so8os: A Photographic Diary of a Decade

so8os assembles Patrick McMullan's photographs of New York's nightlife and downtown art scene through the 1980s, when he became the era's most prolific documentarian of clubs, openings, and the overlapping worlds of art, fashion, and celebrity.

Published by powerHouse Books, the book pairs McMullan's candid, flash-lit photographs with essays and recollections from Michael Musto, Tama Janowitz, and Jay McInerney. These are writers who moved through the same rooms, Danceteria, Area, the Mudd Club, and chronicled the decade's excess and creative churn in print alongside McMullan's camera.

McMullan began photographing New York nightlife in the late 1970s and built an archive that eventually numbered in the millions of images, covering decades of gallery openings, parties, and red carpets. His work functions as a continuous social record of downtown New York, an insider's document made by someone who was, by his own account, present at nearly everything he shot.