Christopher Makos he was defined by Andy Warhol as “the most modern of American photographers”. After a long stay in Fregene and in Italy, spent in the company of Man Ray, Makos moved to New York where he began to document the turmoil of an era of great change.
Particularly fascinated by the emerging punk scene, the American photographer created a series of portraits that made the history of photography: Tennessee Williams, Halston, John Paul Getty III, David Bowie, Grace Jones, Patti
Smith, Richard Hell, Tom Verlaine, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Divine are just some of the characters photographed and collected in his debut book White Trash published in 1977. He meets Andy Warhol who is very impressed by its publication, so much so that he buys a thousand copies.
Warhol entrusts him with the artistic direction of his book Exposure, which will mark the beginning of their friendship and artistic partnership. Between the silver walls in the atelier of the father of Pop Art, Makos captures the extravagance, the excesses, the behind-the-scenes and the many moments of "extraordinary" daily life of Warhol together with his many super-stars such as Mick Jagger, John Lennon and to young and promising artists such as Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Makos has collaborated with numerous magazines such as Interview, Rolling Stone, House & Garden, Connoisseur, New York Magazine, Esquire, Genre and People. Her work has been exhibited at the Tate Modern in London, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid. Among the books published Andy Warhol in China 1982 (2007), Warhol/Makos In Context (2007), Christopher Makos Polaroids (2009), LADY WARHOL (2010).
The exhibition presents a selection of 62 photographs that trace the New York art scene of the 70s and 80s, including 8 large-scale works from the "Altered Images" series made in 1981, in which Andy Warhol interprets the changing identity of being human, a tribute to the shots by Man Ray of Marcel Duchamp in the shoes
of his female alter ego Rose Selavy. The exhibition is curated by John Mercury.
