Lensman Ari Marcopoulos doesn’t consider himself to be a fashion photographer. “The last time I photographed a fashion designer must have been Marc Jacobs over 20 years ago when he still had really long hair and no tattoos,” he tells Style.com. “I think he was fresh out of school and he just came over to my studio for a shoot—actually, I never published those. Oh, and I did a similar thing with John Galliano after that.” But the fashion set just keeps on calling upon the surf-and-skate photog, who got his start working alongside Andy Warhol; in the past few years, Marcopoulos has been commissioned by the likes of Adam Kimmel and Stefano Pilati.
His latest solo exhibition of large-scale pigment prints and smaller photos, Wherever You Go, which he debuted last night at New York’s Marlborough Chelsea gallery, is less of a fashion-centric affair and instead focused on his familiar subjects, including graffiti-scrawled walls and skate-sessioned architecture. The most famous of these subjects is New York Knicks player Tyson Chandler, who himself is attracting some fashion interest and spent Monday night at the Met ball in Calvin Klein Collection. “I did a fanzine on him when he was on the Dallas Mavericks and they won the championship, but I made it so he appeared to be wearing a Knicks jersey and it said ‘We wish,’ ” Marcopoulos explains. “Six months later when he was signed to New York, he called me up and we just became friends.” Just like that? “Usually athletes are bigger-than-life figures, kind of literally, but I think we assign too many superhero qualities to athletes,” he says. “I don’t see him any different than my son, who is also in this exhibit; they are all just normal people.”
Wherever You Go is open through June 16 at Marlborough Chelsea, 545 W. 25th St., NYC, (212) 463-8634.
—Kristin Studeman
