Paul Zone Opening Night of the First West Palm Beach Alternative Book Fair

THE FIRST WPB ALT BOOK FAIR WEEKEND

March 9-11, 2018

www.TheBoxGallery.Info

PLAYGROUNDGrowing Up in the New York Underground

Paul Zone Presentation, Book Signing, and 

Photography Exhibition

Friday, March 9, 2018 at 8PM

The Box Gallery initiates the first national alternative book fair in West Palm Beach. From coast to coast artists, authors, photographers, and cultural icons of the punk and queer culture come to celebrate the visions of the past and share their visions for the future. From uptown to downtown, high brow to low brow, there will be a series of talks lectures, and presentations that span almost a half of century of documentation beginning from the early 70's to present.

This event is co-organized by Rolando Chang Barrero and Sandra Schulman.

Tickets

Authors, Presentations, Book Signing, Live Music, and Exhibition

Paul Zone  Richard Bock  Sandra Schulman  Tony Arruza  Laurence Gartel  Brian Cattelle  Rick Rose  

Alt Howel  Bohemia AG  Nomi Silverman  Ann Marie Sorrell  Sharon Schwatrz  Carol Becker  Nan Goldin
Robert Mapplethorpe  Madonna  Skoros 

“Paul Zone is a "Rock and Roll Zelig". He was where it was happening when it was happening. These pages are like being in those rooms.  If you never breathed that air or want to breath it again here's your chance.”  -Marc Shaiman & Scott Wittman  

(Writers/Directors/Producers, Tony Award winners “HAIRSPRAY”)

"I would venture to guess that Paul Zone describes himself as a former rock star, but to me he’s something else—a rock-and-roll photographer, that increasingly rare breed whose energy and drive and discipline go into making pictures that reflect the highs of life on the New York stage. As a kid in the nineteen-seventies, when rock and punk were redefining themselves as No Wave and then New Wave—I may be getting my Wave order wrong, but you get the point—Zone hung out with his brothers Miki and Mandy in legendary halls like Max’s Kansas City and CBGB’s. Eventually, he joined their band, the Fast; afterward, in the eighties, he and Miki formed the duo Man 2 Man. Through it all, Zone took pictures of what amounted to an extended family, a broke-ass group in which no one was famous but everyone was a star. His book, “Playground: Growing Up in the New York Underground,” is an album about stardom’s essential feature: an interesting aura shaped by an interesting face. We see Debbie Harry, that era’s Marilyn, trying to become herself backstage in a trash-littered bar, while the transgender performer Jayne County stares out at Zone, as sure of her place on this earth as the tallest tree. Zone’s black-and-white images are beautiful because they’re filled with attitude. His subjects are all so young and trying not to show it; the poses they strike speak of their relative innocence and glory, and their fearlessness, too. The photos document the importance of the glitter stuck on one’s heel in those long-ago days when not fitting in was more than a badge of honor: it was commonplace, like courage."

-The New Yorker

“The Fast were one of the important bands of the New York City Glam Rock scene of the early 1970's. Their use of kabuki like makeup preceded the ones used by the group KISS and might have had an influence on the latter bands look.” -Tommy Ramone

“Paul Zone has always been one of our closest friends from the downtown New York scene. He is more well known to those in the inner circle than to the masses.

He is a mover and shaker and style maker and back in the day often acted as a therapist to many of us who were subject to the caprices of the milieu.

The story of The Fast was heroic. One of our favorite aspects of it was how all of Paul's friends and followers gently pressured his two older brothers into finally letting him front the band in spite of his youth. It seemed like a no brainer. Had Miki Zone and Mandy Zone not passed away at the start of their game The Fast would be in the mix of the New York bands that are standardly referenced now.

We miss those times but more we miss the people that are gone. 

Paul happily is still with us and his photos from the period give an intimate window.” -Debbie Harry & Chris Stein