"I saw how the treated Andy at the end of his life. People were awful to him, they hounded him to death. He was huge in Europe and Asia, sure, but at home…" legendary photographer and one-man personality cult David LaChapelle is rarely at a loss for words. He thinks out loud, incapable of or uninterested in keeping secrets: guilelessly an with unnerving generosity picking up the threads of his life story...

Art Review - Los Angeles Times Culture Monster-The Arts David LaChapelle "turning botticelli on his head" By Holly Myers Subtlety isn't a quality one expects in the work of David LaChapelle, and it's not one you'll find in even the title of "The Rape of Africa," the monumental photographic tableau that is the centerpiece of his show at David Desanctis Gallery.

The New York Times, The Moment Blog By Ben Widdicombe
David LaChapelle is using the language he developed as a commercial photography superstar to tell new stories as a fine artist. His latest work, a single large-format image titled "The Rape of Africa," is an allegorical mash-up that makes references to Botticelli...

Everyone wants to live in paradise, but few of us ever make it happen. A few years ago, though, David LaChapelle, an exuberant aesthete possessed of both the warmest heart and most cutting sense of humor of anyone on the planet, figured it out. At the top of his game three years ago, he walked away from it all, turning his back on one of the highest paying, highest profile careers...

David LaChapelle is one of the most well-known and controversial photographers working today, who recently retired from a career in fashion and pop-culture publishing spanning more than 20 years, in order to bring his skills to bear full time on his personal fine art. His much-anticipated new work, The Rape of Africa, a year-long labor of passion and persistence...