Thus spoke LaChapelle

David LaChapelle (born 1963 in Farmington, Connecticut, USA) has ranked among the world’s most eminent photographers since the mid-1990s. His work has exerted an influence on dozens of other artists and over time, LaChapelle has evolved a style entirely his own, one which is recognizable at first glance. In the context of his exhibitions, the present show, entitled Thus Spoke LaChapelle and held at Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague, occupies a unique place. It is the first fully representative retrospective of his work, as it includes also his early works from the mid-1980s. His early photographs are only shown rarely, and the Prague exhibition is the first to present them in the context of the artist’s oeuvre thus far. The exhibition presents an extensive selection of LaChapelle’s work, surveying all of the seminal phases of his creative career. Still, the emphasis is largely on work created in recent years, when LaChapelle all but retired from fashion and advertisement commissions in order to revisit his artistic premises and independent work. The present exhibition includes all major works from this stage of his career, including the monumental pieces The Deluge (2006) and The Raft of Illusion Raging Towards Truth (2011).
Otto M. Urban, exhibition curator

“Throughout all the different chapters in my life it has always been my objective to engage the viewer, to connect wherever the images might be seen. A connection and a communication of ideas, feelings, obsessions, dreams, and visions. These pictures were most often created in an intuitive and synchronistic flow – conceived and manifested with collaborators who like, me were united in a vibrant consciousness. Much like musicians improvising together in a “visual jam-session”, to achieve a pictorial harmony, that will hopefully touch the beholder as music does.“
David LaChapelle, from the catalogue Thus Spoke LaChapelle