LaChapelle Heaven to Hell is the long-awaited third volume in an exhilarating trilogy that began with LaChapelle Land (1996) and continued with the infamous Hotel LaChapelle (1999). Packed with astonishing, color-saturated, and provocative images, those titles both became instant collector's items and have since gone through multiple printings. Featuring almost twice as many images as its predecessors, LaChapelle Heaven to Hell is an explosive compilation of new work by the visionary photographer. Since the publication of Hotel LaChapelle, the strength of LaChapelle's work lies in its ability to focus the lens of celebrity and fashion toward more pressing issues of societal concern. LaChapelle's images ? of the most famous faces on the planet, and marginalized figures like transsexual Amanda Lepore or the cast of his critically acclaimed social documentary Rize ? call into question our relationship with gender, glamour, and status. Using his trademark baroque excess, LaChapelle inverts the consumption he appears to celebrate, pointing instead to apocalyptic consequences for humanity itself. While referencing and acknowledging diverse sources such as the Renaissance, art history, cinema, The Bible, pornography, and the new globalized pop culture, LaChapelle has fashioned a deeply personal and epoch-defining visual language that holds up a mirror to our times. Sumptuously packaged in the trilogy's boxed hardcover format, LaChapelle Heaven to Hell is a must-have for anyone interested in contemporary photography. It is also keenly priced, especially for those who have coveted TASCHEN's limited edition, LaChapelle, Artists & Prostitutes. The artist: Not yet out of high school, DavidLaChapelle was offered his first professional job by Andy Warhol to shoot for Interview magazine. His photography has been showcased in numerous galleries and museums, including Tony Shafrazi Gallery and Deitch Projects in New York, the Fahey-Klein Gallery in California, Camerawork in Germany, Sozzani and Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Italy. His unfettered images of celebrity and contemporary pop culture have appeared on and between the covers of magazines such as Italian Vogue, French Vogue, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stoneand i-D. LaChapelle has also directed music videos for artists such as Moby, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and The Vines. His burgeoning interest in film saw him make the short documentary Krumped, an award-winner at Sundance from which he developed RIZE, the feature film released worldwide in 2005 to huge critical acclaim. American Photo recently ranked him as one of the top ten ?Most Important People in Photography.?
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?The only link between Andy Warhol and J-Lo.? ?GQ, London, on David LaChapelle
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Sumptuously packaged in the trilogy’s boxed hardcover format, LaChapelle Heaven to Hell is a must-have edition for anyone interested in contemporary photography. It is also keenly priced, especially for those who have coveted TASCHEN’s limited edition LaChapelle, Artists & Prostitutes.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good collection of his more recent work,
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This review is from: LaChapelle: Heaven to Hell (Hardcover)
I am a fan of David Lachapelle, however I mostly enjoy his more recent work (i.e., the colorful, surreal, sometimes bizarre photos of people and celebrities). Fortunately, Heaven to Hell highlights these recent works, with some photos coming from as recent as the early 2006. In addition, some of the photos from his crazy-expensive "artists and prostitutes" book are included here. I'd say the photos are split 50/50 between celebrity portraits and general artistic portraits. And, like his previous works, sexual overtones abound.
This is a large book that is substantially longer than his previous books (Lachapelle Land and Hotel Lachapelle). I am quite happy with this book. It showcases the style that has made David Lachapelle my favorite photographer.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Much Too Much to Absorb At One Sitting,
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This review is from: LaChapelle: Heaven to Hell (Hardcover)
We've all gone to an art museum and after about an hour of seeing one masterpiece after another, we've reached the saturation point and can really not properly absorb seeing any more art no how matter how great it is. This boxed, coffee table book of color photographs had the same effect on me as becoming saturated in an unfamiliar museum. This Taschen printed volume differs from his earlier "David LaChapelle" catalogue in that it is 11 1/4 by 14 1/4 inch format and it's possible to really study the photographs. Most of these images are slick, surreal, erotic fantasy images. There are a few relatively straight portraits of major celebrities. The Portrait of a self-satisfied looking Hillary Clinton standing behind her almost empty, spotless office desk is one of those relatively straight-forward portraits. The photo is titled "Hillary Clinton, Century 21, 2001." Thanks to the large format double-page spread the reader is able to notice a lonely red apple sitting on the desk like it was just left by a admiring student. Unfortunately the apple is rotten and one can almost see the worm crawling out from the large black hole in the side of the fruit. Was this portrait some kind of future omen?
The book has many series such as the "Scarface Series", the "Taxi Driver Series", "What Will You Wear When You're Dead? Series", "Jesus Series" and the "Drunken American Series." There are several pictures that weren't necessarily part of a particular series, but were the same locations and sets used in several different series. One fire ravaged bedroom was the set for a portrait of Pink and titled "We Used to Have Fun, 2002." The same set minus Pink, was titled "Tina Used to Be So Much Fun, 2000." In a previous book the same photo had the title "Mama Smoked A Crack Pipe and Wore Fancy Shoes, Los Angeles, 2000." There is nothing wrong with using different titles for the same pictures in a different use, but it is interesting to see. Changing the title can change the entire meaning of the photograph. Another example of the same photo with a different title is the one called "Pamela Anderson & Tommy Lee Pose Naked with Sharon Gault's Family, 1999." In "David LaChapelle" that same scene is titled, "Tommy Lee and Family, Los Angeles, 1999." This is such a wonderful book it's really impossible to do it justice. This one is more erotic and kinky than some of the photographer's earlier work, but even the nudes are so slick and plastic looking that they don't have much sex appeal. That's hard to imagine with so many photographs of Pamela Anderson, Lil' Kim, Angelina Jolie, and some of LaChapelle's other favorite drop-deal beautiful models and celebrities. Separating the various series are outstanding and far-out fanciful portraits of other celebrities including David Bowie, Sylvester Stallone, Philip Johnson, Robert Downey Jr., Muhammad Ali, Justin Timberlake, Jeff Koons, Alicia Keys, Elton John, Jocelyn Wildenstein, Toby Maguire, and Jude Law among others. Naturally the book contains plenty of LaChapelle's visual puns, parodies, far-side humor and satire. This is an amazing buffet of colorful visual delights. For some reason, it reminds me of looking at those wax or plastic models of meals or services that are so much a part of Japanese merchandising. That's not a criticism, just an observation. I very much enjoyed this collection of LaChapelle's concepts and finished pictures.
5.0 out of 5 stars
great value if you like his stuff,
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This review is from: LaChapelle: Heaven to Hell (Hardcover)
lots of celebrities, lots of strange sexiness, lots of stuff not safe for kids, fun.
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