Altered Image The Story

“Altered Image” by Christopher Makos

As the 1980’s began, Andy Warhol and I decided that we would collaborate together on a project. Impatient as I was, there was one thing I was sure of. We should do something unique, without imitating anything that had been done before by Andy, whose work by then was world-famous. Later in the 80’s Andy would collaborate on painting projects with other friends in our circle like Keith Haring and Jean Michel Basquiat. But my collaboration with Andy was about photography.

I undoubtedly learned a great deal from him, but he also learned from me, especially about photography. We were in constant confrontation, continually exchanging impressions and ideas. Andy, who for years regularly had a camera hanging around his neck, defined me as “the most modern photographer in America”. For a long time we were friends in the truest sense of the word.

There was a perfect understanding between us. Sexually repressed by a very bigoted Catholic education, we both looked on life and the world in the same way, and we each benefited from our relationship. He had at his disposition a budding young star of photography, and I drew abundantly on my brilliant, famous, rich, and powerful friend, and icon of the time.

We traveled around the world trailing all our cameras, his and mine. Especially between the late seventies and the early eighties we were constantly traveling in Europe and our relationship became very close. We used to arrive in Paris on the Concorde, then to his apartment on the Rue du Cherche Midi, then to an Italian dinner, and then maybe the next day we’d fly off to Germany.

Thanks to Swiss art dealers, Bruno Bischofberger and Thomas Ammann, and German art dealers, Hans Meyer and Hermann Wunsche, Andy’s European career was moving along in the 80’s. The four of them organized new projects and a lot of work that we used to call “portraits to pay the rent”, portraits commissioned by the wives and families of rich industrialists. During this time Andy was also aspiring to be a male model. He was booked by Zoli, then the hottest agency, and he did some runway and print ads and an appearance on T.V. in an episode of Love Boat. Portraiture and posing were part of the daily routine, and we began to think about our collaboration as model and photographer.

Many photographers, including Avedon, Irving Penn and Horst, had photographed him. I had photographed him before in 1975. That stand-up portrait was included in my book “White Trash”, a collection of photos published in 1977 that attracted attention with its portraits of Liza Minnelli, Tennessee Williams, Paul Getty, John Lennon, Halston, Marilyn Chambers (who began her career promoting Ivory soap and then made her name as a porn star), Debbie Harry (Blondie), Richard Hell, and Robert Mapplethorpe’s Patti Smith. These portraits were mixed up with street hustlers, safety pins in ears and fly-zippers, and other semi-punk images.

Bringing the chic together with the street made “White Trash” a hot book in 1977.
Warhol also saw the crossover potential of downtown and uptown, that street art and fashion could be chic. Graffiti and the punk look were being welcomed in pricey art galleries and on fashion runways, and Warhol recognized this and promoted it in the pages of Interview Magazine. Andy was so enthusiastic about “White Trash” that he bought 1000 copies from me and asked me to sign them individually for his time capsules. I asked him for a dollar a signature, saying that I had learned from him that, “art is money and money is art.” He appreciated that I had learned this lesson well.

Andy and I also both loved Duchamp, Dali, and Man Ray, all Surrealists. I knew that some people considered Andy to be a latter day Dadaist and I saw clearly that I should take as my starting point the famous photograph of 1921 in which Man Ray portrayed Duchamp, wearing a woman’s hat and dress. They had called this collaboration “Rrose Selavy”

It was clear that any collaboration would have to explore our own cultural references and not just express a copy of the Rrose Selavy work from 60 years before. I wondered how to walk this fine line between the, “theft” of quotation and the “creativity” of finding inspiration in another’s work.

In the 1970’s, Warhol and Man Ray’s work had been represented by Italian art dealer Luciano Anselmino. Anselmino took an early interest in my work, organizing my first show and catalogue in Italy. He took me to meet Man Ray at Fregene, Italy near Rome, where Man Ray was celebrating what turned out to be his last birthday. It was a decisive visit for me because the time I spent with Man Ray has stayed with me as one of the biggest influences on the way I see. He suggested what might be there for me to find in photography.

I often approach a problem by trying to think how Man Ray would suggest I solve it. And it was then that I understood how my project with Andy should be done. The photos made by Man Ray and Duchamp were particularly noir, dark and somber, yet Andy was the whitest person I have ever met. Suddenly everything was very clear: The photos would be as white as his skin! Making something white into something even whiter is a solution I think Man Ray would have liked.

When we started the project, Halston suggested a sequined evening dress that we didn’t feel was right. We didn’t want a “drag” act. We decided to photograph the face and hair, keeping the usual Andy uniform of the day: jeans, button down shirt, checkered tie and cowboy boots. We were sure the facial make up and wig would be a good contrast with tie and jeans, which in turn would tone down the female caricature. It was clear we need some new wigs, and of course Andy knew where to find them. One day, after one of his customary working lunches at the 860 Broadway Factory in new York with Lydia, his personal trainer, he took me up to the fancy 57th Street shop of his wig maker, Jean Louis. We were led to a private dressing room where Andy tried on various wigs and, as we couldn’t decide which one to take, he bought seven different ones. It was surprising to see how someone’s appearance could be altered by woman’s wig or even a simple man’s wig. It was in that shop on 57th Street that the project took definitive shape and “Altered Image” was born.

The first day of the photo session arrived, and it was only then that we realized that a bit of make-up and a studied expression would not be enough to transform a man into a reference of woman. So we decided to have two different sessions: In the first one Andy came made up in the same way as the women whose portraits he did for commissions. In those photos he has the same lost expressions of the rich women he was always photographing. These are the arch-typical collectors/ collector’s wives, later to be parodied so well by Cindy Sherman. I included these photographs, knowing that they would become only richer with time. Then there were the glamour sessions. With the help of a professional theater make-up artist, Andy became an extraordinary, “Altered Image”.

Eight wigs, two day of posing, sixteen contact sheets, 349 shots. In the late seventies it was very fashionable to cross-dress to create gender confusion, (not illusion), the way David Johansen, the lead singer in the rock group the New York Dolls, wore jeans and high heels. Was he a man dressed as a woman or vice-versa? Not knowing what else to do, our project was not an exception to the rule: we had mixed stylistic elements together to express an ambiguous sexuality, casting an eye at gender confusion and alternative, non-conformist lifestyles that were beginning to emerge.

Considering the emotional state of culture throughout the world in 2009, the “Mistaken Identity” images, created in 1981, continue to speak eloquently to the contemporary viewer. For me they continue to remind me of Man Ray, my great inspiration, and Andy Warhol, my great model and friend.

Christopher Makos October 2009 New York City