David LaChapelle Makes the Move to Aventura

There was something about Fort Lauderdale in the late 1970s, photographer David LaChapelle recalls. His older sister was there, living the SoFlo life. When he’d visit her, he’d look around and see disco, airbrushing, palm trees, and so much optimism. There was a sexiness to it, he says, and a colorful excitement that still informs his aesthetic  to this day.

For LaChapelle, there was a growing sense that South Florida was the place to be. Fast-forward a decade, and Andy Warhol sent LaChapelle, whom he had recently hired as a photographer for Interview magazine, to cover what he predicted was a growing art scene in Miami.

“It was for the Miami issue with Don Johnson on the cover,” LaChapelle says. “Andy had this sense that something was percolating in Miami, so he sent me down to take 20 to 30 pages of photos of this art scene. I stayed in the Fontainebleau for a little while, then I wanted to stay longer, so I moved to South Beach and got a room for $11 with a kitchen. It was winter, and I thought, ‘Oh this is insane.’ Andy was right. You could really feel that this place was really going to take off.”

Some 40 years later, Miami’s art scene has not only taken off but evolved into one of the world’s most influential hubs for painters, sculptors, collectors, and the like. And LaChapelle, who has made a name for himself shooting painterly—and occasionally provocative—pictures of celebrities like Megan Thee Stallion, Eminem, Naomi Campbell, and more, has now found an ideal headquarters for his global exhibitions and fine art sales in Aventura.

“The art scene here is just the right size, where it’s really vital and international, yet it’s smaller,” he says. “People know each other, which is really cool.”

There’s never a dull visual in LaChapelle’s world—or a dull moment. Earlier this year, Visu Contemporary presented a new survey of his work called “David LaChapelle: Happy
Together,” his first-ever solo exhibition in Miami Beach. More shows at galleries across the world are in the works. Plus, there are the star-studded shoots, including music videos for Elton John, Brandi Carlile, and Charli XCX, to name a few. LaChapelle was also involved in planning an extravaganza involving the French synchronized swimming team for Christian Louboutin’s fall show.

“The variety of work I’ve done has kept my life really interesting,” says LaChapelle. “I like having one foot in the world of popular culture and another foot in the art world. It’s really nice to have this mix; it gives you the opportunity to bring in young people who are coming to your show for the Travis Scott picture, but then they’ll see other things, like my more spiritual work.”

Celebrity and spirituality don’t seem like they should go hand in hand, but in LaChapelle’s photography and life, they’ve become inextricably linked. Born in Connecticut in 1963, LaChapelle was an aspiring painter who worked as a Studio 54 busboy at the age 15. After he was accepted to the North Carolina School of the Arts, LaChapelle began experimenting with hand-painting his photo negatives before they were processed in order to achieve richer colors.

“[When I shot] that very first roll of film, by the end of it, all my high school friends were naked in my dorm room,” he says with a slow grin. “It was nothing erotic. It was all just Renaissance-inspired Michelangelo tableaus, and I was photographing them. And they were all dancers. A lot of dancers went to this school and, you know, it was funny, because everybody was underage, but so was the photographer.”

That photographer returned to New York City (which had become his preferred classroom) and was discovered by Andy Warhol, who hired him to shoot for Interview. Though LaChapelle’s photos for the magazine opened doors to other prestigious assignments, it came at a time when he began losing friends to AIDS. He was leaning into his faith (“otherwise, I don’t know how I would have gotten through it,” he says) and ruminating about how the energy of a 23-year-old could just disappear. Angels and other religious themes began appearing in his pictures, a nod to his soul-searching journey.

“I knew there had to be more,” he says. “I felt that there was more to this life than just the material plan, and I wanted to express that. I used what I could, which was photography, to try and do that. It’s hard for people to wrap their head around the fact that I can photograph pop stars and still do this work that’s religious. They don’t understand it. Maybe at first they think I’m being sacrilegious or making fun of [religion] or something like that. But when they see [the religious photography], they understand that it’s actually very respectful and devout. It’s coming from a really deep place inside of me that I want to express. When they get that, people are really open to it.”

Whether he’s shooting Dua Lipa or his own take on The Last Supper, LaChapelle’s oeuvre is tied together by the ideas he conjures and the decisions he ultimately makes. His process involves bringing the sketches and storylines he imagines to life with Technicolor hues, pre-Raphaelite compositions, and no shortage of edge. His team comprises set-builders, costume-makers, and location scouts, among other collaborators. A LaChapelle shoot is a theatrical production from start to finish, and it’s not unheard of for everyone to clap when the show is over.

By the early aughts, demands on LaChapelle’s time and talent increased, and he says he found himself longing for a cabin in the woods. The volume of his studio’s output was, as he puts it, “insane.” He believes his workaholism stems from the fact that he had dropped out of high school; he admits he was afraid that he would be among the photographers he’s seen who have come and gone.

“I had a lot of expectations that I put on myself, and almost requirements that I demanded of myself, which put a lot of pressure on me,” he says. “I remember praying, ‘God, I really need this cabin in the woods,’ and within six months it was right in front of me.”

LaChapelle’s home in Maui has been his refuge ever since. It allows him to slow down, reconnect with nature and his faith, and recalibrate himself in a world that seemingly operates at light speed. Since then, he says he has become more secure and more relaxed on set, which has made work fun again. In a world where AI-generated images are increasingly common, LaChapelle masters analogue in a way that never fails to look fresh.

“I love the idea that photography stops time,” he says. “Our world is moving so fast now that we’re always looking at screens of things moving. You know, a large photographic image that kind of slows time down for the moment you’re in front of it, or even stops it briefly as you contemplate it? Well, you can tell a story within that image. I still want to express the ideas that I have in my heart about this idea of the metaphysical, of having faith and believing that there’s something else out there, and about the realm of the miraculous. Through photography, I’ve been able to do that.”

Story Credits: