Ricky Powell's Early New York Photographs Resurface at Whaam!
Captures of neighborhood icons, graffiti and everyday scenes.
Summary
- Whaam! shows Ricky Powell’s early 1980s New York photos
- Features everyday street life and peers like Basquiat, Futura
Ricky Powell’s path as a photographer began in the mid-1980s after a breakup left him restless in downtown New York. Borrowing a camera once belonging to his ex-girlfriend, Powell started taking photos to pass the time. What began as a way to process heartbreak quickly grew into a lifelong practice of documenting the city around him.
On view at Whaam!, RICKY POWELL: NEW YORK PHOTOGRAPHS 1980–1990 presents an intimate archive of Powell’s earliest work. Long before his well-known portraits of the Beastie Boys or hip-hop legends, Powell was a local kid wandering Washington Square Park, SoHo and the Lower East Side, capturing friends, storefronts, graffiti and everyday scenes. At the time he was still working a frozen lemonade stand, but his camera turned casual afternoons into lasting cultural records.
Powell’s strength was his ability to move across different circles—graffiti writers, punks, skaters, rappers, and artists—and photograph them as peers, not celebrities. Figures like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Futura 2000 appear as part of his neighborhood, not distant icons.
This exhibition is both a tribute to Powell and a portrait of a New York that no longer exists, alive with grit, humor and unfiltered creativity. The show is running through October 17.
WHAAM!
15 Elizabeth St # 113
New York, NY 10013
