Street Artists as New York Nightlife’s Core Figures

In this clip from The Future Of Nightlife by Vice, art directors, nightlife journalists, designers and artists such as Andre Saraiva, Peter Gatien, and Michael Musto, explain the relevance of urban artists in the nightlife world.

In Disotecture part 2, street artists Keith Haring, Basquiat, and Kenny Scharf are described as some of the leaders of club design in the late 70’s and 80’s. On the gritty downtown New York stage, they were regarded as the people’s artists of New York City, and subsequently turned into interior designers, although not payed sufficiently, were truly living for full artistic expression.

Can the future of clubbing compare to that of the past? Should the style of the “Old New York” nightlife scenes be left in the past? Was it the setting, the people and the bigger things like the economy what made that time period special?

Below are portraits of the artists and club kids from an obvious change in times, by the famous New York City nightlife Polaroid photographer Maripol.