David La Chapelle at home in Paris

David LaChapelle, considered as the bad boy of contemporary art is making himself at home at "La Monnaie" (a famous French museum), in Paris. The exhibition, dedicated to the stars and fashion magazine's photographer gathers 200 images and facilities made between the 1990s and today. The exhibition was a good chance for anyone to immerse himself in the flash coloured trash world full of references to Art history or Gospels revisited at the porno chic sauce.
In David LaChapelle's world, women are naked with huge chests, men are overtanned with overproportioned sex and stars are put in unseen before situations. Shocking? Not really anymore. Vulgar? No more than the society flaied but the photographer. The photographer does his best to stigmatise not only the quirky world in which he lives but also its citizens with as much violence as irony as possible.
Just like Marylin's portrait by Andy Warhol. But here the face of the actress has been replaced by Amanda Lepore's, the transsexual whose face has been disfigured by plastic surgery."Recollection" (2006) , a series of paintings from the 1970s which have been fiddled with by computer emphasize the US's nationalism, the American's taste for guns as much as for alcohol, considered as the only way to party and have fun.
It's with a picture of his mother in a bikini, drinking a glass of Martini that David LaChapelle, now 45 years old entered the photography world. Andy Warhol then ordered a series of photos from him in 1982 in order to illustrate his magazine, "Interview". But the young David LaChapelle really got famous at the end of the 1980s, everyone wants a piece of his pictures that denounce the consumeristic society by advertising its products. One of the most famous examples are of the young girl crushed by a giant hamburger, but also one with a posh 50 year old woman whose 4x4 is attacked by an out-of-proportion red can.
Stars queue in order to be photographed by David LaChapelle. For them LaChapelle imagines crazy mise-en-scènes: Uma Thurman therefore becomes a poisonous Sleeping Beauty, Cameron Diaz becomes the heroine of a Magritte painting. Singers want their video clips to be made by him, until after filming a video for Madonna, the photographer realises that the world he lives in is going crazy.
Since then, he has never stopped designing apocalyptic visions, crazier than ever, shown in preview in the exhibition. His style has remained the same. As explosive as usual. But the message is more simplicistic, the shape is different as can be seen in "Auguries of innocence" with a 2D setting and a title borrowed from the poet William Blake. Pigs having sex, a prelate crushed by a harp, a diamond skull borrowed from Damian Hirst are actively involved, while all hopes have been put on a group of mixed-race children walking towards the sky. Alléluia!

The David LaChapelle exhibition is on at La Monnaie de Paris until the 31 of May.
Check out his official website: www.davidlachapelle.com/