Chris Gianakos was born in New York in 1934. He studied at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in Manhattan, and since 1963 he has been ta professor at the same school. Since the 1960s, Yanakos has been a member of the New York avant-garde scene and is associated with post-minimalism and abstract expressionism. His works range from sculpture and installations to painting, but they all focus on geometric forms in relation to the urban landscape and architecture.

His works have been presented internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions and are held in major museums and collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, Fogg Art Museum in Harvard University, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Gothenburg Museum of Art, MoMus, Thessaloniki, European Cultural Centre of Delphi, etc.

He has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), and others. In 2004, he created a large-scale installation for the Olympic Games in Athens.

He lives and works in New York and Chania.