Christopher Makos

Christopher Makos reminds one uncannily of Andy Warhol. His hair is untamed, almost over the eyes, sticking out at odd angles; he wears thick-rimmed black glasses, a shiny, pale green, patterned jacket and a black and white checked shirt. In this interview at the Flo Peters Gallery, made on a snowy day in Hamburg, Germany, he describes his meetings with and anecdotes about the great master of pop art. We get vivid impressions of the New York scene then and now.

Makos met Warhol at the opening of a retrospective exhibition of Warhol's work at the Whitney Gallery in New York. Makos thought Warhol was already dead! He was naturally  quite surprised then, to meet him there. Warhol invited him o 'The Factory' but he never wentthere.

Making books of photographs is what interests Chris Makos. Amazon lists 30 titles authored or co-authored by him. Of these, 15 are about Andy Warhol. In this video we learn that Andy Warhol was surprised that there was no 'elevator' up to the Great Wall and that clothing fashions in China were changing because, "At that time they were just switching over to democracy and to a different kind of vibe".

"I always tell people that I'm not gonna do any more books, " says Makos, "especially on Andy Warhol. But somehow they always come to me and they say, 'Do you wanna do this book?' And so what happens is, er, I say, 'yes' because I love doing books, creating books, art-directing books, working on other peoples books."

Makos has made four books in collaboration with Paul Solberg with whom he works closely, sometimes even subsuming his individual identity under their joint pseudonym, the Hilton Brothers.

In this video Makos talks about two books in particular and numerous examples from them are shown. 'Andy Warhol in China: The Photographs of Christopher Makos' contains photographs of his 1982 trip to China with Andy Warhol. It was published in 2008 during the Beijing Olympics.

A second book just published in Italy is titled "Chris Makos Polaroids". It contains Polaroids from the 1970s. The Polaroid Company came to the factory and said "Oh you know we're gonna give everybody boxes and boxes of Polaroids just to see what artists can do with Polaroids." Makos immediately started taking pictures of everything: "People, places, Debbie Harry, Lou Reed, Man Ray, this girls tits, some guy's ass, Marilyn Monroe." All these photos were put away in boxes for three decades or so until a publisher asked Makos if he had more material from that period. He had, and they made the book.

Christopher Makoswas born 1948, in Lowell, Massachusetts.He grew up in California before moving to Paris to study architecture, where he later worked as an apprentice with the legendary Man Ray.

"Taking pictures", for Christopher Makos, "is sort of like the hunger for a really delicious meal."