Jeremy Kost: It's Always Darkest Before Dawn

Hardcover | 28.58 x 1.52 x 36.2 cm | 150 pp

powerHouse Books | 2011 | 9781576875681

PLEASE NOTE: Contains sexually explicit images

Since 2002, through his enigmatic and compelling Polaroids, Jeremy Kost has been telling the stories of New York’s nights from within its hottest party spots. An outsider on the inside track, Kost is both a reveler and a documentarian, striding deep into the darkest corners of the nightlife and emerging with beautiful images of the chaos, energy, and excitement found there. Kost has been the sole photographer to capture a complete millennial portrait of New York’s famed drag queens, go-go boys, transsexuals, and wild-partying celebrities.

It’s Always Darkest Before Dawn is Kost’s first monograph and collects the best, most outstanding recent images of New York’s current club culture. Using a combination of in-the-moment, close-up club pics, and meticulously staged and assembled Polaroid collages of his subjects out in the big, bad world, Kost bridges the gap between party and performance, and finds a unique perspective on the carefully constructed identities of those New Yorkers who live for the night.

An exhilarating trip through underground New York, It’s Always Darkest Before Dawn puts you on the guest list for a world of vivacious creativity, performance, and costume, and presents evidence (if you needed it) that a certain kind of fabulous madness ain’t dead yet, and was around way before Lady Gaga!

Featuring texts by curator Eric C. Shiner and Ladfag. Ladyfag was born Rayne Baron in Toronto, Canada, where she ran a store selling vintage clothing and antiques. A multimedia artist and over-the-top dresser, she became involved in the Toronto club scene, where she was a resident performer at Toronto’s infamous Club Vasaleen parties. For an art exhibit entitled I Want to Go to Africa, curated by Sook-Yin Lee, she wrote and performed a cabaret act entitled Ladyfag, A Love Story. In 2006, she relocated to New York City assuming the name Ladyfag.