David LaChapelle: Dear Sonja, (NCMA Winston-Salem); David LaChapelle: Picture Show (NCMA)
With over 80 prints, drawings, and videos across the NCMA’s two locations, Dear Sonja, (NCMA Winston-Salem) and David LaChapelle: Picture Show (NCMA) honor the artist’s journey over the past four decades. This survey includes his iconic staged tableau works and interpretive series, such as Stations of the Cross and Jesus Is My Homeboy.
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LaChapelle was born in Connecticut in 1963 and attended high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. He originally enrolled as a painting student with a reverence for art history. While there, LaChapelle developed an analog editing technique by hand-painting negatives to achieve an abstract spectrum of color before processing film. Through his mastery of composition and imaginative narratives, he expanded the genre of photography, becoming an internationally sought-after photographer and videographer. Overall, LaChapelle’s return to North Carolina highlights the development of his practice and his enduring legacy throughout contemporary art.
Organized by the North Carolina Museum of Art. This exhibition is made possible, in part, by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources; the North Carolina Museum of Art Foundation, Inc.; and the William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment for Educational Exhibitions. Research for this exhibition was made possible by Ann and Jim Goodnight/The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fund for Curatorial and Conservation Research and Travel.
David LaChapelle, Death by Hamburger, 2001, chromogenic print, 40 × 60 in.; © David LaChapelle, Courtesy of the artist