Super-sized pix

By Bill Powers

A humongous look back at David LaChapelle

McDonald's did away the practice years ago, but art-book publishers these days seem more than happy embracing the super-sized trend. Helmut Newton's "Sumo" even came with its own display stand. So before rushing out to buy David LaChapelle's "Artists & Prostitutes" – the title a wink-nudge to the trouble people have differentiating the two – you might consider fortifying your coffee-table legs (and bank account), because this limited edition tome (2,500 copies) weighs nearly as much as the price tag.

LaChapelle got off a somewhat glamorous start back in the 1980s as an underage busboy at Studio 54. References to his formative years –including nods to club-goers like Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe, as well as the white horse Bianca Jagger rode across the dance floor – are peppered throughout these glossy pages. But as LaChapelle once told me, "It's easy to crystallize the past. Let's deal with the present. I'm sick of nostalgia."

Hardcore magazine aficionados may recognize many of the photos as reprints from Italian Vogue, Details and Interview – where LaChapelle got his big break. But collectively, the seductive mix of electrified artifice and A-list celebrities (Madonna, Uma Thurman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Eminem) make these greatest hits ripe for a slot in any '90s time capsule.

The surreal quality of the imagery is outstripped only by its hyper sexuality – transsexuals snorting diamonds through rolled $100 bills, stallions zebra-striped with duct tape, and scantily clad saws in spiky high heels.
But can the artful Pamela Anderson nudes that LaChapelle shot for Playboy coexist in the same book that features Jocelyn Wildenstein as an Egyptian queen? Yes, and in LaChapelle's world it all make perfect sense. Imagine film stills of a forgotten Fellini production set in the distant future and restored in beautiful saturated colors.

"I'm doing fantasy", he said. "And it's an honest fantasy". "I've always been interested in the idea of time traveled in my photographs", LaChapelle added. And though his impulsive is to be explicit, he understands that commissions for some publications "can't get that pornographic, so a rocket will have to do."