This week Hat & Beard Press announced their newest book title, Romantic Lowlife Fantasies, a collection of photos of Juxtapoz contributor and Brooklyn-based Laura June Kirsch. We found it rather serendipitous that it had been a year since we spoke to Kirsch about her work in our Art In Uncertain Times series, and on the occasion of the pre-sale of the book, we sat down with her once again to discuss the collection, the stories behind the era, as well as providing the Editor’s Note excerpt that I wrote this past week for the book and this interview. You can pre-oder the book here. —Evan Pricco
What irony that the world was put on pause just after Juxtapoz attended a party paying joyful tribute to NYC’s legendary Studio 54 club. That NYC became the epicenter of the pandemic and the Brooklyn Museum’s Studio 54 retrospective postponed before it ever really opened perhaps even adds to the mystique of the club itself. What’s just as perverse is that the photographer on assignment for Juxtapoz that night has made a career shooting a particular nightlife scene in Brooklyn, capturing epic shows at House of Vans or underground performances at the types of places that have boosted the borough into artistic renaissance over the last 20 years. I had thought pairing Laura June Kirsch with Studio 54 was like a generational passing of the baton, and yet here we are, on cultural hiatus.
