Upclose with Maripol

HK Magazine: How did the exhibition end up in Hong Kong?
Maripol: It started in the Paris Agnes B. Galerie, and then went to London, Tokyo, Los Angeles and now Hong Kong.

HK: Why call it Bande a Part?
M: “Bande a Part” is the title of a Jean-Luc Godard movie from the 1960s, which characterized the French nouvelle vague scene. The name was chosen to show how different from the normal world some artists were back then. They represented independence.

HK: How did you get involved with that scene?
M: I grew up with that generation, with Andy Warhol’s factory, with the Velvet Underground. What made that period different was the mixture of culture and music from England – punk, new wave and rock‘n’roll was crossing the Atlantic and new rockers were pushing everything to the edge.

HK: So why just focus on New York?
M: The musical scene was in Los Angeles too, but the photographers were all New Yorkers. People like Roberta Bayley and Godlis practically lived at CBGB’s, so they shot what was next to them.

HK: Tell us a bit about what it was like back then.
M: What, that everyone was taking drugs, any drugs, having sex with groupies in the bathroom or on the sofas? That you lived at night and slept during the days, that fancy food was non-existent and you just tried to survive? Some did, some didn’t – but will that kind of creative force ever exist again? I doubt it.

HK: So what about now?
M: Now there are a lot of new bands, a lot of photographers. But to be underground was a statement, and now you’d have to go beneath the earth to find it. Now New York’s like a big shopping mall. Even CBGB’s closed its doors last year. It seems like Hong Kong's facing the same problems – I read in the newspaper how the street markets and old neighborhoods are being threatened.