David LaChapelle
He has said to have loved the public schools in Connecticut and thrived in their art program as a child and teenager, although he struggled with bullying growing up.[4][9][13][14][15][16] LaChapelle's work has been called "meticulously created in a high-gloss, color-popping, hyper-realistic style", and his photos are known to, "crackle with subversive – or at least hilarious – ideas, rude energy and laughter.It was staged at the peace celebration of World War II and became one of the first public advertisements showing a gay or lesbian couple kissing.In a long article published by frieze in 1996, the advertisement was credited for its "overarching tone of heavy-handed humor and sarcasm".LaChapelle Land (1996) was selected as one of 101 "Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century" and is "highly valued by collectors".[25][30][better source needed] By 2011, LaChapelle had an exhibition at the Lever House in New York[31] and retrospectives at the Museo Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico,[32] the Hanagaram Design Museum in Seoul,[33] and Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague.[34] In the following years, LaChapelle's works were also exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in LA (2012),[35] the Musée d'Orsay in Paris (2013),[36] Fotografiska Museet in Sweden (2013)[37] and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.[39] Other shows include OstLicht Galerie fur Fotografie in Vienna, Austria,[40] MAC Lima in Peru,[41] Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome,[42] and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Chile.[43] In 2016, LaChapelle's work was shown at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London,[44] DSC Gallery in the Czech Republic,[45] at several venues in Montevideo in Uruguay[46] and at the Edward Hopper House in New York.[22] A critic has noted that LaChapelle's work has been influenced by Salvador Dalí, Jeff Koons, Michelangelo, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol.[5] Richard Avedon noted that of all the photographers inventing surreal images, LaChapelle has the potential to be the genre's Magritte.