LOST + FOUND, PART 1 and GOOD NEWS, PART 2 Photography by David LaChapelle
Prepare to have your mind blown by two new books from LaChapelle. Ten years in the making and published simultaneously, these are the fourth and fifth instalments of LaChapelle’s five-book anthology following LaChapelle Land (1996), Hotel LaChapelle (1999), and Heaven To Hell (2006).
Lost + Found, Part I is a visual recording of the times we live in and the issues we face, expressed through LaChapelle’s signature colour-saturated style and the extraordinary tableaux that he mounts. The images feature a vast array of celebrities, often as you have never seen them before in extraordinary poses, settings, costumes or no costume at all.
Famous faces include Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Dwayne Johnson, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Britney Spears, Uma Thurman and Pharrell Williams.
But the book also has a preoccupation with death and a large number of dead celebrities are also feature such as Isabella Blow, David Bowie, Heath Ledger, Whitney Houston, Eartha Kitt, Andy Warhol and Amy Winehouse.
In Good News, Part II, the emphasis on mortality is even stronger, as the images move beyond the material world in a quest for paradise. It’s a dramatic and highly arresting new body of work with an even stronger emphasis on religious (both Christian and Eastern) iconography, including elaborate tableaux inspired by Noah’s Arc and the Garden Of Eden.
More celebrities are featured including Pamela Anderson, Lana Del Rey, Michael Jackson, Amanda Lepore, Tupac Shakur and Elizabeth Taylor. However, both books also feature plenty of images of very sexy naked (or near-naked) men! The production of both hardcover books is especially handsome. They don’t come with the usual dustcover but in beautifully designed boxes. LaChapelle’s work is so distinctive – the images are dazzling, eye-popping, surreal, futuristic and loaded with extraordinary detail.
The book also has a preoccupation with dead celebrities including David Bowie, Heath Ledger and Amy Winehouse.