The Genesis of East Village Drag: An oral history of the Pyramid Club
Performer and hostess Linda Simpson, DJ Dany Johnson, and photographer Andé Whyland look back at a groundbreaking chapter in New York nightlife
Michele Saunders recounts a summer with James Baldwin in the South of France
The downtown icon divulges the details of her accidental getaway with a literary legend
At 80-years-old, Harlem photographer Shawn Walker finally gets his due
The Library of Congress has acquired Walker’s archive, placing his work alongside that of other Black cultural luminaries
Celebrating our essential humanity in the paintings of Jordan Casteel
'Art for art's sake': How Casteel uses portraiture to connect with the beauty of her communities
Yannis Davy Guibinga exposes the imperialist roots of photography in Africa
Continuing the legacies of Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta, Guibinga's vibrant portraits show photography's revolutionary potential
Life lessons from a former dominatrix
Meet Claudia Summers, a downtown rebel who learned S&M methods from Robert Mapplethorpe
‘Young, Gifted and Black’ spotlights the multitude of black artists defining the contemporary art scene
Artist Tunji Adeniyi-Jones and collector Bernard Lumpkin discuss inclusivity and the evolving relationship between artists and institutions
Derrick Adams crafts a tribute to Patrick Kelly, the fashion designer who centered race on the runway
The artist reimagines Kelly's Princess Diana-approved designs as innovative sculptural works.
The DIY magic of Art-Rite, the magazine that redefined the 1970s art scene
Featuring works by Genesis P-Orridge, Patti Smith, and Laurie Anderson, Art-Rite embodied the anarchic free-for-all that was Downtown New York.
Cultural appropriation is bad, but we wouldn’t have hip hop without it
From viral dances to ‘American Dirt,’ author Lauren Michele Jackson explains the difference between creative evolution and cultural theft.
Vaginal Davis killed the video star with her ‘terrorist drag’
Revisiting ‘The White to be Angry,’ the parody proto-visual album that lampooned Woody Allen, Clive Barker, and Bruce LaBruce
The subversive photographs of ‘masculinity’ that challenged tradition before their time
‘Masculinites: Liberation through Photography’ spotlights Catherine Opie, Peter Hujar, Wolfgang Tillmans, among others.
‘The music united us’: 45 years of hip hop, told by the women who shaped the phenomenon
April Walker, Angela Boatwright, and Vicki Tobak detail the explosive evolution—from Salt-N-Pepa to Nicki Minaj.
Only in New York! 3 iconic street photographers share their tales of the city that never sleeps
Janette Beckman, Joe Conzo, and Martha Cooper on why old New York's indomitable spirit made it the ultimate muse.
The untold stories of Chicago’s tough-as-hell girl gangs, from a woman who lived it all
A former Lady OA member recalls the lengths she went to survive in a hyper-masculine world.
Discovering magic in the mundane with Daidō Moriyama, Japan’s street photography godfather
‘There are countless beautiful existences.’ After 55 years, Moriyama shares the secrets to a groundbreaking street photo.
Jesús León finds magic in Mexico City’s darkest corners
How a Catholic upbringing, phobia of sunshine, and sexual exhibitionism informed the photographer's approach to documenting nightlife.
In Florida, Anastasia Samoylova captures a tropical utopia on the brink of disaster
The photographer's series ‘Flood Zone’ provides an eerie glimpse into the future of America's sinking southern states.
Men in ’80s New York strip clubs spent hours ogling dancers. Meet the women who looked back
‘As a young woman with a beautiful body, there’s power to say, These are gorgeous tits. Eat your heart out.’ Jane Dickson and Claudia Summer...
Artist Miles Greenberg performs his darkest nightmares with absurdist glamour
The mentee of Marina Abramović on his debut show and making art in solidarity with his fellow Gen-Z 'apocalypse babes.'
Katya Bankowsky and Michèle Lamy wage a boxing ‘Battle Royale’ in the Bronx
The director of ‘Shadow Boxers’ speaks about documenting the violent beauty of boxing in her films. ‘I wanted to make a movie about a female...
A photographer’s 18-year quest to uncover Spiritualism’s radical feminist history
Shannon Taggart and Pam Grossman, host of ‘The Witch Wave’ podcast, discusses the egalitarian spirit of occult practices from around the world.
Peter Berlin, the original thirst trap king, revisits his erotic visual diary
The king-sized son of nobility's hot, spontaneous self-portraits are collected in the upcoming book ‘Peter Berlin: Icon, Artist, Photosexual.’
Before Bikini Kill and Pussy Riot, there was Backstage Pass. This is their untold story
‘The Golden Girls of punk’: 43 years after taking up instruments against the patriarchy, Backstage Pass releases their first album.
Artist Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi reveals—and defies—the white supremacist underpinnings of elite gymnastics
As Simone Biles becomes the most decorated athlete in sports, Nkosi tells Document about the implications of Black girls' success in elite gymnastics, which has...
The radical feminist sex worker who photographed her clients at their most grotesque
Cammie Toloui takes us behind the Private Pleasures curtain at Lusty Lady Theater, a worker-owned strip club where men were made the objects of intrigue.
The Rapture’s Luke Jenner and DJ Justine D. look 20 years back at the last era of ‘underdog New York’
The 2000's, when the Strokes took photos in front of Kaws paintings and moving to New York was still career suicide.
From Elizabethan-era actors to RuPaul, discover the radical, glamorous history of drag
‘Drag: The Complete Story,’ Simon Doonan's new book celebrates the heroes who risked life and liberty to simply be who they were.
Meet the fierce Texan who helped Dolly Parton and Stephen Tyler become fashion icons
Costume designer Antoinette 'Tony' Sales remembers trading accessories with Freddie Mercury, and the speed-fueled all-nighters spent sewing at the Gramercy Hotel.
The explosive rise—and inevitable downfall—of the East Village art scene
Marc H. Miller and Barry Blinderman reflect on the Village of the ’70s and ’80s, when Reaganomics inspired Keith Haring to stick it to the...
Marcus Leatherdale remembers photographing Divine, Mapplethorpe, and Lower Manhattan’s ‘last hurrah’
"I didn’t realize I was archiving an era that was going to be extinct; I was just photographing my friends.”
In Kohei Yoshiyuki’s photographs of sex in public parks, we’re all voyeurs
The photographer took thrilling, transgressive photos of young couples—and their onlookers—in 1970s Tokyo.
Michele Saunders’ old school rules for nightclubbing like it’s ’85
From dance moves to Dexedrine: A Paradise Garage regular's guide to looking (and staying) fresh when your night begins at 4am.
Paradise Garage’s final nights: crying and dancing at the definitive rager of ’80s NYC
Michele Saunders and Tina Paul share memories and photographs from a weekend-long party where Grace Jones shared the DJ booth with Larry Levan.
Post-Stonewall, drenched in sunlight: Alvin Baltrop chronicled the sexual frontier of ’70s New York
The Bronx-born photographer never achieved the success of Mapplethorpe or Hujar, but his images from Manhattan's West Side Piers illuminate a forgotten era.
When Louis Vuitton met Grandmaster Flash: the eccentric ’90s campaign that shook high fashion
Document revisits Louis Vuitton's iconic 1997 Centennial Collection campaign with Guzman, the irreverent photography duo who pulled it off.
