breaking free Text: Rachel Duffell Images: David LaChapelle

David LaChapelle’s talent was first recognised by in the early 1980s. Since then LaChapelle has photographed a host of celebrities, placing them in his cinematic, dynamic and instantly recognisable photographs. In 2006 he cut himself off from that world, disillusioned by the increasing constraints that were being put on him and his form of expression. However, he recently returned to photography, this time pursuing it purely as an art form and a means to conveying the messages that the fashion world tried to contain.

46 47 When the World is Through, 2005, Chromogenic print © David LaChapelle

t is David LaChapelle’s first ever exhibition in Hong Kong when Elizabeth Taylor, Hillary Clinton, Muhammad Ali and Britney we meet. At a press preview the previous day, he spoke eloquently Spears, among many others, as well as directing music videos for Iand extensively about his newest works and his career, taking , , , The Vines and , numerous questions from the assembled media. Yet in a private, staging live theatrical events and even financing and making a one-on-one interview the following day he appears almost nervous. documentary film. He made it to the very top of his game. His hands move continuously and his eyes dart around the room that is just a few floors up from the de Sarthe Fine Art gallery where But in 2006 LaChapelle departed from the world of fashion his exhibition, entitled ‘The Raft’, is displayed. The arrival of his photography. He’d had enough. Having been featured in magazines green tea is almost a relief for the artist as he has something to keep including Vanity Fair, and Vogue, and released three his hands busy, sipping frequently from the cup and refilling from books of his works, he states that, “It was time. I’ve lived my life the pot before it’s even empty. But he eventually relaxes and even pretty intuitively. The third book had come out and it was getting lets out the occasional laugh; his hands cease their wringing as he increasingly difficult to get my pictures published in fashion speaks on a range of subjects, from his life’s work to his new-found magazines because I was commenting, very paradoxically, about freedom. materialism. The constant subtext was getting heavier as I got older. I was looking at things and questioning things in more obvious ways David LaChapelle began his successful career as a professional than the magazines would prefer and the pictures were outgrowing photographer for Interview magazine, the publication founded the idea of what they were there for. The concepts were, in the eyes in 1969 by Andy Warhol who discovered LaChapelle. Prior to of the editors, interfering with the selling of what they were selling,” being scouted, he had been exhibiting his work in La Chapelle explains. So in 2006 he stopped working. Entirely. galleries, following a stint studying at the School of Arts. At Interview, LaChapelle began shooting the stars of the At this pause in the interview, a PR representative pops her head day, capturing on film some of the most famous faces of . around the door to check that everything is going ok. “It’s awful!” With each successful portrait or fashion shoot came further offers bellows LaChapelle with a grin. Though the green tea continues from ever more prestigious titles and over what became a 20-year to flow from pot to cup at his behest, he seems to have relaxed career, LaChapelle took pictures of the likes of Madonna, Eminem, somewhat. And that’s not just in terms of the interview. Having

48 Big Boss, 2010, Chromogenic print © David LaChapelle Fear of Dragon, 2010, Chromogenic print © David LaChapelle

moved his concentration away from fashion editorials and the Since then, there really has been this rebirth. I am very committed to deadline-filled world of publishing, he is today very content focusing the pictures that I’m doing and really want to make them as clear as I on art for art’s sake. “It’s what I began with. I started in galleries can and communicate as best I can. That’s the goal.” in the 1980s in New York. I love taking photographs. I love doing what I’m doing right now, exhibiting and making shows, or series In 2010 LaChapelle presented an exhibition at the Museum of of work, for museums and galleries. I find it really fulfilling and the Contemporary Art in Taipei organised by de Sarthe Fine Art, challenges… well, it’s up to me to make it as challenging as I want LaChapelle’s exclusive representation in Asia. He then showed his to make it. If it’s not, that’s my own problem. The still image is as work for the first time ever in Hong Kong in ‘The Raft’, a collection powerful as any other form of art.” of images which he made especially for the show. The overarching ideas behind the artworks were concerned with finding personal And that’s not the only thing. A certain carefreeness accompanies peace through whatever means, perhaps through faith or even by LaChapelle’s departure from magazines. “I have a great deal of gaining enlightenment. The centrepiece of the exhibition, ‘The freedom with what I do right now, and a perfect balance, so I have Raft of Illusion: Raging Toward Truth II’, is a collage made up of time in my life for other things. I think that in order to be my best, photographs taken by LaChapelle, cut-up and stuck together to show just as a human being first of all, and secondly as an artist, you a raft in the raging currents of a storm at sea. “I really love collage,” must have balance. Hollywood isn’t something that interests me. says the artist of his chosen medium, which harks back to his early Filmmaking doesn’t interest me,” he continues, referring to a foray days of exhibiting when he used the medium frequently. “It’s sort into film where he created the documentary ‘Rize’, about a dance of tactile, the opposite of foundry-made work. For me there’s a little movement in South Central Los Angeles. “I still occasionally do a more of a human touch. Even though it’s photography, there is still job that I guess is in the commercial realm if it fits into my schedule this craft element to it that I really love.” and it’s something fun. If all the elements are in place and when it feels right, I’ll do it. but it’s only two or three days of my time, and LaChapelle photographed people on a raft on some rocks in Hawaii, the benefit of it is that is keeps my crew working.” many in uncomfortable positions, to gain the energy and drama that he has always managed to capture so expertly, not only in this work When LaChapelle first left the world of magazines, he left it entirely. but in photographs throughout his career. He then began to layer the He stopped working. “I just really thought I was going to be a cut-up the photos on top of one another. “I didn’t want to put it in farmer. I thought, I’m going to have this farm…but I knew I had the water digitally because I’d never worked that way before. I don’t more pictures left in me, which I was a little sad about, but I didn’t think I would have been successful.” Instead he created multiple have an outlet.” LaChapelle had never really considered exhibiting in layers to get the feel of water, mainly using corrugated cardboard, galleries, but when the option was presented to him, he felt it was a “a humble material, but I find it really beautiful to work with and it revival of sorts. “It opened up this whole new world and a door that gives certain dimensions.” I didn’t think was open, which was gallery and museum exhibitions.

49 There’s more to the piece than its medium too, as LaChapelle said, “You’re going to be homeless”,” says LaChapelle with a laugh. explains. “We all go through storms in our life and I’m just offering “That haunted me. I took on everything. But, then again, there was my personal interpretation. Things happen to us, dark times or freedom in that too. I didn’t wind up in debt like other photographers storms through which we either drown and die, or we rise above, and I was also able to finance a film that I really believed in.” make it the shore and gain empathy or enlightenment,” he says of the striking work which comments too on society and the anxiety However, following the filming of ‘Rize’ came a moment when inherent in it as the world faces some of the greatest problems it has he knew it was the end. Many things had come together to reveal in recent times with the uncertainty of our planet’s future. to LaChapelle that it was time to move on. “I just couldn’t go on taking photographs of celebrities as it didn’t interest me anymore.” In keeping with the location of the exhibition, the show also featured To coincide with this confluence of signals that it was the end of a three works featuring Bruce Lee, more typical in style of some of chapter, LaChapelle’s dream property appeared on the market, a his magazine works and inspired by film posters of Lee. These too secluded farm in Hawaii that would mean he really could get away were collage works but created in a different way with elaborate sets from it all. “I had always wanted a cabin in the woods,” states the which included extremes of scale. Like most of LaChapelle’s works artist dreamily. “I’d often go to this little town in Maui to get away which often feature carefully designed sets, the resulting images are from everything,” he says of the rare occasions that he was able to real and not digital composites and the shoots have been theatrically take time off from work. “I was there (in Maui) doing an advertising staged and photographed whole, with the features of the characterʼs job and my friend told me there was a farm there for sale,” recounts face adjusted to resemble Bruce Lee. LaChapelle, his eyes bright like an excited child. “I knew then that this was what I was looking for. It’s a much better life now than Despite similarities in the style of some of LaChapelle’s works today before, much more balanced, and I have more time to think, and compared to the heyday of his career, it is nevertheless removed take care of myself. I’m much kinder to myself and, subsequently, from his commercial projects. He is able to comment freely on everyone around me.” It is here that LaChapelle works and spends society and the issues that matter to him through his art, and can most of his time, though he continues to keep a studio in Los fully concentrate on new pieces. “It takes a lot longer now, having Angeles for some of his more elaborate artistic ventures. quit working in publications. I spend much more time in the process of drawing and thinking about what particular images will look like LaChapelle is at ease. He has reached a state of contentment, free and what they will incorporate. If don’t like something, I can go from the pressure of working to the strict deadlines and fixed limits back and re-shoot it and spend a lot more time on it which is great; of publishing. It is almost as if finally, he is able to create the images it’s a luxury from having to always make a deadline under pressure. which over his extensive career he has been building up to, returning It’s a completely different way of working,” states LaChapelle. But at the same time to the work that originally set him off on his path to he is quick to give credit to his career which has put him where success. LaChapelle has come full circle. Would he change any of it? he is today, and ultimately enabled him to work as a gallery and That remains left unanswered. For now he’s just happy to be healthy museum artist. “I learned everything through working in magazines. and free to enjoy life. But it is clear he has some fond memories of I cut my teeth on that. It was a really good place to learn how to moments from his career, as well as some important lessons which communicate, get the work done, and if you want things to look a he learned along the way. certain way, how to achieve that.” “People always surprise you when you photograph them. I never Through art and balance, LaChapelle has found his personal peace. aspire to be friends with the people I photograph. I’m buddies with “I enjoy my life much more now. At the very beginning there was my crew because they’re like my family. But someone like Pamela the pressure of failure, and you’re not quite sure what you’re doing. Anderson…” recounts LaChapelle fondly, citing her genuineness, You are still experimenting but you don’t have all the tools in place. kindness and intelligence as the basis of a connection and resulting I built a crew over the years who became very loyal and the work that has lasted over 17 years. One of the photographer’s early became much easier as I could start delegating. You don’t have to do assignments was to photograph the Baywatch star during the everything yourself,” says LaChapelle, though he takes great pride television show’s first season. Working on several jobs together over in his work and, as he states later, is “pretty hands on with what I the years, the two became firm friends and LaChapelle even later do. I’m cutting those pictures up, gluing them onto the walls and I’m introduced her to Kid Rock, as he remembers with a laugh, going on really involved.” But it got to a point when the artist just couldn’t to tell amusing anecdotes from the pair’s wedding. “You just can’t say no, and he became a self-professed workaholic. “I think part of it judge a book by its cover and you can never judge a person by what was the fear instilled in me from not finishing high school. My mum you think they’re about. You’re always going to be surprised.” 50 The Raft of Illusion, Raging Toward Truth II © David LaChapelle

Tupac Shakur was another surprise assignment for the photographer. to shoot me as a slave?” To LaChapelle’s relief he was “down with Having just come out of prison, LaChapelle expected “this real that” and “it was a beautiful day.” Again, LaChapelle learned never hardcore gangster thug stereotype.” The singer arrived two hours to judge someone from the outside. early for the shoot. “No rapper ever comes two hours early,” exclaims LaChapelle as he again reminisces warmly. “Six hours late, While the photographer looks back somewhat nostalgically on these at least! I had been working with rap stars for a long time and none highlights of his career, it is clear that there were other moments of them had ever arrived early in my entire experience.” Caught off that he does not remember in quite the same positive light. But all guard, LaChapelle had been vague about the concept for his shoot. of that is behind him now and he has an incredible oeuvre to show “I’d learned long before not to tell people my ideas or what I was for it, whether you agree with the criticisms that his work is purely going to do because when you try to describe something visual it commercial or accept that his skillful photographic compositions, oftentimes falls very flat and there’s a million reasons to say no. both from the past and today, can truly be regarded as art. And his If you tell people ahead of time, they’re likely to say no to protect oeuvre looks set to continue to expand. With his new-found freedom themselves. So I learned to be as vague and evasive as possible and he strives harder, spends more time to convey his messages more put up these smokescreens about exactly what I was going to do clearly, and to enjoy his work and life even more. Seemingly happy on the day of the shoot,” explains LaChapelle. On this occasion, with his new found role and the potential it brings to extend his he wanted to shoot Tupac as a slave, based around the idea that rap artistic expression and go back to his roots, LaChapelle is looking evolved from call and repeat to keep slaves from losing their minds forward to showing his work in Singapore next year and is thrilled to in the fields where they were picking sugar cane or cotton. “One be in such a receptive part of the world. “I think people here are very might yell out a lyric or limerick and another would answer back optimistic and you don’t find a lot of cynicism. Thereʼs a great deal and they would amuse themselves that way so the day would go by of receptivity and interest in the arts so it’s an exciting place and an faster. That’s what I had heard about rap music’s roots were.” When interesting time to be exhibiting. I’m very lucky.” Tupac arrived, LaChapelle had a ploughed field, a mule, bales of cotton and a whole cast ready. He explained somewhat nervously to David LaChapelle is represented exclusively in Asia by de Sarthe the rapper whose response was, “Let me get this straight, you want Fine Art, 8/F Club Lusitano Building, 16 Ice House Street, Central, Hong Kong.

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