{"id":136812,"date":"2026-01-29T21:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T21:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/136812\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T21:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T21:58:10","slug":"world-renowned-photographer-david-lachapelle-opens-his-largest-ever-show-in-orlando","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/136812\/","title":{"rendered":"World-renowned photographer David LaChapelle opens his largest ever show in Orlando"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DavidDavid LaChapelle, \u201cThe House at the End of the World,\u201d Los Angeles, 2005 Credit: David LaChapelle<\/p>\n

We reach David LaChapelle at his lodgings near the Red Sea in the early evening last week. He\u2019s there for work, but stole away to swim in the sea and take in the splendor of the coral reef. \u201cIt was incredible,\u201d he says, quietly awestruck.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite taking our call at the end of a long day, he looks particularly fresh-faced and his mind is nimble, unspooling the history and concepts behind a decades-long body of work with total recall. He seems ageless.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Which all makes it surreal that this spry booked-and-busy artist is traveling to Orlando next week to be on hand for the opening of a new retrospective exhibition, As the World Turns, that spans the entirety of a career that started in the 1980s shooting for Andy Warhol\u2019s seminal Interview magazine. LaChapelle, however, is unfazed about getting the retrospective treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been taking pictures for so long. I started when I was 19. So I spent over 43 years, yeah, so it feels like the right time to do it,\u201d he says. \u201cEven though we\u2019re still doing work. I\u2019d like to think of it as a mid-career kind of thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

David LaChapelle: As the World Turns \u2014 opening Saturday \u2014 will reportedly be the largest U.S. museum retrospective of his works to date, presenting more than 100 pieces of art.<\/p>\n

The work featured in As the World includes well-known and fantastical portraits of the likes of Amy Winehouse, David Bowie, Madonna, Muhammad Ali, Charli XCX, Tupac Shakur and Doja Cat, as well as fashion editorials, early religious-themed works and some new, previously unseen pieces.<\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid LaChapelle, \u201cDoja Cat: Gone With the Wind,\u201d 2021 Credit: David LaChapelle<\/p>\n

LaChapelle has characterized it as almost a group exhibition, because it follows so many distinct chapters of his long career. So many David LaChapelles, if you will.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so many different themes and things I\u2019ve explored, from the very escapist and absurdist, surreal \u2014 I call it the shallow end of the pool \u2014 the more fashion-oriented stuff, or the portraits of pop stars. And then you have the deeper work that deals with my friends dying of AIDS, social issues, climate change, the flood of the future,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are so many different things that I\u2019m obsessed with. And the way I get that obsession out is to just make a photograph of it, to create art out of it and then I can sleep better at night once I\u2019ve exorcised it out of my system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Religion is a theme that continually resurfaces in LaChapelle\u2019s work, both new and old \u2014 the exorcism won\u2019t take, it would seem. We ask him about formative portraits from the 1980s of friends and lovers dying of AIDS, taken right at the beginning of the AIDS crisis. This was arguably the start of an activist streak running throughout LaChapelle\u2019s work, also taking in the \u201ckissing sailors\u201d shot taken during the World War II peace celebration in 1995, to the \u201cHouse at the End of the World\u201d and \u201cAfter the Deluge\u201d photos both from the early 2000s that vividly address climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"David LaChapelle, \u201cArchangel Uriel,\u201d 1985 Credit: David LaChapelle<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in New York City in the East Village. It was the best of times and worst of times, being 15 years old and living in the East Village, it was like a utopia. And then by the time I was 19, my first boyfriend had died, and I thought for 20 years that I was [HIV] positive. I just wouldn\u2019t even go to a doctor, because I assumed that I would be \u2026\u201d \u2014 he trails off momentarily \u2014 \u201cI didn\u2019t feel like I had much time. So there was an urgency to my work. I wanted to leave something behind. Seeing a lot of my friends die like that, so young in their early 20s, really made me question ideas of life after death. These pictures are my response to that. These were my answers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most attendees will be drawn to OMA to see LaChapelle\u2019s vivid, hyper-real celebrity and fashion work. These are images that have both traced the arc of popular culture and simultaneously shook it up with playful subversion. Among these photos is an iconic portrait of rapper Tupac Shakur in a bathtub \u2014\u00a0 \u201c\u2018coming clean\u2019 just after he got out of prison,\u201d per LaChapelle \u2014\u00a0 from 1996.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was an artist, and I think he was really set on being an actor. He was very humble and very, very smart and sensitive. I told him my ideas for the shoot, and he didn\u2019t have to look to his left or right to ask his publicist or agent if it was OK,\u201d LaChapelle remembers.<\/p>\n

This show is not all looking back. As the World also features new works, including \u2014 a continuation of his obsession with religious iconography \u2014 a massive fresco-inspired piece that will take up an appreciable chunk of the museum.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s inspired by the depiction of the Second Coming by Michelangelo; that fresco in the Sistine Chapel was just a subject that I\u2019m interested in and wanted to use that as a starting point. For years, I didn\u2019t know that Christ was the center of it. I thought it was an angel, because I\u2019ve never seen Christ depicted muscular and healthy without a beard,\u201d ponders LaChapelle. \u201cIt\u2019s an overwhelming piece that has hundreds of figures in it. I wanted to do a tribute to it, a modern exploration of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid LaChapelle<\/p>\n

We have to ask the globe-trotting LaChapelle if he has any personal experiences in Orlando. And he gives an answer that is both very David LaChapelle and, improbably, takes us back to where we began: the beauty of nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack in the \u201980s, my friend\u2019s family lived down there, and she invited me to go down there for a few weeks. She worked at CBGBs. We went down to visit her family, and every day she\u2019s like, \u2018Do you want to go to Disney World?\u2019 But I just wanted to go to Wekiwa Springs State Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was shooting photos, and I didn\u2019t know about the alligators. I was having my friend get out of the boat and pose. It was great! I\u2019m looking forward to doing that again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The weekend will be a busy one for LaChapelle \u2014 he\u2019ll be at the media preview and the premiere party on Friday and then giving a lecture (free with RSVP) with a book-signing at the museum on Saturday \u2014\u00a0 but we have high hopes he\u2019ll be able to squeeze in another Wekiwa visit before the world turns again.<\/p>\n

Opens noon Saturday, Jan. 31, Orlando Museum of Art, 2416 N. Mills Ave., omart.org<\/a>, $20.<\/p>\n

Orlando\u2019s daily dose of what matters. Subscribe to The Daily Weekly.<\/p>\n

Related Stories<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"CityArts\u2019\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tArt Pollination is a citywide program created with the intention of uplifting local artists\u2019 food insecurity-themed installations\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Orlando\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tAnd, yes, that does mean he\u2019s coming to Orlando at some point\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Orlando\u2019s\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe annual D\u00eda de los Muertos & Monster Party takes over the whole block in front of CityArts Gallery\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

This article appears in Jan. 28-Feb. 3, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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