09/03/2026
Scopin. Chelsea Hotel
Book release and exhibition at the FWR Galerie, Berlin
Exhibition: 14.03. – 04.04.2026
Opening: 14.03.2026 | 6 – 9 pm
FWR Galerie
Jägerstraße 5
10117 Berlin
Artist talk and book presentation: 24.03.2026, 7 pm
with Albert Scopin and Michael Biedowicz
Considered lost for over four decades, the rediscovered photographs taken by Albert Scopin between 1969 and 1971 at the legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York are now being published in a photo book and presented in an exhibition for the first time. The FWR Gallery in Berlin is presenting this extraordinary series in a comprehensive exhibition and is also hosting the official book launch.
The Chelsea Hotel in New York has been an iconic spot for the art and music scene since the 1960s. From 1969 to 1971, the artist Albert Scopin, who was, at the time, an assistant to photographers Mikel Avedon and Bill King, also lived there.
The hotel was always abuzz with activity and everyone who lived there seemed to be searching for something. What the young Scopin was searching for was an unfiltered view of the people who came and went. To capture the lively goings-on as discreetly as possible, he often didn’t even look through the viewfinder of his Kodak Instamatic.
The resulting images depict an as-yet unknown Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe as a fledgling couple, both individuals on their path to fame; film directors Wim Wenders, Rosa von Praunheim, Milos Forman and Jonas Mekas are there; the Warhol crowd performs a play; the hotel staff throw a crazy party in the basement; up on the roof, people contemplate what the future might hold, looking down on a city just waiting to be conquered.
Brief accompanying texts by the artist as well as an interview complete the volume, which provides an unusually intimate look behind the façade of what is perhaps the most famous hotel in the world.
