Product Description

During Christopher Makos’ long and eminent career, he has photographed the most beloved and complex icons of our time—Mick Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor, John Lennon, Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol, to name just a few. Now in a unique and daring work, EQUIPOSE, Makos tackles a novel new subject: Horses. Although a bold departure from his previous endeavors, Here Makos applies his signature style--one that examines size, shape, scale, musculature, texture--to these gorgeous animals. The photographer’s art-world following will find EQUIPOSE to be a Makos book that happens to feature horses, while horse enthusiasts will find a horse book that happens to have beautiful photography.

Ranging from brilliantly crisp black-and-whites to luminescent colors and softly muted sepia-tones, bestselling author Christopher Makos has created an intimate yet wide-ranging volume detailing his encounter with one of nature’s most majestic creatures. He presents an intriguing portrait of the horses: Through his lens they are eerily human, yet elusive and beyond our total understanding. In their greatness, the animals exceed the photographers’ frames. Makos’ lense trains on the animals in a way that has never been used before. He focuses our attention on the details: the gentleness with which their necks curve, the naked lines of the back and the strength with which their hooves meet the soil. His images deconstruct horses to their individual features and again reassemble them into full beings. Through the unique vision of one of the great artists of our time, horses are innovatively and daringly depicted in their entirety, their essential selves transformed before our eyes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #504505 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 160 pages

Review
"I wish I could take photographs like that." - Andy Warhol "Christopher Makos was Andy Warhol's protege, the brains behind Interview magazine and an intern for Man Ray...and has been exhibited at the Guggenheim and the Whitney." - Munich Press "An astounding work of artistry." - Amazon.com"

From the Publisher
INTERVIEW MAGAZINE, Dec/Jan 2006

EQUIPOSE selected as one of the Season's best books

BRILLIANT MAGAZINE, Dec 2005

Christopher Makos' crisp, graphic photographs are not easily forgotten. In this book he departs from his usual shots of people and places to focus on something different: horses. With signature clarity and boldness, Makos brings out the graceful musculature and shining coats of one of nature's most powerful and elegant animals--not unlike what he does for his human subjects.

NORTH SHORE NEWS, "Photographs capture equine nobility," Terry Peters, March 24, 2006

When celebrated New York photographer Christopher Makos ventured out to photograph a horse for a special project he discovered a new world.

He was drawn to the power and elegance of these noble creatures and began photographing them when he could.

The result of those departures from his normal urban environment is this stunning collection of images that caputre the energy and personality of those impressive creatures.

The sloping line of muscles on a horses' neck, a flowing mane, or the highly alert presence that is apparent in their eyes are the elements in his study of the equine world.

Makos successfully closes the distance from his art world esthetic to the rural setting where these horses live. The result is a new look at an old subject.

Makos let his instincts lead him and this allows him to avoid cliches and with his artist's eye we are presented with a new and unique examination of the horse world. He says in his introduction, "From that very first encounter in the Hamptons when I first started to really look at horses, I have now come to realize that each and every one of these animals has special and unique personalities. I never really understood horses; I think I do now. This book is for people who love horses. I have become one of you."

GENRE MAGAZINE, Mark Liebermann, November 2005

First an admission: I don't give a crap about horses. I have horse-loving friends; I think they're weird. But, the fact remains: Christopher Makos takes incredibly stunning photoraphs, which is what ultimately saved EQUIPOSE from my recycling bin. Whether he's shooting a model's abs or a horse's patoot, Makos brings a rich, erotic depth to his subject.

From the Author
Christopher Makos was born in Lowell, Massachusetts and grew up in California before moving to Paris to study architecture and, later, to work as an apprentice to Man Ray. Since the early 1970s Makos has developed a boldly graphic style of photojournalism, documenting the physical form as a signature appearing in all his work. During the 1980s he was a seminal figure in the New York art scene, where he was responsible for introducing the work of both Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring to Andy Warhol. It was Warhol who called Makos "the most modern photographer in America." His photographs have been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums internationally, with works shown at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Makos’ images have appeared in countless magazines and newspapers worldwide, including Interview, Rolling Stone, House & Garden, New York Magazine, Esquire, Genre, and People. He is the author of several important books including his most recent, Exhibitionism (Glitterati, 2004). Makos lives in New York.

Dotson Rader has written widely for publications both here and abroad, including The New York Times, The Sunday Times of London, The New Republic, and The Paris Review. Rader has published four novels and three works of nonfiction, including Tennessee: Cry of the Heart, An Intimate Memoir of Tennessee Williams (Doubleday, 1985). He has been a contributing editor to Esquire and Parade magazines. Rader lives in New York.

Customer Reviews

Equus: Finding the Mystery and Majesty
Christopher Makos has done the impossible: he has successfully elected to extend his special gifts as a portrait artist of famous people and as a sensual documentarian of the male nude to the realm of animals. EQUIPOSE is a survey of supple and wondrously articulate images of horses that goes far beyond the curious eye and enters the realms of sensuality/spirituality.

Makos uses the same observation skills for which he has earned acclaim in books and magazines and applied those skills to capturing the musculature, the sheen, the power and the disparity between the surface and the underlying massive musculature of the horse. In tender close-up details Makos allows the light and his eye for detail to marry and the result is our being able to observe the veins, the individual flicks of the mane, the eyes, the torsos and the legs of these beautiful animals is inspiring.

If it sounds as though this portfolio is about sensuality then the reader is justly prepared for this particularly satisfying foray into yet another realm of the prodigious gifts of Makos. I am reminded of the play 'Equus' in which a boy's psyche is closely bound to the horse. That is the kind of romanticism that Makos captures. And the results are stunning! Highly recommended. Grady Harp, December 05

Exhilarating!!
Makos on horses. I was curious of the photographers latest departure, being such a fan of his book EXHIBITIONISM, so I ordered EQUIPOSE, and found this latest work more evolved and with more humanity than ever before, ironically, on the subject of horses. This book is breathtaking. Makos takes his genius on capturing strength and vascularity of form, but of a different species, horses instead of humans.
Horses have never been seen like this. Makos has done it again.

Makos in the Winner's Circle reviewed by In the Know
Makos trains his practiced eye on horses and comes up with a fresh point of view. This book is a departure from his usual subject matter of objects, artists, and young men, yet the Makos aesthetic is present throughout. The photographs are beautiful and striking depictions of horses and the equestrian environment. Makos has achieved the rare coup of giving the viewer a new take on a classic subject. This is not a book of horse photos, but rather a new book of Makos photos that happen to be about horses.