Memes NYC presents Ricky Powell “Oh No He Didn’t!” a solo exhibition of photographs featuring never-before-seen images from legendary New York City photographer Ricky Powell.

Opening Reception: Friday July 6, 2012, 6-10pm w/ DJ Smoke LES Exhibit: July 6 – July 14, 2012 Press Contact: Liz Suman – [email protected]

“Life has been good and Ricky’s photos offer the best that life offers: the pleasure of being some place at the right time and having the souvenir for tomorrow.”— Wild Style director Charlie Ahearn

Memes NYC is proud to present “Oh No He Didn’t!” featuring legendary photographer Ricky Powell, the magnetic and talented New York City photographer, prowler, Renaissance Man, TV personality, party crasher and self-described “freelance bohemian hustler” known for his candid 1980s and 90s street shots of New Yorkers in locales ranging from the West 4th basketball courts in Greenwich Village to graffiti writer-filled nightclubs in the eye of the storm that was the downtown Manhattan party scene at a time when hip hop and graffiti were capturing the world’s attention in a big way. “Style was attitude,” Powell told one publication of that era. “…Everything was more genuine, it wasn’t all color-coded Nikes, you had to have game on the court to rock those sneakers,” he continued. “The graffiti writers became celebrities, and seeing them hanging out in the clubs I was like ‘oh shit, those dudes are cool.”Also a factor in Powell’s increasing recognition was a relationship with the Beastie Boys. “I’m just a fan, and when I see somebody I just have to capture that moment,” Ricky once said of his style.

The result of this unique combination of fandom, personality and access? Success. Over time, Powell became as much a shaper of the scene as those he had always admired within it. In the past two decades since his fateful 1986 decision to leave his Frozade ice cart to tour with the Beastie Boys and Run-DMC on the Raising Hell tour, Powell’s work has appeared in The New York Times, TIME, Newsweek, Rolling Stone and more. And while his initial exposure may have been part chance, his staying power and charismatic personality are his own, and responsible for a long career of now iconic portraits of everyone from Elizabeth Taylor to Eazy-E to Jean-Michel Basquiat.

In spite of his success, or perhaps because of it, Ricky remains first and foremost a New Yorker with a camera, as likely to shoot a puking homeless guy in Washington Square Park as he is Fran Lebowitz leaving a Tribeca restaurant. Regardless of who is on the other side of the lens, his photographs are seductive because of his candid ability to incite and then capture the “chemical connection” he believes exists between photographer and subject regardless of whether that subject is Madonna or a graffiti writer. Through this trait, along with an innate ability to compel strangers and crash parties, he has managed to build a body of images that are at once beautiful and irreverent, contemporary but timeless.

“Oh No He Didn’t!” will feature a carefully curated collection of old and new Powell images, including photographs of Warhol and Basquiat on their way to their famous Tony Shafrazi gallery show in Soho in 1985, Madonna getting “zooted” with gal pals Sandra Berhard and Debi Mazar in ‘88, New York graffiti dynamic duo ZEPHYR and REVOLT, and a mix of other assorted colorful characters. Rounding out the collection are gorgeous environmental portraits of New York City.