As an outsider in a big city, sometimes a sense of isolation and uncertainty can sneak up on you, seemingly from nowhere, and chill you to the core. It happened to Swiss filmmaker Edo Bertoglio in New York on a clear, cold afternoon decades ago between 5th and 34th Street. A sudden gust of bitter wind took hold of Bertoglio and his companion, the artist and designer Maripol, seizing them both with a fear borne of their precarious financial and professional situation, far from home, family and the security of the familiar. The pair headed for the Empire State Building’s viewing deck to see the morning sun illuminate the city, reminding themselves why they should stick it out in what had, moments before, seemed an impossibly hostile place.
Maripol went on to find fame as a stylist, responsible for the immediately recognisable looks many stars including mid-80s Madonna, Grace Jones and Debbie Harry. She is also a highly collected Polaroid photographer – a field of artistic practice that Bertoglio shared a great interest in. Maripol as muse features in a new collection of the Swiss’s Polaroid pictures – as do the pop icons she influenced. Bertoglio’s camera went everywhere, accompanying him to parties and on holidays, and capturing, in the format’s inimitable and immediate style, the art scene of New York in the late 1970s and ’80s.
New York plays a central role in the images despite ostensibly acting as the backdrop, and its character is as vibrant and expressive as Bertoglio’s subjects that pose for, cavort across, lounge before, or simply pass through his viewfinder. New York Polaroids 1976-1989 by Edo Beroglio is published by Yard Press.
Hedy, New York 1978
Modern sunglasses, New York 1977
Andy’s Big Shot, New York 1978
Debbie outside a bar, New York 1979
Red Lacoste, Lugano 1976
StripSexFuck, Lugano 1976
Kate, New York 1977
Girls next door, New York 1981
Cindy, New York 1983
Bunny, New York 1981
Boy & Dominique, New York 1979
Trash bag bikini, New York 1985
Smoking Grace, New York 1986
Glenn & Kate, New York 1977
Infinity Disco, New York 1976
Red Shoes, New York 1979
