Milan, at Mudec David LaChappelle's solo exhibition I believe in Miracles with new works

The major solo exhibition David LaChapelle. I Believe in Miracles, running at Mudec in Milan until Sept. 11, is the result of a lifelong journey of artistic research that chronicles an unprecedented and, in some ways, unexpected David LaChapelle. With an unprecedented project, curated by Reiner Opoku and Denis Curti together with the LaChapelle studio, Mudec hosts an exhibition itinerary that focuses on a critical look at the human soul, LaChapelle’s, investigated in its folds made up of pains, solitudes, joys, passions and ideals. Man and his relationship with himself, man in his surroundings and in human society, man in Nature. More than 90 works, including large formats, site-specific shots, new productions and a video installation, will be on display, aiming to offer the public the artist’s highly personal vision of a ’gestural’ photography, which is a tear on the present and an ’alert’ for the future to come.

From his training with Andy Warhol in 1980s New York and pop culture, David LaChapelle’s multifaceted artistic experience has landed in galleries, eventually culminating in a unique artistic photography characterized by an acute awareness of the times in which we live. Starting with his early works, an unprecedented series of works that are part of the new and visionary phase of production (the last one, dated 2022) result of the powerful legacy of his long artistic and human experience opens to the public’s eyes in a world premiere for the Museo delle Culture.

“LaChapelle,” the two curators explain in relation to the title of the exhibition, “invites us to create new relationships with people, with nature, with consumption, with spirituality. Another world is possible. David LaChapelle believes in miracles.”

Beginning with works that denounce the vulnerability of the planet and the fragility of man, along with a repertoire that looks to pop culture and the star system of film, music, and art, the exhibition unfolds through images revealing the vision of theartist toward a new world that seeks an unspoiled and lush nature where spirituality, love and beauty can coexist and where men and women can live finally freed from alienation and in union with their natural surroundings.

The exhibition is intended to be a personal journey steeped in memory and feelings, deliberately mixing non-chronological progression with the experiences of a professional and private life that in the end, are on the same plane. Many of the works in the exhibition hark back to the artist’s most famous series, such as the world-famous shots that have made David LaChapelle a living icon of pop culture. Superstars such as Madonna, Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, Kim Kardashian, David Hockney, Angelina Jolie, Elizabeth Taylor, Hillary Clinton, Muhammad Ali, Jeff Koons, Uma Thurman, and David Bowie have collaborated with him, and LaChapelle carries with him this legacy that is an integral part of his artistic world.

From the classic subjects of art history revisited with the aesthetic characteristics peculiar to his vision came Deluge (2006) and the subsequent series After the Deluge (2006-2009), both inspired by the Last Flood in the Sistine Chapel. In the series Land Scape (2013), LaChapelle invites the critical and conscious use of fossil resources, rejects anthropocentrism, and reminds us that human survival cannot be separated from that of nature. In the same direction is the work Spree (2019-2020) a production related to the conflicting theme of nature, civilization and ostentatious opulence. David LaChapelle has constructed a 35-centimeter model of a cruise ship stranded in a sea of ice, meant to represent the inexorable crash of the contemporary world and the ’shocking’ future we are living in. Revelations (2020), one of the artist’s latest series, on the other hand, is a tale of a contemporary society distressed by uncertainty and instability, in a scenario where the Apocalypse manifests itself to the point of panic and despair, but where a small glimmer of light and hope nevertheless remains. In New World (2007-2017), the desire for peace and purity is evident as it is transformed into an image: all the protagonists are immortalized in the enchanted rainforest and seem to be searching for new possibilities for interaction with nature and the world around them: a new way to connect deeply with the spirit of nature and human beings now appears as a real possibility.

In this new exhibition project, many of the works take on a new light, a greater awareness, as if observed retrospectively by the artist himself according to a renewed vantage point. Such is the case with the series of new shots exhibited for the first time in an exhibition after the “strong” experience of the two-year pandemic and conceived in the natural setting of the Hawaiian forests, where LaChapelle has set up his residency. The shots interpret some Bible passages and seem to declare a ’change of pace’. His style slowly becomes more intimate and reflective. The settings renounce, at least partially, the surreal dimension to drop into a more realistic atmosphere. The colors, less saturated than in previous works, invite us to go back in time to reflect on our values and the need to recognize ourselves even in a new world, the result of the ’miracle’. Inside the exhibition bookshop, in bookstores and online, the exhibition catalog David LaChapelle. I Believe in Miracles, published by 24 ORE Cultura.

For all information, you can visit Mudec’s official website.

Milan, at Mudec David LaChappelle's solo exhibition I believe in Miracles with new works

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