Dorthy Palanza

The late 1980’s were a time marked by economic boom and bust, racial tensions, homelessness and crime. While you could easily score drugs to get high, there were no proven drugs to cure AIDS, and depression colored the landscape. Regardless of Ed Koch’s proclamations otherwise, a malaise, a pall, a frenzied fatigue blanketed the city in a torporous cloud.

1988 – PROZAC released with marketing campaign
1990 – PROZAC achieves most prescribed status

By the 1990’s, half of the people I knew in Manhattan were on Prozac – many of who still are. These works on paper capture moments and moods from the late 1980’s period in New York before Prozac.

New York Before Prozac: Drawings 1985-1990, was part of a solo exhibit (The New York Series) presented at the Interkulturelle Kunstwerkstatt, Berlin Germany in 2005.