NY, Downtown '81: a conversation with Edo Bertoglio
Lumpen Universität - We Talk About Art
Interview recorded by Andrea Marioni 26.04.22 in Lugano
This conversation comes back on Edo Bertoglio's career, starting from the provinciality of Lugano (CH) to New York in the late '70 to end of '80. As a young photographer, Bertoglio enters in Interview Magazine edited by Warhol and in parallel he participates on the emergence of "Downtown scene" composed at that time by unknow enthousiastic artist like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Debbie Harris, Madonna, Glenn O'brien, Klaus Nomi and many others. During the turn over between 1977-1980, the general atmosphere is party like, spontaneous, everything seems possible and for some of them the early '80 will be a important switch for their status. While some became legends, others disappear progressively, AIDS started as much as drug addictions and it's the end of the party.
Edo Bertoglio was involved in this era, he contributed to make precious pictures of that time, especially with the movie "Downtown '81" having as main character an unknow young street artist: Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Biography of Edo Bertoglio:
Edo Bertoglio (Lugano, 1951) is a Swiss photographer and film director, become a naturalized citizen of Italy. After graduating in direction and editing at the “Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français” (Paris 1975), he moved to London and to New York in 1976, where he lived for fourteen years. He worked as a photographer for many Americans, Japanese, French and Italian magazines, specialized in fashion, art and costume. He regularly collaborated with the “Andy Warhol’s Interview” magazine from 1978 to 1982.
In 1981 he directed “Downtown 81”. The movie shows a typical day of the young artist Jean- Michel Basquiat, at the time unknown, and gives a view of the active artistic community of New York. Finished in 1999 after some vicissitudes, it was chosen at the Cannes Festival in 2000 in the section “Quinzaine des Realisateurs”.
In 2005 he completed his second movie, “Face Addict” successfully presented at the 58° International Movie Festival of Locarno. It’s about the story of the artistic community of New York in the late seventies – early eighties, known as “Downtown Scene”, a journey into the discovery of New York 20 years later - through the protagonists of the musical and visual arts’ scene. He’s currently producing and directing TV and cinema’s documentaries, as well as photographic projects.
