Polka Galerie
Echoing the exhibit «Disco, I’m coming out» presented at the Philharmonie de Paris, Polka invites you to rediscover the heyday of this musical genre - both tremendously political and novel - through the work of the New Yorker Meryl Meisler. Chronicling the effervescence of Disco at the end of the 1970s, the photographer dives back into her archives and recounts the nightlife of the mythical New York nightclubs, notably the famous «Studio 54».
Upon her arrival in New York, Meryl Meisler was 23 and became an art teacher in the New York City Public Schools. The city, torn apart by social and economical challenges, became the breeding ground for an unprecedented creative drive, paving the way for a true cultural Renaissance. This was the golden age of nightclubs.
Meisler regularly visited ones located in Manhattan and attested to the explosion of a new genre: Disco. During these wild parties, she dances the night away listening to Donna Summer, the Bee Gees or Gloria Gaynor... while capturing the dance floor, its protagonists and its political activism.
As a musical genre at the crossroad of various Civil Rights movements, Disco became a rallying point for queer, Latino and Black communities. The blend of these groups would give rise to a rich iconography made up of the unbridled spectacle of a youth longing for freedom after the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. On the dance floor, Disco is a hymn for the freedom of expression. Disguises, glitter, and wigs proliferated during parties flocked by influential artists from the New York scene and Hollywood stars.
This period would be both fundamental and freeing for Meryl Meisler who ended up discovering herself both personally and artistically in the nightclubs she frequented. « I don’t go out and take pictures. I take pictures where I go. » She photographs with a touching sincerity a turning point in history permeated with liberty and creativity, from which collective nostalgia still feeds off.
It’s in 2010, during her retirement, that Meryl Meisler dove deeply into her archives for the first time. Since then she has continued telling her story, extracting from her past the most striking images of her Disco adventure.
