Press Release:

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A spectacular anthological journey through 53 photographs by the American artist, from some of his most famous series: Star System, Deluge (Awakened), Earth Laughs in Flowers, After the Pop, Destruction and Disaster, Excess, Plastic People, Dream evokes Surrealism, Art Reference and Negative Currency, along with two tributes to Michael Jackson.

LaChapelle is not the photographer of the stolen snapshot, or the artist with a camera permanently around his neck waiting for an extraordinary event to immortalise, or the reporter risking life and limb to capture the instant before a world-changing event. He is simply the seismographer of his time, an acute observer who succeeds in laying bare the moral failings, weaknesses and hypocrisies of modern man, exposing the true state of play, the contradictions and fatigue of human emotions.

His choice of material, his use of the series, his desire to tell stories in general and his own story in particular, and his practice of creating genuine sets to place his figures in recalls the work of the historic painters, who painstakingly laid out detailed live scenes before capturing their images in oil paint. LaChapelle does not wait for a special moment; he invents and plans it, fixing his intuitions in a sketch or painting an outline in watercolours. Then he sets about creating his own personal set, recreating his mental scenarios and attempting to produce something exclusive: photographing things which do not rationally appear possible to photograph.

Location:
Via della Fratta, 36 55100 Lucca - Italy

Opening hours:
June 29 to August 31, 2012
Tuesday to Thursday, 10:00AM to 7:00PM
Friday and Saturday, 10:00AM to 12:00AM
Sunday, 10:00AM to 7:00PM

September 1 to November 4, 2012
Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00AM - 7:00PM
(ticket office closes one hour before)
closed Monday

Bookings:
T +39 0583 571712

LU.C.C.A- LUCCA CENTER OF CONTEMPORARY ART