Down & Out in Manhattan: ’70s Photographer Christopher Makos Releases New Images of Punk A-Listers in ‘White Trash Uncut’
Punk is not an ideology. It’s not a religion. It was just a moment,” says poet and punk-rock icon Richard Hell, and few documents captured that snotty, incendiary moment as well as Christopher Makos’ White Trash. The 1977 photography book of New York scenesters and new music artists evoked the “flamboyance in the ruins,” says Hell, of the movement that had taken root at CBGB and on the streets of down-and-out Manhattan. Almost 40 years later, the images still sear in a newly expanded edition. White Trash Uncut features 12 previously unpublished photos, including shots of filmmaker John Waters and his gender-bending star Divine, and a triptych of Debbie Harry standing on a stool in shades and a Black Sabbath T-shirt. A member of Andy Warhol’s Factory crowd, Makos was in his 20s when he shot these photos, and says the idea to rerelease White Trash came last year when he and his publisher Glitterati were discussing the 2013 “Punk: Chaos to Couture” exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “When we looked at the original book, we felt the pictures still spoke to us,” he says. White Trash “captured something about the madness of those nights. It was apocalyptic,” says Hell, who’s in three photos including a gem with former Television bandmate Tom Verlaine. With that madness, came freedom. “You didn’t need to talk to a publicist,” says Makos, whose work embarks on a worldwide Ports 1961-sponsored exhibition in June. “Everything was accessible. Everything you wanted, you could have.”
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