Hindsight may twist our memories, but a photograph never lies. It tells us precisely what a photographer sees - and there was little Leatherdale didn't see of the Eighties New York art scene.
Leatherdale's anthology is flush with intimate shots of the 1980s In Crowd, paying homage to a past generation of celebrities. Each shot captures a fragment of the city's vibrant bohemia. The young subjects who stand before Leatherdale's camera think themselves immortal, ageless. And in a sense, they were right. While their limelight might've faded, and many of these beloved icons - Warhol, Tina Chow, Keith Haring, John Sex and International Chrysis, to name a few - have passed away, the legendary glamour of the Eighties lives on.
Leatherdale's photography acknowledges this. However, it also encourages us to question how much of our Eighties-obsession is based on a fantasy. Do we long for the past to avoid our fears of a precarious future? After all, as a twenty-something who snapped photos just to get by, Leatherdale had no idea that he was chronicling an era soon to face extinction. Provoking and intense, this collection investigates the very nature of nostalgia.
