Bob Colacello, Bianca Jagger, Halston's House, New York, 1976. Vintage gelatin silver print. © Bob Colacello. Courtesy of the artist.
In 1976, Bob Colacello, the editor of Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine, went on a trip to Europe with Warhol. In Zürich, they met Thomas Ammann, one of the great art dealers and collectors. Ammann arrived for the appointment with a Minox, a mini camera, straight out of a spy movie. Warhol and Colacello went wild for this marvel of technology. As they continued on their journey, their next stop was Berlin to visit German Chancelor Willy Brandt. As soon as they touched down, Warhol and Colacello rushed to a camera store to buy a Minox.
Bob Colacello, Andy's Room Service Breakfast, Naples,1967. Gelatin silver print. © Bob Colacello. Courtesy of the artist.
That’s how Bob Colacello’s career as a photographer started. “It just happened that at the parties we were constantly going to in New York, Los Angeles, Paris and London, lesser-known people kept blocking my view of better-known people, but I took pictures anyway,” remembers Colacello, “because I realized parties were like that, producing a layered look that I came to see as my style.”
Bob Colacello, James Randall and Marisa Berenson, on their Wedding Day, Beverly Hills, 1976. Vintage gelatin silver print. © Bob Colacello. Courtesy of the artist.
From the moment Colacello acquired the pocket camera, he carried it with him to all the jet-set parties he attended, dinners and weddings at the Factory, legendary Studio 54, and even the White House. This exhibition at Galerie Thaddeaus Ropac is Colacello’s personal album of photographs taken between the late 1970’s and the early 1980’s. It’s a faithful chronicle of the social circle around the Pope of Pop, from Mick Jagger to Robert Rauschenberg, Liza Minelli, Fashion icon Diana Vreeland or Arnold Schwarzenegger. A fun trip through a more innocent era when fun was the main preoccupation. Jean-Sébastien Stehli
Bob Colacello. It Just Happened, Photographs 1976-1982. Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris. Until 03.4.23. A book of the same name is published at the same time by Ivorypress
