Photographer David LaChapelle swept into Berlin on a wave of New York glamour, complete with entourage, for two exhibits of his work in the German capital.
Accompanied by transsexual muse and model Amanda Lepore, and Heatherette designer Richie Rich, LaChapelle spent a week at the beginning of December here, signing copies of his latest book, “Heaven to Hell,” and opening a show at the Helmut Newton Foundation. Titled “Men, War & Peace,” the three-in-one exhibition features 40 of LaChapelle’s pictures, the work of war photographer James Nachtwey and male portraits by the late Helmut Newton. The show runs until May 20.
“Newton has always been a photography god to me,” explained LaChapelle. “I was telling June [Newton] the other day that when I was growing up, I used to rip out Helmut Newton’s Yves Saint Laurent ads out of W and plaster them all over my bedroom.”
LaChapelle believes it is partly thanks to Newton that fashion photography is now taken seriously as an art form. “The crossover happened with Newton and [Robert] Mapplethorpe,” he said. “There was a time when you were either an artist or a commercial photographer. But then something interesting happened, and over the last few years we have started seeing lots of museum shows by fashion photographers.”
Parallel to the exhibition at the Helmut Newton Foundation, a mini exhibition of eight photographs of LaChapelle’s work is being displayed in Puma’s concept store in the central Mitte district here. Tucked away in a separate room, the photos are from the book “Heaven to Hell.” To lure visitors in, one of the store windows has been designed by LaChapelle, showing Lepore, dripping with smudged makeup, as a trashy transsexual version of Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe silk-screen prints.
Although known primarily for his magazine work, LaChapelle is going back to his roots with exhibitions: He first showed his pictures at a New York gallery in 1984, which led to a job at Warhol’s magazine, Interview. “Suddenly, I found myself working for magazines,” he remembered. “But I have always felt that fashion photographs are never supposed to have any content, or depth, or subtext. In fact, editors get angry when they do. But when you look at pictures at a gallery or a museum, you are supposed to look for content — which is great for me because I have always had that anyway. I have always used the medium of fashion photography to express whatever my own personal obsessions at the time have been.”
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And certainly LaChapelle couldn’t be accused of shying away from the big themes: Climate change, consumerism, instant gratification and conspicuous consumption are all there — even death. In the book’s title piece, Courtney Love is portrayed in a reenactment of “The Pieta.” The setting, a squalid hotel room lit by a naked light-bulb, is sordid, but the painted rays going up to heaven and a smiling angelic cherub in one corner give the scene a transcendent glory.
“Is it Mary the mother of God, or is it Mary the hooker from Third Avenue with her junkie boyfriend?” asked LaChapelle, looking at the picture. “It doesn’t actually matter. Either way, the passing of life is a sacred moment. I wanted to pay tribute to the small deaths, and say that just because someone is not depicted in history doesn’t make it any less profound.”