{"id":77029,"date":"2014-09-19T17:20:37","date_gmt":"2014-09-19T21:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=77029"},"modified":"2014-09-19T23:40:39","modified_gmt":"2014-09-20T03:40:39","slug":"disco-purgatorio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/19\/disco-purgatorio\/","title":{"rendered":"Disco Purgatorio"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Divina.\"<\/a>

Divina. Photo: Antonio La Grotta<\/p><\/div>\n

The Italian photographer Antonio La Grotta has done what some intrepid ruin pornographer ought to have done years ago: he\u2019s taken pictures of Italy\u2019s abandoned discotheques.<\/p>\n

\"004\"<\/a>

Topkapi.<\/p><\/div> In the boom times of the eighties, these discos sprang up across the Italian countryside, shrines to saturnalia and synthesizers. Now there are purgatories where once there were infernos. La Grotta describes these edifices as \u201cfake marble temples adorned with Greek statues made of gypsum, futuristic spaces of gigantic size, large enough to contain the dreams of success, money, fun \u2026 \u201d Now the discos are just \u201ccement whales laid on large empty squares, places inhabited by echo and melancholy.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can see more of La Grotta\u2019s photos on his website<\/a> and on Slate\u2019s Behold blog<\/a>, but you should set the mood first. Here\u2019s Kano\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m Ready,\u201d seven minutes of blissed-out Italo-Disco that will help you mourn a bygone era and<\/em> celebrate Friday night.<\/p>\n