LaChapelle’s images—of the most famous faces on the planet, and marginalized figures like transsexual Amanda Lepore or the cast of his critically acclaimed social documentary Rize—call into question our relationship with gender, glamour, and status. Using his trademark baroque excess, LaChapelle inverts the consumption he appears to celebrate, pointing instead to apocalyptic consequences for humanity itself. While referencing and acknowledging diverse sources such as the Renaissance, art history, cinema, The Bible, pornography, and the new globalized pop culture, LaChapelle has fashioned a deeply personal and epoch-defining visual language that holds up a mirror to our times.
David LaChapelle was offered his first professional job by Andy Warhol to shoot for Interview magazine. Since then his work has been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, including Tony Shafrazi Gallery and Deitch Projects in New York, and London's Barbican. His images have appeared in countless magazines including Vogue Italia, French Vogue, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone and i-D. In recent years he has expanded into music videos, live theatrical events and documentary film-making.
