Strobe lights, naked dancers and the strictest entry policy of all times – Studio 54 is entrenched in our minds as a symbol of unlimited excess, hedonism and harsh exclusivity, an icon forever recurring in popular culture. Created by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager in 1977 out of a CBS studio in New York and closed after only 33 months, it is considered the best-known nightclub in the world, the embodiment of the ‘anything goes’ attitude of the 1970s.
But he Studio, and its incredibly strict entrance policy, were already legendary during its first brief but rampant opening era, when thousands of people crowded the pavement on 254 West 54th Street in Manhattan, waiting for Rubell’s essential approval to get in. Even Andy Warhol, one of the most famous and assiduous regulars of the club, had nightmares that he couldn’t get in and was prompted to create a list of rules that could guarantee the entrance. Being accompanied by Halston, or wearing one of the iconic designer’s vests, was enough to be granted access, as well as arriving in an ambulance, an helicopter or a limousine. Wearing polyester clothes, on the other hand, was a terrible mistake that would have stigmatized you as a businessman, one of the less-welcomed sorts. Not even the choice of underwear was safe, as wearing intimates made of polyester would have banned you just as well. “How he could realise that, I don't know”, says Hasse Persson who didn’t share Warhol’s anxiety – he could always get in the Studio, sealed and approved by Steve Rubell himself. “And then the final rule was ‘don't ever mention Andy Warhol’, because that was a very common trick, the cheapest and dummiest thing you could do.”
Persson should know, because he spent three whole years documenting the scene, collecting almost 15,000 pictures of the club and its clientele. Born in Sweden, in 1967 he moved to New York, where he remained for over twenty years working as a foreign correspondent for many Scandinavian publications, covering everything from the Nicaraguan Revolution to anti-Vietnam rallies and Presidential elections. Between a trip to Hong Kong and a job in Tokyo, he would spend a few nights at the club to relax and unwind. But he also had the perspicacity to realise that what he was witnessing at Studio 54 was much more than glamour, overindulgence and boundless entertainment – it was the defining moment of an era. Thanks to Rubell’s ‘mixed salad’ approach – an eclectic mix of gay people, celebrities and streetkids – the club was a democratic playground reflecting the openness and freedom of the late 1970s, all drenched in sex, drugs and wild dances. After 35 years, Persson has finally decided to open the doors and let everybody in with his new book Studio 54, a collection of black-and-white photographs that visually translate the unique and inimitable atmosphere of the club as seen through his eyes, a universe where equality and sexual freedom weren’t hopes for the future, but solid realities of the present.
Why was 2015 the right time to publish the book?
Hasse: I got an opportunity to exhibit my pictures when Umea, a city in the north of Sweden, was the European Cultural Capital of the year (in 2014 ed.). I wanted to do something special for that occasion and I decided to show my photographs from Studio 54 for the first time. They also offered me to publish a book, so I thought that that was the right opportunity to do it. I have been hesitating to publish a book before because I didn't want to hurt anybody – some people are naked in the pictures. At the same time I realised that the material was unique and that nobody else had the intention to publish a book like mine, so I though “it's going to be now or never”. There has been a fantastic response from all over the world. Waiting 35 years also helped, because the material has become historical. If you look at the pictures, you know that that is actually what happened and there is no other way to prove it. People have tried to do films about Studio 54, but they are nothing compared to the reality of what it was.
How was it like to go through all the pictures? Did you feel melancholic?
Hasse: (laugh) You know, I wish that everybody – everybody in the whole world that wanted to –had the opportunity to get into Studio 54 at least once in a lifetime, because it was a fantastic place. Looking back at the pictures I wished I was there once more. The whole thing was absolutely unbelievable. I was nostalgic, but I'm glad that the pictures exist to document that I was there and that what happened actually happened in real life.
Sometimes, when you look at the pictures or hear all the different anecdotes about Studio 54, it almost seems like it’s a made-up place, something taken from a film or a novel.
Hasse: There is nothing like it today. I think the timing was unique. In 1975, the Vietnam War was over and New York City went broke, so there were thousands and thousands of empty apartments. You could move to New York and live very inexpensively. People from all over the world – young artists and people that wanted to go into photography and film making – they all went to New York. It was like a mecca for young creative people. And also, this was after the pill and before AIDS, when people still thought that cocaine was a health drug. It was a very allowing time. The club started in 1977, ten years after the Summer of Love in San Francisco, and sex was also all over the place. People had that attitude that anything goes and really enjoyed hedonism. Studio 54 was an open place for everybody and what was unique about it was that it was very difficult to get in but, once you were there, you were like a star. Everybody was equal. The fact that you managed to get in made you equal with anybody else: you could dance with anybody, you could actually make love to anybody. It was like a hedonistic paradise.
And how was moving from Sweden to the US? How was the first impact with the city?
Hasse: I came from a social-democratic, very equal country, so when I moved to New York in 1967 I was surprised by the big contrast between rich and poor people. Actually, the first thing I did when I moved to New York at the age of 24 was a book called 'New York: a City of Contrasts'. I was struck by the contrasts in the US, but at the same time it was very easy to work there. You could go to Harlem or travel to Mississippi to cover poverty and other things, so it was a very open country to take pictures in. When I moved, the Vietnam War was the main focus and there were student protests all over the country. Martin Luther King was killed in April 1968 and Robert Kennedy was killed the summer before. People were angry and there were student rallies all over the place. Politically, the United States were really shaky in the 1960s and 1970s. But by 1980 things stabilised and New York was basically the centre of the art world. I haven't spent much time in Berlin, but I think the same feeling that people had in New York in those years people have now in Berlin.
You spent much time covering the American political scene before 1990. What events or people left a mark on you?
Hasse: I covered all the Presidential Election from 1968 to 1988 and it was about the same as photographing Studio 54. It's like a circus, a political circus, and it makes for very, very good pictures. The person that I've enjoyed photographing the most was Richard Nixon, because he was very photogenic. In a way, when he was among people he was like a clown. I was very fond of Ronald Reagan too. He realised that photography was important, so he wanted to be surrounded by good photographers. I had a very good relationship with him. Those are the two that I have photographed at my best, even though politically I didn't agree with neither of these men.
Now that you are working as artistic director for the Strandverket Art Museum, do you still dedicate time to photography?
Hasse: Recently I haven't taken many pictures, but I have photographed the US for 50 years and I want to do one final round. We're probably going to do it in the fall for the presidential election, to try and catch something from a European stand point. I think my pictures are credible because as a European I can look at the US with an external point of view. That is one reason why I think my work is valid, even if there are a lot of important photographers working in the US.
And why did you decide to become a photojournalist?
Hasse: I became a photographer in 1958, working for a local newspaper in my home town of Borås. There was no art photography at the time, so most photographers wanted to get into a newspaper or to start publishing in either magazines or books. The art photography scene started around 1980 with Cindy Sherman, when she got into the first art gallery and photography became photo-based art. I was always in between photojournalism and the art scene. Then, I became more and more interested in photography as art and the good thing about my background as a photojournalist was that I knew how to take pictures. The pictures I took at Studio 54 were technically quite complicated. I used long exposure because I wanted to capture the lights and the movement on the dance floor, but also catch moments that were for me timeless. People say the pictures look very modern even though they were taken 35 years ago.
And when did you decide that you wanted to document what was going on in the club? Was it something that you had already planned the first time you went there?
Hasse: Oh no, not at all. As a photojournalist working mostly for the Scandinavian press I was covering wars. I went to Vietnam for the Vietnam War, I photographed the Sandinista war in Nicaragua and El Salvador, the Olympic games, Oscar parties in Hollywood and presidential elections. I think that after a few nights at the Studio, I realised that the place was something absolutely unique in history, I started taking it more seriously and I decided that I had to document it. I'm glad that I understood that it was a unique experience, which is difficult when you're living it. We thought that the world was going to be like that forever.
So at some point it became like a job for you. After that, did you ever go there just to have fun?
Hasse: There were occasions like that. I was travelling around the world and it was a place to relax. But almost every time that I went without a camera I said to myself: “I wish I had a camera, because there is something in front of me that I should be documenting”. So I took as a habit to bring my camera most of the times. The best event was Halloween, it was quite remarkable.
What happened?
Hasse: People dressed up or came without any clothes. What surprised me a bit was that it was common for women to come to Studio 54 with a fur dress or something like that, but then they stepped in to the dance floor without any clothes on, maybe wearing only high heels. Gay men also enjoyed dancing more or less completely naked. It's interesting that there were so many gay people. In the 1970s in New York or in San Francisco, gay people lived and went out in gay quarters, but they were free to go uptown and enjoy Studio 54. Steve Rubell had what he called a 'mixed salad': he wanted gays, lesbians, transsexuals, rich people from Hollywood, Brazilians, Mexicans, classic Southern Europeans from Spain, Rome or Paris, and young people, particularly from Harlem or the Bronx. He also gave priority to ‘well-kept’ older women in their 50s and 60s. He had an understanding of what made every night happening. He pointed out himself, picking among the thousands of people that were standing outside the Studio. “You can get in, you can get in, you can get in, you cannot get in.” He could manage to have that magic almost every night.
How did you meet him and what kind of person was he?
Hasse: I don't remember how we met the first time, but I could always get in. I didn't have to stand in line. They opened up that sea of people so I could get in, there was no restriction for me to take pictures and I never paid either.
You must have met some incredible people in those years, famous and not. Is there anyone who left a deep impression on you?
Hasse: It was always exciting to see famous people. Andy Warhol was there almost every night that I was there. Calvin Klein was there a lot too, because he wanted to look at how young people dressed, what was in the air, what would happen next season. I think that many of the people were there for a professional reason. They wanted to see what was around the corner, what would the future look like and how people were going to dress. In a way, even though it was very open and almost everything that you could imagine actually happened, people were there as professionals. They had to get up the next morning to go to work.
After a night out at Studio 54 that sounds incredibly hard. How did they manage to do that?
Hasse: When you look at clubs these days, there are a lot of bodyguards and restrictions to get in. There was nothing like that there, I never saw one single guard. Once you got in there anything could happen and you could do exactly what you wanted. At the same time, you had to be responsible because you wanted to get in the next night as well, so there were no fights. Even though there were loads of drugs, people did it with style. You didn't fall asleep and you didn't make a scene.
It is actually incredible that people in that situation managed to control themselves.
Hasse: Everybody wanted to get in to see what it was like, so they had to behave. Once you made a scene, you would have never been able to get in again. What was also fantastic was that the Studio was actually full every night – there were 1000 people in there every single night. To have 1000 beautiful sexy people that are having fun, but also had to behave – it was a quite remarkable situation. One time, Truman Capote said: “This might be the most interesting social experiment in the century”. There were black people, Chinese people, Latin, white, gays, lesbians, transsexuals. Everybody was in there and everybody was loving each other. That's also quite amazing.
It was incredibly avant-garde. Did you ever hung out with any of the celebrities?
Hasse: I remember I danced with Bianca Jagger, who was really beautiful. I danced with Diana Ross, she was also extremely beautiful. They loved to dance. Coming from Northern Europe and compared to these people, I was never a good dancer. I was always awkward on the dance floor. Michael Jackson was there often because he could be himself and when he was on the dance floor people really liked to look at him.
What happened when the Studio closed in 1980? Did you go and cover other clubs? Were there other ones worth covering?
Hasse: Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager were arrested in 1980 and the first AIDS case happened the same year. Since there were so many gay people at Studio 54, people started to be afraid to go. If you danced close to a gay man or you went to the bathroom, you didn't know whether you could get affected or not. So almost overnight, the whole concept of Studio 54 died. People got scared. I remember when I was going to do my first story about the first AIDS cases in New York, I didn't know if I could greet them or hug them. Nobody knew. The whole idea of dancing and making love with people that you didn't know just died. People panicked and were scared – that's how it ended. After a few years, Steve Rubell wanted to start a new place called Paramount but that project never took off, because it was just in the middle of that crazy AIDS scare. The whole concept died.
So Studio 54 was really closely linked to the time it was opened in, an incredibly small frame of time!
Hasse: It was almost like a window of complete freedom. People were also very open minded towards different kinds of chemicals and pills, including cocaine. They didn't really realise that cocaine wasn't as good and healthy as you could believe. To sniff cocaine at Studio 54 was like having two glasses of champagne, you sniffed just a little bit to be able to dance for a couple of more hours. People didn't realise that it could be dangerous in the long run.
Why do you think people are still so fascinated by Studio 54?
Hasse: I see Studio 54 as a creation by Steve Rubell. He understood how people actually wanted to be: people want to have freedom; people want to do what they feel like without hurting anybody; and people want to feel alive, without any big social control. The fact that you could go to Studio 54 and just be yourself, doing whatever you wanted – I think that is something that people probably envy today. Also, one thing that is not easily understood today is that the women’s liberation movement was also getting a strong hold at that time, and there was much more equality between the sexes. If a woman wanted to come to Studio 54 and dance without any clothes on, it was her privilege and her freedom, and no one would have ever dreamt of touching her or saying something to her. That also went with gay people. They felt free and safe, and they had the freedom to do what they wanted.
Do you think it's possible to have something like this again? The same atmosphere and the same feeling of freedom?
Hasse: I would hope so, I would like to see it again. Since I'm not on the scene any more I don't know what people think, but I notice that young people would like this to happen again. Apparently it is not the same today. I think it could happen but not on a big scale, I don't think that would ever be possible. Back then there was a feeling that you could change the world, and I think that when you went to Studio 54 and experienced it, you though that that was the new world. You thought: “this is how is going to be like!” People respect each other, different colours and different genders. I thought: “This is how life is going to be like.” But then we realised that no, it didn't turn up that way. I think at least people should be able to hope that it could happen again.