Andy Warhol–Christopher Makos relationship

The Andy Warhol–Christopher Makos relationship emerges in the diary through shared movement: a concert outing, time in Hong Kong, and a planned return to Europe. Photography is part of this companionship, but the entries also show them navigating social occasions and unfamiliar situations together. Rather than offering a continuous account of the friendship, the diary preserves brief scenes in which Makos is a companion, photographer, or host, and Warhol’s remarks register both practical reliance and spontaneous unease.

Companionship on the road

On a trip to the Meadowlands Sports Complex, Warhol and a limo driver who admitted he was unsure of the route picked up Christopher Makos and Peter Wise. They went to see Blondie, with Duran Duran and David Johansen also on the bill. The diary records the outing as a group excursion, not a formal work appointment: the journey itself begins with the driver’s uncertainty, while Makos and Wise are included among the people Warhol chooses to bring along. The scene places their friendship within the ordinary logistics of Warhol’s social life, where concerts and travel were shared experiences.

The Hong Kong entries widen that picture. At lunch with Alfred Siu, Warhol met a group of women whom Siu thought might sit for portraits. Afterward, Siu’s wife took them to a fortune-telling venue. Makos began photographing fortune tellers who were asleep; the camera flash woke them, and they chased the group out. The episode makes photography more than a record of an outing: it becomes an action that changes the group’s circumstances. Makos’s camera attracts attention where the people photographed did not want it, and Warhol recounts the abrupt reversal from looking to being driven away.

Photography among friends

The diary also shows Warhol and Makos moving through settings where pictures were being made around them. At a dinner hosted by Alfred Siu, the party traveled by junk to Siu’s private boat, accompanied by a New York photography crew of seven whom Warhol disliked. The contrast is telling: Makos’s own photography appears in the earlier fortune-teller episode, while the dinner’s hired crew is described as an intrusive presence. The entries do not explain how the two men divided photographic work, but they show photography as a recurring feature of their shared social world, sometimes pursued by a friend and sometimes imposed by a production surrounding the group.

During the Hong Kong visit, the party also went to Disco-Disco, described in the diary as a drag-queen venue. An English woman asked Warhol to dance and remarked that he was unlike his newspaper image; he answered that he knew it. The account does not single out Makos as a participant in that exchange, but it situates the outing among the same group excursions and public encounters recorded during the trip. The diary’s attention stays on what happens in company: who photographs, who is recognized, and how a night out can turn into a moment of commentary on Warhol’s public image.

A companion in private settings

In May 1983, Warhol decided to take Makos to Europe again because he became nervous about being there alone while Fred Hughes was away on business. This is the clearest statement of practical reliance in the selected entries. Makos’s company mattered to Warhol in a specific circumstance: travel felt less comfortable without a companion, and he chose to return with Makos rather than make the trip alone. The wording presents this as a decision about company, not as a declared professional assignment.

Another May entry takes Warhol to Makos’s home, where John Sex was spending time with a boa constrictor used in his act. Warhol visited to take photographs, making about three rolls, but also noted that he was frightened of the snake. He described its presence in John Sex’s life, including that it slept with him, while focusing on the performer’s striking, exaggerated blond pompadour. This scene shows Makos’s home as a place where Warhol could encounter performers and make photographs, but it also preserves Warhol’s own response: curiosity and photographic attention coexisted with apprehension about the animal.

The relationship in the diary

Across these scenes, Makos occupies several overlapping positions: fellow concertgoer, travel companion, photographer, and host. The evidence does not define the friendship through a single declaration or describe its beginning or end. Instead, its shape is visible in recurring acts of inclusion: Warhol picks Makos up for an outing, travels with him abroad, and visits his home. These actions give the relationship a practical texture, grounded in shared mobility and access to social spaces.

The camera provides a recurring point of connection, but the diary keeps the distinction between their roles. In Hong Kong, Makos photographs the sleeping fortune tellers; at Makos’s home, Warhol himself takes photographs of John Sex. The entries therefore do not portray them as simply performing one stable photographic partnership. They show two people moving through a social world in which images are constantly being made, while their friendship is expressed in the less formal choices to travel, visit, and spend time together. The result is a portrait assembled from episodes rather than a narrated relationship arc: companionship appears in motion, in the company they keep, and in the situations Warhol chooses not to face alone.