A collection of nightclub cards from new wave era New York
During the 1960s, East Coast rock music shook up the cultural fibre of New York City with a big helping hand from multimedia artist and all-around socialite Andy Warhol. The legendary pop artist founded his studio and art troupe, ‘The Factory’, in 1963. The world-renowned studio became an epicentre for multimedia exploration, and Warhol would regularly befriend people and bring them into the lair of artistic extravagance.
Warhol’s quirky tapestry of intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, Bohemian street people, musicians and visual artists would mingle and generate an influential matrix spanning New York City. One of the prominent features of the troupe was The Velvet Underground, whom Warhol managed during their seminal debut album of 1967.
While Lou Reed severed ties with Warhol before the band’s 1968 album, White Light White Heat, this partnership set the tone for New York’s artistic outlook over the 1970s and beyond. The Velvet Underground are widely heralded as the birthparents of punk, with Ramones as the purest offspring. Through the 1970s, the raw, punchy sound of punk alloyed with the artful colour of Warhol’s pop art scene gave rise to the so-called new wave epoch.
New wave music bracketed the more refined, punk-derived artists, including New York locals, Talking Heads, Blondie and Television, and groups like The B-52’s and The Cars from further afield. The term was loose and was attributed to bands across the Atlantic too, but New York appeared to be the new wave epicentre in the late 1970s and ‘80s.
Alongside Warhol’s Factory studio/bohemian hangout, several New York City clubs and venues became the hippest rendezvous’ for celebrity parties and unmissable gigs. Perhaps the most famous was Studio 54, a disco nightclub at 254 West 54th Street in Midtown Manhattan.
Studio 54 opened on April 26th, 1977, at the peak of the disco movement and quickly became popular, even with the punk and new wave circles. During its initial run in the late 1970s, Studio 54 was noted for high-profile celebrity guest lists, restrictive and subjective entry policies, heavy drug use, and open sexual activity. Among the notable and frequent attendees were Warhol, Mick Jagger, Elton John, Grace Jones, Truman Capote, Diana Ross and Cher.
Meanwhile, over in Manhattan’s East Village, CBGB established itself as the essential stop for punk, and new wave acts over the ‘70s and ‘80s. The venue opened in 1973 and became popular by the mid-decade as the host of formative performances by the likes of Ramones, Television, Patti Smith Group, Blondie, and Talking Heads.
This week, we’re exploring archival photographs taken of memorable nightclub invitation cards courtesy of Gallery 98. Among the shots seen below are cards for prominent celebrations, including parties for Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine and a birthday party for Holly Woodlawn, the transgender actress who was famously the subject of Lou Reed’s 1972 classic ‘Walk on the Wild Side’.
