Daniel Cooney Fine Art is pleased to announce our second solo exhibition by Christopher Makos titled MONEY. A career montage featuring unseen vintage work from every stage of the artist’s life, MONEY features a selection of over 60 unique photographs, collages, and assemblages that celebrate the money shot: daring, climactic and outrageous.
Makos has spent the past five decades in the company of legendary cultural icons, most famously as confidant to Andy Warhol and as a key member of the Factory. His position in this notorious circle gained him access to everyone that was anyone including models, celebrities, icons and underground royalty. The likes of Grace Jones, Liza Minelli, Jean Michel Basquiat, Debbie Harry, Mick Jagger, Keith Haring, Halston, Pat Cleveland, OJ Simpson and an unnamed Los Angeles hustler joyfully mingle on the gallery walls.
Never satisfied as just an observer Makos brazenly includes multiple self-portraits in this exhibition. 1970’s surfer boy Makos can be seen in languid repose with long blonde hair, loyal dog at his side, sporting a pair of cowboy boots and nothing else. In another image, the photographer (much shorter hair, still blonde) is positioned bare-assed between two mirrors admiring himself from behind. In a photograph titled Self-Portrait In Side Mirror Makos’s erect penis is pictured in the side view mirror of a rented Pontiac Firebird while vacationing in Hawaii. “Hawaii is so boring,” says Makos when reminiscing about making the image.
Perhaps even more exciting are six never-before seen vintage collages created in 1989. The intimate works are sized at 9 x 8”. Three pieces picture Jean Michel Basquiat posing at the Factory, one sees Warhol and Superstar Ultra Violet with conjoined heads, a fifth of statuesque model Ken Moody, and finally two beefy studs stuck in traffic at Jones Beach. The collages torn and colored with crayon and marker then taped back together with masking tape then boldly signed across the length of the works.
Christopher Makos’s new book “Andy Modeling Portfolio Makos” published by G Editions was just released on March 29, 2022. There will be a book signing and conversation with Christopher Makos and Vincent Fremont at the Strand Bookstore on April 7. There is also a book-signing event at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh on May 6.
Christopher Makos is prominently featured in “The Warhol Diaries” produced by Ryan Murphy and directed by Andrew Rossi currently streaming on Netflix.
Makos is the author of 18 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 are currently on view at the Brooklyn Museum and have been exhibited at the Tate Modern, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Gallery and The Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao.
The gallery will host a public opening for MONEY on May 5: 6 – 8pm.
Please contact the gallery for more information at 212 255 8158 or dan@danielcooneyfineart.com.