David LaChapelle. Good News

A major work and long-term project has been completed: TASCHEN is pleased to announce Good News and Lost + Found, the five-volume David LaChapelle anthology which begins with LaChapelle Land (1996) and continues with Hotel LaChapelle (1999) and Heaven to Hell (2006).

Both volumes showcase hundreds of works by the artist who, like no other, amalgamates quotes from religion, porn, art, and pop history into an unmistakable, highly artificial aesthetic. In his surreal productions and garishly colorful, opulent arrangements, he addresses themes such as consumerism, body fetishism, gender issues, and spirituality.

Good News is clearly in the sign of the sacred, featuring early photographs of naked angels and lovers from New York in the 1980s to very recent images in which LaChapelle's Hawaiian retreat is transformed into a trippy Garden of Eden, with celebrities depicted as saints. Also on display are examples from other recent groups of works such as Earth Laughs In Flowers and Awakened, which reflect the many facets of his art.

In Good News, you can see early acts from the 1980s in NYC, including Pamela Anderson, Lana Del Rey, Sharon Gault, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, Paris Jackson, David LaChapelle, Amanda Lepore, Miriam Makeba, Sergei Polunin, Tupac Shakur, and Elizabeth.