Kentucky Derby Week 1984
photographed by Marc Karzen (rough in-progress)
This is a book prototype 8.25”x10” 125 pages, Blurb.
Step into the 40-year time machine to 1984, where the Kentucky Derby isn’t just a race, but a historic cultural slice of Americana which mixes bourbon and racing along with Louisville Southern society. This is not a racing or hats story. This is a cultural lifestyle story about what it was like to go to the Kentucky Derby 40 years ago.
KENTUCKY DERBY WEEK 1984 is a photo essay by Marc Karzen — inspired in part by an encounter with Hunter Thompson — and the story created with Ralph Steadman, ‘The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved’ from 1970.
ELEMENTS:
DERBY BOX SETS could be a combination of a signed print and a signed book
LIMITED EDITION PRINTS can be available
ARTIST TALKS, slide shows and book signing are possible
Foreword essay is below the images, at the bottom of this page
The images below, are top selections for shows in gallery exhibitions 10-16 images
Below, CLICK TO ENLARGE (Edit in progress — Estimated 80-90 images for the book)
Exhibition Print Images Options (click to enlarge):
DERBY book images below. Edit in progress. Prototype book in progress. One Blurb so far:
email for: Marc Karzen
INTRO / FOREWORD (rough in progress):
Photographer Marc Karzen set off on a photographic tour to capture the cultural landscape around Kentucky Derby 110 in 1984. At the time, the Kentucky Derby Festival had just begun, which included the boat race, a parade down Broadway, as well as parties across town — which led to events at the track on Friday for the Kentucky Oaks and the Derby on Saturday.
As far as Kentucky Derbys, Karzen had been to seven at that point, having gone to grade school in Louisville — including Secretariat's famous run in 1973, the 100th running in 1974 and several others. Over the ‘80s, while living in New York, the pilgrimage down to Louisville became a regular event — so, he knew his way around Churchill.
Karzen regularly contributed and took assignments with Rolling Stone Magazine, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, as well as fashion magazines plus record labels — shooting environmental portraits and fashion stories. He worked on Late Night with David Letterman over 11 years on NBC where he created the images that appeared before and after commercials — plus he also shot for SNL.
As Karzen was developing photojournalistic projects and his photographic approach — a personal photographic immersion into the Kentucky Derby, felt like an idea.
Taking a deep dive, granular, holistic approach covering the Derby, while hundreds of the best sports photographers on the planet pointed their lenses at horses galloping around the track, was Karzen’s challenge. And with the annual subcultural influx into Louisville, the ongoing question was, “what’s it like to be at the Derby?”