The Edition

With over ninety works that trace his brilliant journey,  David LaChapelle (Fairfield, 1963) is on display for the first time in Friuli Venezia Giulia. Hosting the  David LaChapelle – Fulmini exhibition, curated by Studio David LaChapelle under the artistic direction of Gianni Mercurio, is the Salone degli Incanti in Trieste, a former historic large and bright fishmonger’s shop with windows facing the sea, used for years as an exhibition venue . “ I hope to instill optimism ”, so the American photographer , one of the most influential artists on the world scene, declares to the city.

THE LACHAPELLE EXHIBITION IN TRIESTE. NOT JUST POPS

The exhibition displays David LaChapelle’s entire career, not to mention some now iconic series ( Jesus is my homeboy, Pietas with Courtney Love , American Jesus: Hole me Carry me boldly with Michael Jackson , Deluge ) and other large-format and very recent unpublished series (2022). And it is precisely from one of the latter that we start, backwards, to underline an openly political side of his artistic research, which is not so evident at first glance.
Maintaining his allegorical style, combining narration and decorativeness, LaChapelle proves himself not only as one of the most surprising chroniclers of pop culture , but also as an acute, attentive and aware artist. “I think that art should be a vehicle of civil and spiritual communication and promotion accessible to all ”, the artist states. It is a news story that triggers the investigative curiosity: the LACMA, the prestigious museum of contemporary art in Los Angeles, has just concluded a 750 million dollar fundraiser for its expansion. LaChapelle replies with Gated Community (2022), a shot that reflects on the dramatic economic situation: California has the largest number of homeless people in the United States. Evoking Nomadland by Chloé Zhao, the film that won the Golden Lion in Venice (2020), the photographer portrays a vast tent city (tents branded with fashion brand logos) inhabited by homeless people who have occupied the ground in the new wing of the museum (already targeted with the work Seismic Shift , 2012, present in the exhibition).
As is known, his research combines formal order and narrative disorder by mixing cultured quotationism, classical art history and kitsch references . This happens in another shot of denunciation , Rape of Africa (2009), where, quoting Botticelli ‘s Venus and Mars (1485), he personifies a black Venus in an extraordinary and impassive Naomi Campbell, who scrutinizes the violence against Africa.

DAVID LACHAPELLE. THE GAME OF APPEARANCES

An exhibition full of suggestions, which opens with the Gas Station and Land Scape series , maquettes of petrol stations and refineries built to scale and then photographed in the context of a real landscape, such as the Maui rainforest and the Californian desert . The ruse triggers a subtle meta-photographic game (what is real and what isn’t?) and induces doubts about the efficacy of photography as a means of reproducing reality. Icing on the cake: an entire room is dedicated to shots concerning the false myths , appearances and illusions of the society of the 90s-2000s, which are still very current in reality.
If you forget to read the captions at the exhibition, you will only half enjoy the works: ironic, sharp, unsettling, contemporary obsessions, consumerism, the relationship with the body and an unbridled need to appear. Quoting Paul Gauguin : “ Where do we come from ? Who  are we ? Where are we going ?” LaChapelle’s barbies seem to scream at us, beautiful, highly decorated and fashionable, in devastated, desolate, apocalyptic scenarios. Can you help us? ”, a caption of the series fits perfectly.

LACHAPELLE IN TRIESTE. LOVE IS THE ANSWER

And optimism arrives, as promised. The escape route lies in the photos taken in the earthly paradise of Hawaii , among idyllic landscapes populated by mythological figures and rare and pulpy flowers. It is love, understood as pure love and universal respect for all of creation . In Our lady of the flowers ( 2018 ) and in The end of battle (2015) it is the harmony with the whole, the balance of steps, the feeling of nature, the laying down of weapons and violence. But the final answer is in the last room, titled: Revelations (2019). Here too, in a desolate and windy American suburb, halfway between David Lynchand Zabriskie Point, two agées, he in formal suits and she in hippie hues, hug each other and kiss. Citing the planetary myth of the King of Pop and great friend of the artist, Michael Jackson (“ Michael Jackson is my hero ” declared LaChapelle) in I Just Can’t Stop Lovin’ You : “ Love is the answer ”.