CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/15/2015

Studio 54

Featured photograph (of Warhol-era fashion designer Victor Hugo reclining on a stretcher on the dance floor of Studio 54 in 1978) is reproduced from Hasse Persson's engrossing new collection of black-and-white photographs of the notorious nightclub in its heyday. In his introduction, Persson writes, "The times and the prevalent drug culture sanctioned this hedonistic half-way-house between heaven and hell. Somebody smart said Studio 54 existed after the Pill, before AIDS and while cocaine was still seen as a pick-me-up. The drug reference today seems vapid but a lot of people had been reading Sigmund Freud's so-called cocaine-papers. In his book Über Coca, published in 1984, Freud was full of praise for cocaine's benefits, claiming it to be a far better drug than alcohol. And less harmful. When Freud also mentioned that patients who had been prescribed cocaine reported an increased sex drive, Studio 54 was easily convinced. 'Push, Push, in the Bush' as Mustique put it."