Ari Marcopoulos immerses himself completely in the personalities and scenes he has photographed, but more than that, he seems to always be anticipating the zeitgeist. As a result, he has become one of our chief documentarians of contemporary culture, as it emerges. Whether he was hanging in the East Village in the 1980s at age 23 as Warhol’s assistant (and snapping Basquiat at his most intimate), recording the burgeoning hip-hop scene of the late 1980s, riding along with multi-ethnic New York skateboard kids in the 1990s, or shooting snowboard schussers hurtling down a mountain (or chilling in the lodge) in recent years, Marcopoulos's pictures always penetrate the heart of the underground of the moment and its denizens. This volume is the first in a new, ambitious series called Alleged Press, a collaboration between Damiani and the renowned curator Aaron Rose.