A major new exhibition from David LaChapelle—the artist’s largest-ever U.S. exhibition; first New York museum solo show; and most comprehensive exhibition to date—will feature more than 150 works created between 1984 and 2022. Starting in 1980s-NYC with existential religious explorations LaChapelle made as the AIDS crisis ravaged his close circle, the exhibition spans the thematic and technical breadth of the artist’s diverse, 40-year career of narrative social commentary, with a “full circle” effect in his newer work’s matured revisitation of his early practice’s religious themes.
In Make Believe at Fotografiska New York, poignant visual explorations including rare and never-seen images dialogue with iconic, intergenerationally significant staples of visual culture: the last-ever portraits of Andy Warhol (1986) and Michael Jackson (2009); intimate 1990s photos of Tupac, David Bowie, Madonna, and Britney Spears; illustrious fashion campaigns featuring Naomi Campbell (and a rare 1996 portrait of Alexander McQueen in a ballgown); and electrifying portraiture of today’s most talked-about names, like Dua Lipa, Lizzo, Travis Scott, and Kim Kardashian.
Filling all six floors of the Landmarked museum building’s 1894 neo-Gothic architecture, Make Believe—Fotografiska New York’s first building-wide takeover dedicated to a single artist, in a space that typically accommodates four to five separate shows—stages LaChapelle’s work in a captivating interplay with the museum’s stunningly churchlike interior.
