Film, Fashion, and the Arts Come Together to Celebrate Szilveszter Makó’s Mythic Universe

Photographer Szilveszter Makó is everywhere this fall. The Hungarian-born artist shot Vogue’s two international September covers with Cardi B and Olivia Rodrigo, and earlier this week, Interview magazine unveiled its new issue in which Sandra Bullock poses within his dreamlike stills on the cover. On the evening of September 9, however, the photographer himself was present at a dinner co-organized by global private art membership club and creative agency The Cultivist and Capital One to celebrate their immersive presentation of his dreamlike vision.

Titled Bauhaus Ballet, the six-room installation in Chelsea translates Makó’s whimsical photographic universe into a three-dimensional wonderland in which his familiar props such as ornate silver cutleries and elegant flowers appear in lifelike scales and, in this case, visitors engage with the artist’s signature images as subjects. The presentation allows guests to pose on massive porcelain plates or within old world–inspired photo booths just like Rihanna, Cate Blanchett or New York City’s First Lady Ram Duwaji did for different editorial shoots that have made Makó a closely watched photographer in a handful of years.

“I wanted to create a space where visitors can step inside my work and experience the ideas, memories, and references that shape my practice,” Makó told Galerie. “Every object in Bauhaus Ballet is a character that holds a history: bare brick walls, inherited cutlery, and familiar household objects are hand-plucked from a world where little was wasted, and everything carried a previous life.”

The show remains open to the public through September 12, but dinner guests had the first look at the folkloric mise-en-scène which continues the creative collaboration between The Cultivist and Capital One that has included projects with Alex Prager, Hassan Hajjaj, and Anna Weyant in Miami and New York. Makó’s impressive trajectory of capturing some of entertainment’s biggest figures—think Bad Bunny, Willem Dafoe, Miley Cyrus, Michelle Yeoh, Elle Fanning, and Marina Abramović—was echoed in the soirée, which included Adrian Brody, Katie Holmes, Julia Fox, Moses Sumney, and Waris Ahluwalia, as well as Knicks players Jordan Clarkson and Tyler Kolek. Painter Nicolas Party, musician Kelsey Lu, sculptor Hugh Hayden, fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, Carbone co-founder Mario Carbone, and The Cultivist founder Marlies Verhoeven were also among the guests who walked through the constellation of rooms decorated with elements from Makó’s practice.

Hungarian fables, Eastern European puppetry, early cinema, and childhood memories all coalesce in the series of domestic settings with playful scales and configurations. In line with the project’s overlap with New York Fashion Week, a generous portion of the installation features clothes from designers that include John Galliano, Richard Quinn, Marc Jacobs, Dóra Abodi, and Hodakova. Mythic and era-defying, the outfits dress mannequins with houses instead of heads—the gesture is, in fact, a signature of Makó’s and has seen Dafoe and Blanchett both don houses as headpieces for their shoots. A portion of the installation displays his photographic oeuvre, which includes a collaboration with none other than the dinner guest Brody. Although the two-time Oscar winner had his own session with Makó for the project alongside British actress Gwendoline Christie, he was still eager to test the installation’s interactive props with his partner, fashion designer Georgina Chapman.

Inside the dramatically staged dining room, tables were decorated with Makó’s visual vocabulary in mind. Flowers, vases, cutlery, and fire icons, all blown up to surreal scales and hand-embroidered by local artisan Basak Agaoglu, dressed three long tablescapes, while soaring drapes painted with erratic bodily figures by Marc Ranger enveloped the intimate gathering. Created by James Beard Award nominee Jeremy Salamon, the menu started with caviar bites and crescendoed with a contemporary twist on the goulash. Hungarian touches also spilled into the wine selection, which offered a range from the nation’s Tokaj and Eger regions. “Szilveszter’s universe brings back whimsy to the picture,” said Salomon, whose main course was followed by electro-pop musician Banks for a dramatic performance in line with the night’s mythic atmosphere.

Bauhaus Ballet is on view at Iron23 through September 12, 2026.