to find many wonderful images of downtown figures, including my new friend, Zette, as St. Sebastian, an enigmatic figure AND my favorite Debussy opera… “archers, send me your arrows… the deeper the wound, the deeper your love”.

Without hesitation, I bought it… the first photograph Marcus had sold… in his first NY gallery exhibition.

Needless to say, we became friends, and I became one of his biggest collectors.

Restaurant life is HELL, so after a few years I was burned out and decided to get back into the art business. I opened Bridgewater Fine Arts, in the East Village, which eventually became Bridgewater/Lustberg in SoHo. My partner, Jamie Lustberg, loved Marcus and his work as much as I did and we gave him a show every year, as he developed his Indian series and numerous other photographic explorations.

St Sebastian – Zette 1985

VIVA MARCUS! Paul Bridgewater

Homage to Schiele – Self-portrait 1982

Homage to Schiele – Self-portrait 1982

Alice Heimelstein 1981

Alice Heimelstein 1981

Lypsinka – John Epperson – Hidden Identities 1989

Lypsinka – John Epperson – Hidden Identities 1989

Icarus – Alberto 1988

Icarus – Alberto 1988

Madonna 1983

Madonna 1983

Dolph Lundgren – Hidden Identities 1984

Dolph Lundgren – Hidden Identities 1984

Queen for a Day – Azy Schecter’s Birthday 1983

Queen for a Day – Azy Schecter’s Birthday 1983

Tina Chow – Issey Miyake 1983

Tina Chow – Issey Miyake 1983

Claudia Summers – Issey Miyake 1983

Claudia Summers – Issey Miyake 1983

Foot, Mouth, Harlequin 1990

Foot, Mouth, Harlequin 1990

Pin Head – Scott Covert – Hidden Identities 1984

Pin Head – Scott Covert – Hidden Identities 1984

OUT OF THE SHADOWS

“Marcus Leatherdale’s portraits reflect the iconography we, the sitters, created. On a deeper level, his portraits reflect him. It was a symbiotic relationship. Metaphorically, literally, we were all naked and masked in those days. To understand Marcus, look where he turned his lens.”

Claudia Summers

ISBN: 978-1-78884-034-7

ËxHSLHSIy840347zv;:;:!:!:! £35.00/$50.00

www.accartbooks.com

Marcus Leatherdale: Photographs New York City 1980-1992

Marcus Leatherdale photographed the creative idols of NYC in the 1980s and early 1990s, including Andy Warhol, Madonna, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cookie Mueller, Leigh Bowery, Divine, Debbie Harry and many more.

Marcus Leatherdale: Photographs New York City 1980-1992