David LaChapelle: The Rape of Africa, chromogenic print, 52 x 120 in, 132.1 x 304.8cm, No. 3/5
ROBILANT+VOENA 38, Dover Street W1S 4NL London Royaume-Uni
Having consolidated his illustrious career in fashion photography, video and editorial, over the past few years LaChapelle has focused solely on his interest in fine art, producing acclaimed series such as Deluge and Jesus is My Homeboy (shown at R+V in 2008). The Rape of Africa continues his thinly veiled critique of western consumerism by making apparent its effects on the African continent through references to conquest and plunder, child soldiers, unethical gold and diamond mining, and the commodification of African beauty. Drawing on Sandro Botticelli’s iconic Venus and Mars (housed at the National Gallery, London) for inspiration, LaChapelle subverts an apparently glitzy, bold and glamorous image to give us a very disturbing reality.
The Rape of Africa will be exhibited alongside other important works inspired variously by models from art history to contemporary celebrity, as well as preparatory drawings for the main work, demonstrating the complexity of the artist’s process. Recent works such as The Birth of Venus, also inspired by Botticelli, and Fleurs du Mal, referencing Baudelaire’s ‘Flowers of Evil’, were shot on location in Hana, Hawaii, the artist’s home. The inspiration which the artist has found in the epic glory of the natural landscape is very clear and represents a departure from his previously more ‘styled’ work. The bucolic Garden of Eden landscapes sing with Arcadian simplicity and heighten the poetry of each image, creating a precious world of surprising emotional honesty. Yet at second glance we notice that cheeky little reminders of contemporary consumer society are scattered within. This inherent dialectic reinforces our understanding of LaChapelle’s preoccupation with using beauty and glamour to explore difficult or controversial subject matter, to dig deeper below the surface.