Christopher Makos Photographs Warhol, Minnelli, Haring, Basquiat

"Andy and Liza Kissing", 1978 8 x 10” vintage gelatin silver print.

Daniel Cooney Fine Art featured a solo exhibition by Christopher Makos titled “Dirty,” from September to November 2020. A career overview featuring mostly unseen work from every stage of the artist’s life, “Dirty” featured a selection of 40 vintage photographs, collages, and assemblages that celebrated the daring, decadent, and delectable moments of life with equal panache.

Reveling in the spirit of freedom, innovation, and creativity that has defined Makos’s oeuvre for half a century, “Dirty” featured photographs of Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Richard Hell, Liza Minnelli, and John Lennon alongside a swath of sumptuous male nudes and figurative studies. This is in addition to original contact sheets, vintage Polaroids, silver oxide prints, gelatin silver prints and collages.

The works featured in “Dirty” reflected the advice Makos received while apprenticing with Man Ray in Fregene, Italy, at the outset of his artistic journey in 1976 — “Obey your instinct.” Possessed with the innate gift to fuse art and cultural artifact in a singular work, Makos came to the notice of kindred spirit Andy Warhol and the two quickly became lifelong collaborators and confidantes. Makos taught Warhol photography; Warhol taught Makos the business of art. Together the dynamic duo would travel the globe, enjoying the pleasures of mutual camaraderie.

Find out more at danielcooneyfineart.com

Christopher Makos is the author of 17 books including White Trash (1977), Warhol/Makos In Context (2007), Christopher Makos Polaroids (2009) and Everything: The Black and White Monograph (2014). His work has been published in Interview, Rolling Stone, House & Garden, Connoisseur, New York Magazine, Esquire, Genre and People. His works have been exhibited at the Tate Modern, London, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The National Gallery, Washington, D.C., and The Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao.