The Edition

Downtown New York in the 1980s was a gritty cultural brew—graffiti, wild fashion, buzzy clubs, and kids crafting the earliest hip-hop bars. Few captured (and defined) it as intimately as Maripol, the photographer who fixed the city’s new wave and no wave in her indelible Polaroid images. Her photos captured Jean-Michel Basquiat painting in his loft, Grace Jones out on the town, an off-duty pre-fame Madonna, among other figures. Now, decades on, she’s parting with selections from her rich archive.

Maripol’s snapshots and ephemera are now at the heart of Joopiter’s new sale on its Marketplace platform. Titled the Downtown Archive: ‘80s – ‘90s New York, it is curated with unique objects that document two transformative decades in the city’s history.

Maripol’s work is a fitting lens through which to view the era. Arriving in New York from France in 1976, she found herself working as art director for Italian fashion label Fiorucci by day and hitting the clubs by night, her trusty Polaroid SX-70 camera in hand. With it, she would snap the scene’s major stars and players—Debbie Harry, Bianca Jagger, Andy Warhol, James Chance, you name ’em. She also styled Madonna in the early ’80s, and produced and art-directed the Basquiat vehicle Downtown 81.

Vestiges of that moment are all over Maripol’s offerings—in her Polaroid shots of Basquiat, Madonna, and late actor and gallerist Patti Astor, and in the group of 78 snapshots, collectively titled Blonde, each depicting a famous and/or pretty face. She’s even letting go of a rare invitation to the 15th anniversary fete for Fiorucci, held at Studio 54 in 1983, where a then-unknown Madonna was on the program.

“Blonde is a compilation artwork of my polaroids of very important people in my eyes. As Andy Warhol said, ‘Everyone in life will be famous for 15 minutes,’” Maripol said over email. “Patti Astor was shot on the Staten Island Ferry with Downtown Wall Street in the background and I met Futura 2000 at his first exhibit at Patti’s first space in the East Village! In between Midtown and Wall Street, there were the most raw and real neighborhoods from West Village to East Village, from Soho to Noho and including the Lower East Side to Delancy’s.”

The period is further encapsulated at the sale in artifacts offered by Maripol’s long-time friend Sophie Bramly. She’s best known as the mastermind behind Yo! MTV Raps, the channel’s first hip-hop program, which mainstreamed the genre. But the French photographer also produced images of graffiti’s and hip-hop’s leading lights—from Kool Herc and Run-DMC to Keith Haring and Futura—that bottled the energy, grit, and flair of the emerging movements.

Fittingly, then, Bramly is parting with artifacts that speak to her journey, including the custom bomber jacket she wore as host of Yo! MTV Raps. Up for grabs as well are a series of images she shot of a day in the life of a young Futura, and a box set of her Walk This Way book from 2015, featuring her hip-hop images and packaged in a box set with original photographs.

“I have to say I love the Walk This Way box set,” said Bramly over email. “It’s very graphical and the different layers inside with the red ribbons give something special to the photos. It reminds me of how I view it—there is always more to be seen; it’s a culture with so many different layers to study.”

The Downtown Archive is rounded off with designer fashions from the era, handpicked by clothing retailer Vintage Grace. Collectors have their choice of archival pieces from Chanel, Thierry Mugler, Bob Mackie, and Donna Karan. A highlight, though, comes in the form of a flamboyant coat from the 1988 Andy Warhol x Stephen Sprouse collection, one of the earliest art and fashion crossovers.