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    in Exhibitions

    ‘I Want to Make Pictures That Mean Something’: David LaChapelle on Turning Away From Celebrity Portraits to Create More Enigmatic Images

    Earlier this week, David LaChapelle was giving a preview tour of his new exhibition to a small press cadre. He passed a wall of iconic big-budget glamour images that hung in chic cobalt-painted frames. The vamping models in heavy makeup were out-of-step with today’s post-2020 fashion landscape—and apparently with the photographer himself.
    “Those are just fashion images they don’t mean anything,” he said, dismissively waving his hand, and without pausing lead the group to the next room.
    Eminem: About to Blow (1999, New York), a detail from LaChapelle’s Vox Populi wheatpaste poster installation. Photo: ©David LaChapelle, courtesy of Fotografiska New York.
    LaChapelle is best known as a celebrity photographer nonpareil. His shoots are high-concept (and high-budget) with lurid colors that pop like Skittles. The retrospective “Make Believe,” which opens today at Fotografiska New York, is a reminder that there is much more to LaChapelle than his Hollywood forays, and that he is in fact, a lot more interesting when he veers away from the glitz.
    Yes, there are cameos by Madonna, Lizzo, and Tupac in the show. But the exhibition utilizes the minimum of his vast celebrity fodder in the more than 150 works spread across Fotografiska’s five floors. It is the artist’s first solo New York museum outing and his largest-ever exhibition, and showcases work from 1984–2022.
    Good News for Modern Man II (1984, New York). Photo: © David LaChapelle, courtesy of Fotografiska New York.
    The show makes the argument that there is a vast difference between a “best of” and a “greatest hits.” “Make Believe” is more of the former and illustrates how far LaChapelle has come, but also in many ways, how he’s remained unchanged.
    The show is only a few blocks from 303 Gallery, where LaChapelle had his first shows in 1984. “Angels, Saints, and Martyrs” depicted his East Village cohort posing in dramatic religious tableaux. At the heart of these works was a profound daily meditation of mortality.
    “My friends were dying of AIDS so fast, I thought I was dying, too,” Lachapelle said. One of those early black and white works is on display, a triptych warmly printed with a saturated Man Ray metallic sheen. A female nude reaches for divine light. “She’s wearing a wig because everyone had short spiky hair,” LaChapelle said.
    Behold (2015, Hawaii). Photo: © David LaChapelle, courtesy of Fotografiska New York.
    As the press tour continued, we came across a recent image of a Christ-like figure in the woods. LaChapelle explained that the model is a dancer who is currently going through hardships, and then described how he makes the halo effect by using revolving LED lights and slow exposure.
    A devout Catholic, LaChapelle frequently references Christ and during the tour he was dressed like a hip prophet, in nerdy black spectacles, orange Nike dunks and a shirt, hand-painted by his friend, the artist Stefan Meier, that was adorned with images of flaming doves, flowers, and hands with eyes. The words “Rain Stars Ultra Super Universe” were printed across the back.
    LaChapelle revealed that he is again staging Bible-inspired scenes from his home base in Hawaii. He decamped there in 2006, escaping his gilded cage of celebrity success and excess in New York—and started cranking out a lot of work that critiques his former milieu.
    Aristocracy: Private Pirates (2014, Los Angeles). Photo: © David LaChapelle, courtesy of Fotografiska New York.
    A standout in the show are the still-life images from 2011’s “Earth Laughs in Flowers” series. Heady and romantic, LaChapelle was clearly inspired by Dutch masters and the photos look like oil paintings. But beauty camouflages decay. If you look closely, the sickeningly sumptuous blooms are beginning to wilt. Some are surrounded by cellophane, discarded cell phones, abandoned drugstore teddy bears, and other detritus.
    “Vanitas traditionally are about the brevity of life,” LaChapelle said. “This one is kind of like our world today. Shopping online or for sex on apps—it’s like people shopping for body parts.”
    Also of note is 2006’s darkly clever “Recollections in America” series, in which he sourced random vintage snapshots from eBay, inserted other characters and altered the final images.  Another eye-catching series from 2014 featured private planes haphazardly flung about and floating in surreal, gradient airspace.
    Earth Laughs in Flowers: Wilting Gossip (2008–11, Los Angeles). Photo: © David LaChapelle, courtesy of Fotografiska New York.
    And although many of the photographer’s usual celebrity subjects are absent, transgender nightlife icon and forever LaChapelle muse Amanda Lepore looms large. In one image, she snorts a line of diamonds through a cocaine straw (the artist mentioned that this was a statement on materialism). Elsewhere she poses as a garish fever dream of Andy Warhol’s Marilyn and Liz.
    A shot of her breast-feeding in a hooded faux sable coat is perhaps the most poignant. “Everything in this photo is fake,” LaChapelle said. “The fur, the baby, everything. But Amanda’s tears are real.”
    Towards the end of the tour, LaChapelle got emotional as we reached an image of Travis Scott’s Astroworld album art, and the ensuing concert tragedy last November, when 10 people died being crushed in the crowd.
    “They had taken my gold heads and painted them into skulls without permission, without asking,” LaChapelle said of the festival’s decorations, which he helped design. “The love of money is the root of all evil… all of that greed. That’s what killed those kids. And [then] they had to walk through a skull and see all this dark imagery. If imagery doesn’t matter, then why bother doing it at all? If art doesn’t have impact then why bother with it at all?”
    After the preview, we briefly sat down with the artist at the gallery’s Veronika restaurant to discuss the show and his work over the years.
    Fly On My Sweet Angel Fly on to the Sky (1988, Farmington, Connecticut). Photo: © David LaChapelle, courtesy of Fotografiska New York.
    The celebrity aspect of the show was pretty low-key. When people think of you, they often think of images like Eminem holding a stick of dynamite.
    That’s why its on the wall of the restaurant! It was a part of my life for a long time. I had that book called Lost and Found. There was a bit of getting lost after finding out that I didn’t have HIV around 1994. It coincided with suddenly getting contracts with Conde Nast Traveler, Vanity Fair, and Details.
    I threw myself into that world, became a workaholic, and got lost. I really felt it was time to stop. And when I was young, I prayed for a cabin in the woods inside my little squat on 3rd Street. I’ve got that now.
    It’s funny that your “wandering in the desert” period consisted of fortune and fame. You chose to leave fashion behind. 
    I was questioning this idea of happiness coming with the next purchase. I knew it wasn’t true, yet I was working in a world where that was the promise. That was a paradox.
    Listen to Her (1986, New York). Photo: © David LaChapelle, courtesy of Fotografiska New York.
    So much about your work is showing different versions and definitions of beauty. I was surprised that at the root of so much of your work was a rumination of death.
    I don’t fear death, but I have been aware of it for a long time. I feared it a lot when I was a kid. My first boyfriend died of AIDS when I was 21. I didn’t go to a doctor for 15 years. Then, I had experiences that really lead me to believe that there is life after death.
    I know that there’s something more than the material plane. I’m not afraid of death anymore. I want to live—as best I can and do the best pictures I can, because art does mean something. Images do mean something. And this was what I knew I was gonna do since I was a little kid. I was gonna be an artist.
    I didn’t know I was gonna be a photographer, but I knew I was gonna be an artist. That’s been a calling, and I want to make pictures that mean something, not just look good.
    “Make Believe” is now on view at Fotografiska New York, 281 Park Avenue South. Admission is $20-$30. Monday to Sunday, 9 a.m.–9 p.m.

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    in Exhibitions

    U.K. Artist Marcus Coates Worked With People Recovering From Mental Illness to Create Films Capturing Their Experiences of Psychosis

    In a new commission by the U.K. public art producer Artangel, the artist Marcus Coates investigates the stigma around mental illness with a new body of films now showing in London.
    The films show Coates exhibiting five different types of psychosis, from intense anxiety, to isolation, delusion, depression and exhaustion. Each was directed by a different person recovering from mental illness, and shares their personal story. In one of the films, Coates experiences vivid hallucinations while riding on a bus. In another, his anxiety becomes so crippling he is unable to go downstairs to fetch a pack of cigarettes.
    To help understand the experience of psychosis for the films, Coates started his research in 2017, with visits to the clinic of Dr. Isabel Valli, in Maudsley Hospital in south London, the country’s largest mental health institution. There, the artist sat in the doctor’s waiting room and made notes, eventually gaining the trust some patients, who agreed to help Coates make his films in order to counter preconceptions about people with mental illness.  
    Installation view of The Directors—Lucy (2022). Photo: Hugo Glendinning.
    Coates told Artnet News in a phone call that he thinks his work ultimately can help foster a “greater understanding and compassion” towards people with mental illness. “I learned from this experience that everyone has a different reality. At the core of my work is a struggle to relate,” he said. 
    “At a certain level, my new films are an extension of these elements—anthropological, participatory, but also poetic and compassionate,” Coates added. “Art can be a useful tool in reducing the stigma around mental health.”
    The films, varying in length from 16 to 26 minutes, are installed in various locations in the Pimlico neighborhood, near Tate Britain. A map to find all five works can be picked up at the Churchill Gardens Residents’ Association building. Screening times are between Thursday and Saturday, from 3 p.m.–8 p.m., and Sundays from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. The project, which opened last Thursday, will remain up until October 30.
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    in Street Art

    “Odenat Buoton” by Dulk in Ecaussinnes, Belgium

    Street artist Dulk recently finish his second mural in Belgium. The artist stated that this piece is his first time painting over a brick surface mural. The piece was painted on a 180 years old school — which was founded by Odenat Bouton who saved a lot of children from the Nazi’s back in WWII.This is my second mural in Belgium, a country where I’m always happy to be back. I finished my art studies there 13 years ago and it’s so special coming back to a place where I grew as an artist after such a long time. Working in this piece has been incredible, since the surface until the great production team from @allaboutth1ngs.Growing makes our personality and knowledge unique for flying to the future.Valencian artist Dulk, Antonio Segura, is one of the most important names in Valencian painting of the moment internationally. His body of work begins to form in urban art and mural painting—to which he remains closely linked today— along with study work, but does not stop there. He continues to research and constantly create new forms of expression through different media, drawing, sculpture or photography among others. True to its essence —with a strong ecological conviction to defend ecosystems and the most vulnerable species— this work invites the viewer to be part of a unique imaginarium, full of energy and with a special sensitivity to colour. A dream world with animals and natural spaces that tells personal, universal and unique stories. More

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    in Street Art

    “Scuba Diver” by Martin Whatson in Tokyo, Japan

    Street artist Martin Whatson recently worked on a new wall in Tokyo, Japan. The mural “Scuba Diver” was done in collaboration with Parco Shibuya and Gypsy Eyes Tokyo.In line with this, Martin Whatson opened “Okaeri”, a full-scale solo show. Approximately 20 one-of-a-kind newly painted canvases, featuring the artist’s signature black-and-white stenciling and colorful and unique tagging, as well as rare posters with the artist’s signature are on display and for sale.Show will be open to the public until October 4th (Sunday) at Parco, Shibuya.Take a look below for more photos of “Scuba Diver”. More

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    in Exhibitions

    Groundbreaking Video Artist Charles Atlas Invites You to Step Into His Busy Mind With His Latest Large-Scale Work

    The video artist Charles Atlas opens one of his most ambitious and complex commissions this week at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. Projected on both walls of the institution’s 100-foot-long Main Hall, The Mathematics of Consciousness expands on Atlas’s recurring interests in science, consciousness, and the workings of the human mind.
    Images in the video are drawn from his past and present work, including his collaborations with performers like Merce Cunningham and Kembra Pfahler, and TikTok videos showing viral dance trends. They drift across the walls like fleeting memories or thoughts, while patterns of web-like structures link everything together.
    “I subscribe to that idea that an artist just makes work. It’s up to the other people decide what it means,” Atlas told Artnet News over Zoom as he was finishing the project in his studio.
    While he confessed he was not sure what the final project would look like exactly, he did hope that it would pull together different elements of the various subjects he has been interested in over the years.
    “I wonder what people will get out of it,” he said.
    The installation, which features a score by Lazar Bozic and a specially designed stage by Mika Tajima where performances, talks, and other events will be held, opens on Friday, September 9, and run through Sunday, November 20.
    Charles Atlas testing the projections for The Mathematics of Consciousness at Pioneer Works, July 2022. Photo: Walter Wlodarczyk.
    What first sparked your interest in this project? Was it the space, or the chance to dig into some of your earlier work?
    I went to see a show at Pioneer Works—I’d never been there before—and I was very impressed with the whole institution. What really sparked my interest was the fact that they had a science division. So I thought, “Oh, this is perfect, because then I can draw on that.” And it turns out, my scientific knowledge is so rudimentary—but anyway it was well supported there.
    Things like quantum theory and cosmology, I’ve wanted for years to have it somehow be more a part of my work, because it’s something that I think about.
    Then Gabriel Florenz decided to curate a show of mine, but we didn’t really know where it would be held. When we had our first discussions, we came across the idea of projecting on the whole wall [of the Main Hall], because I done a big projection in Chicago at Merchandise Mart.
    That was much bigger, like two and a half acres. It took 32 projectors. We’re doing this one with two projectors. And we’re kind of starting from scratch. I mean, [Pioneer Works] didn’t have a map of the wall. So we had to make it, and that took about six months.
    Then we did a test and we had to alter it live with software, so it would fit the wall. It’s complicated.
    Test projections for The Mathematics of Consciousness at Pioneer Works, July 2022. Photo: Walter Wlodarczyk.
    You’ve talked about how this project is your biggest challenge. Is that because of its complexity?
    Yeah. I mean, I thought it would be somewhat similar to Merchandise Mart. But with that, I had a template and I just had to fill it in. And, in fact, at Merchandise Mart, the windows are like little holes in the image. Here, the windows are so far apart, you can’t really make an image over them, and have them be part of a whole. So I had to think about it in a whole different way.
    It’s like 26 individual windows, each one has a certain horizontal and vertical place. So if I have to make any changes, it takes forever.
    And it’s not just that each window has its own image. There are also images projected against the wall…
    And sometimes the image grows from the window into the wall. And sometimes it’s the same image on the wall on the window; often it’s different images, but the windows complement.
    Test projections for The Mathematics of Consciousness at Pioneer Works, July 2022. Photo: Walter Wlodarczyk.
    How did you select the images? I noticed some of your earlier work in there, like videos with Merce Cunningham.
    There are several different categories of images. The ones that are about memory, that’s from my archive, and that’s where Merce comes in. I identified people that I’ve worked with and think about. The show up for less than a minute each, so it’s really just a thought.
    And you’ve got more recent things like TikTok dance trends, which people have really embraced. I’ve even taken a class where I learned the Lizzo “About Damn Time” choreography.
    It’s a big contrast. It’s the current media landscape of dance and media. I have 45 different people doing [the Lizzo dance]. There are thousands of them [online].
    Test projections for The Mathematics of Consciousness at Pioneer Works, July 2022. Photo: Walter Wlodarczyk.
    The work is meant to recreate the hemispheres of the brain, so there’s a right and left. Have you split the images up so one side of the Main Hall is more rational and the other is more creative? Or is there overlap?
    There are some images that are symmetrical and some overall. And there’s some that are about the brain or about neurons, there’s some that are about math and numbers, fractals and stuff like that. There’s some that are about, I would say, connected structure. But they appear on both walls.
    The thing is, from inside the building, you can’t really take in the whole wall at once. When I’m working on my computer, I can see the whole wall, so that’s how I’m composing it. But I realized no one can see it that way. So it’s hard to judge timing and how long something should stay on so people can see it fully.
    It sounds like visitors will be walking into your brain in a way.
    Well, I hope they think that. I just don’t know what people are gonna get. I’m really curious to see what people will think of it.
    Test projections for The Mathematics of Consciousness at Pioneer Works, July 2022. Photo: Walter Wlodarczyk.
    The space will also have live performances, which is always a big part of your work.
    Yeah. Different performances and science discussions on the stage that was created by Mika Tajima. I’m doing a performance just before the closing with my longtime collaborator, Austrian musician Christian Fennesz. It’s a dual improvisation; I’m working on my laptop, and he’s playing music.
    I haven’t worked with him for 10 years, but I’ve wanted to. It just happened that he was going be in New York the day before my show closed. I’m very excited about it.
    Have you two discussed what kinds of ideas you want to explore?
    We don’t; typically, on the day of a performance, I rehearse all day and he doesn’t at all. So we just find out what each of us are doing at the performance. He’s so great, it always works out.
    Charles Atlas testing the projections for The Mathematics of Consciousness at Pioneer Works, July 2022. Photo: Walter Wlodarczyk.
    What do your final days look like as you near the opening?
    Last night, I was up all night, because I have a test today. And I was saying to my musician friend, “God, I feel young again. I haven’t stayed up this late in years.” It used to be my normal practice of working overnight. And with every test, I make new versions [of the video].
    Are you planning on tweaking the projection during the run of the show? Or once it’s up, is it done?
    You know, normally, I’m terrible. I like to fix things, even after the opening. But if it’s an edition, and someone buys one, then I stop.
    And are there any other big projects on the horizon?
    What’s next is a big vacation. I’ve been working on this nonstop for a year.
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    in Street Art

    “Light Up The Sky” by Pener in Olsztyn, Poland

    Street artist Pener recently finished another mural project entitled “Light Up The Sky” which was just completed on the streets of Olsztyn in Poland.Pener has been one of Poland’s talented emerging artists working in abstract and deconstructive style.Bartek Świątecki’s aka Pener work mixes abstraction and traditional graffiti. Great detail and color transitions create a fluid composition with layers and layers of deconstructed form. High art and youth culture, modernism and skateboarding. His images are based around geometric groupings and angular forms which reference futuristic architectural design.Continue scrolling for more detailed images and check back with us soon for more updates on Pener. More

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    in Exhibitions

    In Pictures: A Painting Show at the New Orleans Museum of Art Reveals a Little-Known Side of Artist Louise Bourgeois

    The New Orleans Museum of Art already owns a monumental Spider by famed sculptor Louis Bourgeois. Now, starting September 9, the museum will also present “Louise Bourgeois: Paintings,” the first exhibition of 40 early paintings, sculptures, and photos that aims to give her practice unprecedented context.
    The museum partnered with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to bring the show to New Orleans, a city that held particular significance for the artist.
    “Although Bourgeois never visited New Orleans until much later in life, the city loomed large in her consciousness,” NOMA curator Russel Lord, who oversaw the show’s installation, told Artnet News. “Throughout the exhibition there are subtle references to her interest in the mythic status of the city and surrounding area.”
    “These early paintings reveal how the forms and ideas that she explored later in sculpture were nascent in this formative era,” Lord continued.
    Most of these paintings date from 1938 through 1949—the period between Bourgeois’s arrival in New York City and her departure into new mediums—and trace themes that inspired Bourgeois across eras.
    “The thorough inclusion of figures and symbols referencing her own biography in these paintings demonstrates that for her, art, be it painting or sculpture, was always first and foremost a gesture of personal expression,” Lord said.
    Pieces like the show’s earliest work, titled The Runaway Girl, “can be understood as self-portraits and suggest the artist’s feelings of displacement upon her relocation to the United States just before World War II,” according to a statement from the museum. Others, such as Bourgeois’s Femme Maison series, display early forays into her own nuanced feminism.
    Take a sneak peek at works from the show below.
    Louise Bourgeois, The Runaway Girl, ca.1938. Oil, charcoal, and pencil on canvas, 24x 15 inches; 61 x 38.1 cm. Collection of TheEaston Foundation, New York. Photo by Christopher Burke. © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

    Louise Bourgeois, Fallen Woman (Femme Maison), 1946–47. Oil on linen, 18 1/2 x 40½ inches; 47 x 103 cm. Private Collection, New York Photo by Christopher Burke. © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

    Louise Bourgeois, Femme-Maison, 1946–47.Oil and ink on linen, 36 x 14 inches; 92 x 36cm. Private Collection, New York. Photo by Christopher Burke. © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

    Louise Bourgeois, Untitled, 1946–47. Oil on canvas, 26 x 44 inches; 66 x 111.8 cm. ARTIST ROOMS, Tate and National Galleries of Scotland, Lent by the Artist Rooms Foundation 2018. Photo by Christopher Burke. © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

    “Louise Bourgeois: Paintings” is on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art through January 1, 2023.
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    in Exhibitions

    7 Can’t-Miss New York Museum Shows to Check out During Armory Week 2022

    It’s Armory Week. That means that if you’re traveling to New York (or even just live here and need a refresher), you’re probably looking for a handy round-up of exhibitions to see while you’re in town.
    From Robert Colescott at the New Museum to James Joyce at the Morgan Library, here are seven must-see shows on view now in New York.

    “Raphael Montañez Ortiz: A Contextual Retrospective”El Museo del BarrioThrough September 11, 2022
    Raphael Montañez Ortiz, The Memorial (2019). Courtesy of El Museo del Barrio.
    This exhibition is the first in more than 30 years dedicated to the artist, educator, and founder of El Barrio, Raphael Montañez Ortiz. From painting to photography to assemblages, Ortiz’s work traces the peaks and valleys of American life through the lens of his Puerto Rican upbringing.

    “The Clamor of Ornament: Exchange, Power, and Joy from the Fifteenth Century to the Present“Drawing CenterThrough September 18, 2022
    Artist Unknown, Moyō hinagata miyako no nishiki / [henshū Yamanaka Kichirobē] : [volume 1], (1886). Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries.Call it maximalism or “cluttercore,” but ornamentation is all the rage right now, as even this century-spanning exhibition at the Drawing Center acknowledges. From Pennsylvania Dutch drawings to Navajo textiles and architectural drawings by Louis Sullivan, more is always more.

    “New York: 1962–1964“Jewish MuseumThrough January 8, 2023
    Andy Warhol, Empire (1964), film still. Courtesy of the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, ©the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.
    This exhibition traces a three-year period of seismic cultural and political shifts in New York and beyond. Using the tenure of Jewish Museum director Alan Solomon as a starting point, and the museum itself as an epicenter for “New Art,” the show features work by influential artists who helped define the Big Apple’s art scene.

    “One Hundred Years of James Joyce’s Ulysses“Morgan Library and MuseumThrough October 2, 2022
    A portrait of James Joyce by Patrick Tuohy, ca. 1924. Courtesy of the Poetry Collection of the University Libraries, University at Buffalo, the State University of New York.
    Re-Joyce, Ulysses fans, for the Morgan Library has devoted an entire exhibition to the Irish poet and the making of his magnum opus. Through archival material, proofs, and manuscripts, the show explores Joyce’s lived-experiences and rich imagination.

    “Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott”New MuseumThrough October 9, 2022
    Robert Colescott, George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook (1975). Image courtesy Sotheby’s.
    Robert Colescott’s satirical perspectives on race, the American dream, and beauty are on full display in this long-overdue exhibition that originated at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati.

    “Bernd and Hilla Becher”Metropolitan Museum of ArtThrough November 6, 2022
    Bernd and Hilla Becher, Water Towers (1965-1997). Courtesy Phillips.
    Artists Bernd and Hilla Becher scoured the landscape of Western Europe and North America with a single mission: to document the rapidly disappearing architecture of pre-Industrial eras. Their serialized photographs—which foreshadow a generation of Minimalist and Conceptual artists—straddle the line between record-keeping and fine-art.

    “Really Free: The Radical Art of Nellie Mae Rowe”Brooklyn MuseumThrough January 1, 2023
    Nellie Mae Rowe, What It Is (1978–82) © 2022 Estate of Nellie Mae Rowe/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: © High Museum of Art, Atlanta).
    New Yorkers will get to experience this show, which debuted at the High Museum in Atlanta last year, and which shines a spotlight on the self-taught Georgia artist. Explosively colorful works on paper and a recreation of Rowe’s house, dubbed the Playhouse for its whimsical landscaping and decor, will be on view.
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