Product Details
Hardcover
152 pages
Simon & Schuster
Published 1996
From Publishers Weekly
In the afterword to this dizzying collection of his photographs, fashion and celebrity photographer LaChapelle says: "If there's an exhibitionist left who wants his or her picture taken, I'll be there." His pictures of the famous and not-so-famous in outrageous poses and situations bear this out. Following Truman Capote's dictum that "good taste is the death of art," he shoots Faye Dunaway flat on her back on top of a limousine, Tom Jones hanging off a truck in a pink cat suit, a porn star in Times Square on an overstuffed chair surrounded by balloons, naked people piled up in Plexiglas boxes and other bizarre scenes, all in garish colors. It's a matter of pride with LaChapelle that the magazines that buy his pictures?Details, Paris Vogue, The Face, Vanity Fair?love his craziness, and he and his subjects wallow in it. Like children trashing a grownups' party, they smash the furniture, scatter the debris and smear everyone with Reddi Whip and cake frosting, giggling all the while, creating swirls of eye candy that will delight those who cherish style and equate surface and substance. This celebration of high camp comes packaged in a gaudy box designed by Japanese graphic artist Tadanori Yokoo.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Exemplifying the blurring of lines between photojournalism, advertising, and art, these four collections of celebrity portraiture are less a record of high aesthetic achievement and more time capsules of the last decade's pop-culture infatuations. Observed side-by-side, the books highlight the photographers' individual styles and their strengths and weaknesses. Ritts's ability to capture his famous sitters' personalities at the height of expression reveal a self-consciousness in Corbijn's... read more |
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