MARIPOL!
Patti Astor
signed, numbered, and embossed by the artist (bottom right)
archival pigment print on museum paper
sheet: 16 × 20 inches (40.6 × 50.8 cm)
frame: 18 1/2 × 22 1/4 × 1 1/4 inches (47 × 56.5 × 3.2 cm)
This work is edition 1 from an edition of 25. 

 

This piece is accompanied by a signed copy of Maripolarama Polaroids by Maripol. 

Signed by maripol on the first page in pink ink "Back to the 80s!".

 

EXHIBITED: 
Los Angeles, Beyond the Streets, Beyond the Streets, May–August 2018
New York, Beyond the Streets, Beyond the Streets, June–August 2019
Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Crossing Lines, December 2019

 

NOTES:
Bathed in soft light with Lower Manhattan behind her, Patti Astor strikes a pose that feels both triumphant and cinematic: an emblem of downtown New York’s wild, rebellious pulse. Shot by Maripol, the artist who defined the look of the era through her Polaroids and photographic prints, this portrait is a love letter to the city and its underground heroines. From the personal collection of Maripol, it offers a rare, firsthand glimpse into that moment in time.

 

A regular at clubs like Mudd Club, Studio 54, the Roxy, and Peppermint Lounge, Astor moved through the same circles as Basquiat, Haring, Fab 5 Freddy, and Maripol - figures she not only partied with but also exhibited at her trailblazing FUN Gallery. Maripol, always camera in hand, captured Astor not as a subject but as a collaborator, alive in the moment.

 

Patti Astor and Maripol were pivotal figures in the downtown New York art and music scenes of the early 1980s. Astor, the co-founder of the Fun Gallery, played a critical role in bringing graffiti and street artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Futura, and Keith Haring into the formal art world. Maripol immortalized the scene through her photographs and styling, building a visual archive of a generation in flux. Together, they shaped the visual and cultural identity of downtown New York in its most iconoclastic years.

 

This photograph is part of a series shown at Clic Gallery and was later discussed by Astor herself in the documentary Blank City, where she reflected on Maripol’s role in visually archiving the beating heart of 1980s Downtown.