In the 1980s, writer and photographer Roland Hagenberg and artist Karl A. Meyer shared a loft on Crosby Street in downtown Manhattan. Studios packed the neighborhood with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe and Jeff Koons among others on their way to international stardom. It was the last time in history you had to be physically in the metropolis where ideas took off if you wanted a successful career in the arts. Think 1950s Paris, around Montmartre. Or London in the Sixties, where benchmarks for design, music and pop culture were set. And finally, the Eighties in New York, where an analog realm slowly dissolved and morphed into today’s digital, decentralized lifestyle of instant connectivity and unlimited information. This New York would never exist again – a single, global center for the arts. Instead, it gave way to fragmentation and insulated pockets dispersed around the world. “Crosby Street” documents the works of Roland Hagenberg and Karl A. Meyer during that time as well as their encounters with artist friends.

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Autorenship: Roland Hagenberg, Abigail R. Esman, Karl A. Meyer, Shiori Suga