If you've never seen Christopher Makos' portraits of Andy Warhol entitled Altered Images, a selection from this 1981 artistic collaboration is now on view at Yancey Richardson Gallery

Using highly theatrical makeup and a variety of wigs, Warhol transformed himself into a number of female personas, several of which embody attributes of his own celebrity subjects. Wearing a man's shirt and plaid necktie in some of the photographs, Warhol himself, nevertheless, utterly disappears. Reached by phone this morning, Richardson offered some thoughts on the project, and her role as curator.

"I decided to use the vintage prints because they carry an aura of that moment in time. Also, the small scale of the prints creates an intimate effect. Of the 349 images in the series, which was shot over a 2-day period, I selected the 40 I felt were the strongest. Then I began to group the different personas Warhol had created. In some, he locks eyes with the viewer, presenting a gutsy, self-assured individual. In others, especially in the series with a black wig, Makos framed his subject with a great deal of white space above; here, you see this person who is very dignified, but alone and quite vulnerable. I think the fact that Makos and Warhol were close friends who worked together for years had a lot to do with the strength of the collaboration."

The images, which are really the documentation of a performance rather than portraits, seem haunted. Richardson continued. "You look at these and ask, Who was Andy Warhol? People who knew him say he was a mirror of where he was and who he was with. He went high, running around with socialites like Lee Radziwell, and he went low, hanging out with punkers and street people. As Ingrid Sichy, the editor of Interview said, he was like a chameleon. She always thought that in one way or another, Warhol, who always wore a wig, was always in a kind of drag."

The exhibition continues through June 29. In the adjacent Project Gallery, photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe, Yasumasa Morimura, Nikki S. Lee, Pierre Molinier, and Lyle Ashton Harris explore the theme, Persona. Photographs by Christopher Makos, courtesy of Yancey Richardson Gallery.