Last Tuesday (Sept 3rd, 2013) Studio Paradiso was launched. A book by Dutch photographer Max Natkiel and writer Dirk van Weelden, it contains more than 600 black and white portraits made of visitors (party goers) to Paradiso in Amsterdam in the eighties of the previous century (1979-1990).
Paradiso is what they call THE Pop Temple of Amsterdam. In the early eighties mostly young punks and skinheads attended concerts of The Ramones, The Dead Kennedy’s and such. Natkiel captured this sub-culture in straight forwarded black and white photo’s.
Nowadays these kind of pictures are very common, and are known as street photography. In the early eighties it was a new thing. London based I-D Magazine started shooting “ordinary” or real life folk (mostly punks because that was in fashion) in their magazine, which was in black and white and was stapled together, but that’s another story………
Anyways, Studio Paradiso is a true reference document and, according to us at Mimi Berlin, a history book on fashion in the eighties. (text in French, Dutch and English Published by Voetnoot Publishers, ISBN-10 949173802X)
A selection of 40 portraits is on exhibit at the basement of the city archive of Amsterdam from September 3rd, 2013 till January 5th, 2014.
Thank you Marc for showing us this wonderful book!
PS
Max Natkiel (1942) is a youth worker nowadays. Paradiso Stills was published in 1986 and has the same topic as Studio Paradiso