David LaChapelle was born in in Fairfield, Connecticut in 1963. He is an admired commercial, fashion, and fine art photographer known for his hyper-realistic photographs with clever social messages about popular culture, religion, and history. LaChapelle’s photography career started in the eighties when he began showing his artwork in galleries around New York. Andy Warhol presented David LaChapelle his first commercial photography show.
LaChapelle has accumulated a huge body of commercial and fine art photography, constructing superficial, vibrant color images that take signs from all regions f culture and art history, incorporating Pop and Surrealism alongside religious iconography and consumerist ideals. LaChapelle uses saturation to a great extent. Practically making his photography almost seem dreamlike. I think it’s striking, and I enjoy the bright colors that he uses. Nonetheless he may use a lot of Photoshop, I think LaChapelle’s photography shows a definite honesty throughout his photography.
He still shows what is real, but he exaggerates it and it definitely grabs your attention. His work is perceived as surreal and beautiful yet also highly bizarre. Many of his pictures are digitally enhanced and ften contain nudity. He celebrates the artificial and brings out a world of fantasy through his photos. Some of LaChapelle’s work has been based on the life of Christ, but he does a contemporary interpretation on it. He was brought up in a very catholic family, his uncle was a priest, so he’s been exposed to images of Christ from a young age, which have made an impact on him and influences his work today.
The photograph that I’ll be analyzing is a rendering of Michelangelo’s ‘Pieta’ called Pieta with Courtney Love. In this photo you see a woman cradling a dead body, while surrounded by “divine” light that lmost seems to make a halo around her head. The body of the man has the same pose as Jesus in ‘Pieta’ while being draped across her lap. His arm that is hanging down shows signs of stigmata as well as drug abuse, you can also see more signs of stigmata in his feet.
In the foreground of the photo there is a child that looks like a cherub baby doll playing with blocks that spell out “LaChapelle” as well as “Heaven To Hell”, which corresponds to Cobain taking his own life; the eternal struggle between anguish and peace. The woman who is rendered to be the Virgin Mary is Courtney Love and the dead figure of Jesus Christ is Love’s dead husband Kurt Cobain, lead singer from the band Nirvana. To the right of Love is a side table with an assortment of things. The clock, slightly obscured by medicine bottles, looks like it tells the time of about 2:30, which is apparently around the time that Cobain, was found.
The cherub-like child is supposed to represent their daughter they had together, Frances Bean. She’s sitting on the floor in front of the hospital bed that Love is sitting on. The location for the photograph is an eclectic bedroom; I think to reflect the room in which Cobain committed suicide. The walls of the room are decorated with an outdoor feel with trees on the wallpaper. The wallpaper also has lines, which could represent the rays of the sun. At the top of the picture, through the wallpaper you can see a flowery undercoat.
A lot of religious imagery and objects are in the room including candles and light stands. To left of the photo a Holy Bible is hidden slightly behind the draped hand of Cobain. Next to the Bible is a glass of red wine, next to a plate of a fish on the floor; all contribute to LaChapelle’s religious theme. Love is also wearing a blue dress, the Virgin Mary in numerous Renaissance paintings often wears this color of blue. Beer cans with the image of Christ sit on a table in the back with wine bottles, beside which is a light stand, which says “Faith”.
Electrical lights in the image have no shades and add rawness to the whole scene. An hidden light placed behind Love’s head diffuses light so it gives her almost a halo effect. Colors used by LaChapelle are vivid reds, oranges and yellow colors. The most vivid blue used draws the viewer’s eye to Love at the center of the photograph. In this photo LaChapelle demonstrates his use of hyperrealism. This photograph illustrates the parallels between faith and religion, and the adoration of pop culture icons. LaChapelle pays close attention to the smallest of details, which can express the biggest of messages.
To say the least, the picture seems to suggest that even ironic religion is a way of holding significant cultural figures. Possibly, because we not only want to know why artists suffer, but why we care about that suffering. In the art world they may argue that his works are pure fun, he counters that by filling each photograph with commentary and meaning. In his unique process, he composes photograph in the way a director creates a set, and encrypts each photograph with insinuations and specific images to hint at a deeper meaning.
The result of this vivid photography is a body of work that references certain things and is also very forward thinking. His work spans a wide variety of sub-genres, as well as subject matter. This is a quote said by LaChapelle “The essential order of life is a balance of the masculine and feminine. When this order is upset, the repercussions are an affectation of well being (illness), be that in an individual or a society. The most important consideration is what is being communicated – what feelings or thoughts are being transferred to the viewer – through what has been created.
My goal is clarity of intention. ” All in all, he wants to touch people with his art, people to have seen his photographs in a gallery come out feeling differently than they did when they had gone in. He feels that people achieve enlightenment through art: teaching them about themselves, the era they live in and there culture. I think that LaChapelle is a good example of a contemporary photographer who uses fashion within his images to increase he sense of emotions and spikes a strain of thoughts and curiosity in the viewer.
This makes his work perfect for advertisement but it is equally as powerful to hang on a wall. The obscure scenes he depicts have so much detail in them that your eyes can be lost in the images for hours and still find new angles and meanings to them. By bringing these social issues to light LaChapelle’s images transcend being simply advertisements and become art. His images are no longer used simply to sell an item or brand but influence us to ask questions about the state of the world in which we live.
