The eyes of the 80’s nightlife – Cleo Campert

You know what they say: if you remember the 60s, you weren’t really there. Similarly, if you have a lot of party pictures of the 80s and 90s, you weren’t in the right scene. The visitors of Club RoXY, the epicenter of Amsterdam’s nightlife explosion, were simply too busy revolutionizing art, music and fashion to take photos. Luckily, one woman was there with two cameras, a curious heart and a sharp eye.

Marlies: Cleo, to me you are the eyes of the Amsterdam club scene of the 80s and 90s. Smartphones and social media hadn’t been invented yet, but you were always around, documenting everything we did. I’m pretty wary of cameras, but I never felt threatened by your presence. You were one of us, and you were discrete. If a famous judge would show up in a leather harness for example, you wouldn’t haunt him like a paparazzo.

Cleo: Club RoXY was like my second living room; I was there three nights a week. It was such a fantastic, creative time! Taking pictures just seemed like a natural thing to do. And I think that DJ and creative director Joost van Bellen secretly quite liked the glamour of having a female in-house photographer with a flash and two big cameras around. With the arrival of house music and XTC, the division between guests and performers started to erode. Anyone could get up on the stage or a box and be a star. My presence only enhanced that experience for everybody.

Marlies: That period at the RoXY was such an epic era, wasn’t it? We were at the birth of a new movement. And it was about radical self-expression, about tolerance and diversity.

Cleo: Yes, a lot of people felt that within the walls of the RoXY, they could finally be themselves, as cliché as that may sound. Later, the underground scene would become commercialized, but at the time, there was still very much a ‘self-made’ atmosphere. There was no H&M yet, for example, no fast fashion. I actually have a great picture of you wearing a beautiful see-through bodystocking that I believe you made yourself.

Marlies: I love that picture! I wore the same outfit during Paris Fashion Week when Jean Paul Gaultier himself came up to ask me who made my ‘outstanding creation’. To which I proudly answered: “Moi!“. That was such an encouragement to me as an art student! I felt the same kind of support at the RoXY. We were stimulating each other, creating great things together. Most of the time on absolutely no budget.

Cleo: I was a member of the creative team, but I still wonder sometimes how we managed to pull off these great, elaborate events without using cellphones or social media. We must have used our answer machines quite a bit!

Marlies: Gosh yes, we did! Can you share some of the craziest events you guys put together?

Cleo: Once, we transformed the entire RoXY being into an enormous pinball machine. Another time, the club was turned into an outdoor gabber* party, including smoke machines and stroboscopes that were going all night. We even had portable Dixi toilets on the dancefloor! The main goal was to shift the audience’s perception of reality; sometimes it was enough for all the staff to wear McDonalds outfits to achieve that.

Marlies: I also remember the legendary Love Balls.

Cleo: Yes, they were these extravagant, all-night charity events organized for the Dutch AIDS Foundation. All of us had lost friends to AIDS; death was in the air. It actually reminds me of what we’ve been going through with the coronavirus. Everybody worked for free in an atmosphere of love and togetherness and the audience went all out. It was very special. Those nights really represented everything the RoXY stood for.

Marlies: Joost van Bellen once said to me: “Cleo must be sitting on an entire treasure trove filled with RoXY pictures.” Then, last year, you finally published your eagerly-awaited RoXY anthology.

Cleo: Oh yes, there are actually thousands and thousands of slides. Enough for at at least one more book! Often, we see the importance of a period only in hindsight. But then and there, I already realized that I was in the eye of a storm. And I wanted to capture it all.

Marlies: We’re all glad you did. Thank you, Cleo!

* A Dutch subgenre of hardcore techno