Icarus, 2012
David LaChapelle
Burning Beauty 30 november - 3 mars 2013 Fotografiska Museet, Stockholm
Burning Beauty
November 30 - March 3, 2013
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In a career spanning 30 years, David LaChapelle (b. 1963) has
developed an imagery that blurs boundaries and created a universe of his
own, which embraces people of all genders, colours, body types and
ages. His photographs are influenced by everything from movies and
amateur photography to art history and pornography, which he transforms
into elements of his artistic vision. LaChapelle’s border-transgressing
aesthetics combines conventions from commercial and artistic photography
and comprises the ideals of classical art as well as an alternative
contemporary perspective, with roots in popular and subculture.
For
Fotografiska, David has a very special significance. Four years ago,
Jan and Per Broman organised a presentation of LaChapelle’s work in
Nacka. The exhibition was a great success and prompted them to create
Fotografiska: an inspiring meeting place that has developed into one of
the world’s most prominent venues for photography. Today we celebrate
this with a presentation of LaChapelle’s largest exhibition to date, Burning Beauty,
which comprises over 250 works, music videos and films. This is the
first, and possibly only, time that we will devote the entire museum to a
single artist for a period of three months. The presentation includes
photographs from all periods of his career, from the 1980s to the
present day, organised under thematic headings. The top floor of the
exhibition is dedicated to a premiere viewing of the artist’s most
recent series: Still Life (2012).
David LaChapelle is best
known for his glamorous and absurd images from the world of fashion,
celebrities and models, but this exhibition presents all the aspects of
his oeuvre. On display are early black-and-white photographs as well as
his more recent culture-critical motifs and art historical paraphrases.
The ability of the photograph to transcend the limitations of the real
world and the everyday is an overall theme that interconnects
LaChapelle’s work. With his imagery, he combines consumer culture’s
glossy and naked aesthetics with a gaze characterised by a persistent
social critique and a sincere aspiration for spirituality, beauty and
the divine.
David LaChapelle’s iconography is firmly anchored in
the heart of the turbulent visual culture of recent decades and offers a
mosaic of passion, humour, exaggeration and critical reflection. His
perspective is often paradoxical and the drastic address is captivating
and invites the viewer to laugh, enjoy, critique, reflect and debate.
Curators: Patrik Steorn, Min-Jung Jonsson
Fonte:
Segnala:
Amalia di Lanno
