Andy Warhol, Green Marilyn (1962)
 
Holy fuck, has it really been fifteen years since Being John Malkovich came out? I still think of that as a “new” movie, but of course it’s not anymore.

Everyone’s favorite scene from Being John Malkovich is the brief reverie in which we discover what happens when John Malkovich himself descends into the Malkovich portal (that scene is embedded below). If you’re in Chicago this holiday season, you might want to take an hour to check out an amusing photography exhibit that seems inspired by that very scene, even the title. Sandro Miller’s “ Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters” is a whimsical and yet, by all appearances, high-overhead project in which Miller has recreated roughly thirty of the most famous portraits of the twentieth century, by photographers famous enough for you to have heard of—names like Avedon, Arbus, Lange, Warhol, Mapplethorpe, Halsman, Leibovitz, etc. You can catch it from November 7 to January 31 at Catherine Edelman Gallery on 300 W. Superior St in Chicago. The whole thing is quite a hoot—Malkovich’s fleshy mug manages (in part thanks to Being John Malkovich) to imbue every last pic with a feeling of faux-pompous levity.

Miller and Malkovich have collaborated before. In 2011 we brought you this bizarre video short called “Butterflies,” directed by Miller and featuring Malkovich.
 

Diane Arbus, Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey (1967)
 

Arthur Sasse, Albert Einstein Sticking Out His Tongue (1951)
 

David Bailey, Mick Jagger “Fur Hood” (1964)
 

Philippe Halsman, Salvador Dalí (1954)
 

Pierre et Gilles, Jean Paul Gaultier (1990)
 

Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California (1936)
 

Andy Warhol, Self Portrait (Fright Wig) (1986)
 

Robert Mapplethorpe, Self Portrait (1983)
 

Richard Avedon, Ronald Fisher, Beekeeper, Davis, California, May 9 (1981)
 

Irving Penn, Truman Capote, New York (1948)
 

Yousuf Karsh / Ernest Hemingway (1957)