DAVID LACHAPELLE

Yet there are some who insist that it was precisely with the work-for-hire that Mr. LaChapelle achieved his real contribution. “I’m well aware that there are connoisseurs of photography and art and stylish magazine editors who don’t endorse his work,” said Jeffrey Deitch, the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. In his last professional incarnation, as the director of the Deitch Projects gallery in New York, Mr. Deitch mounted several shows of Mr. LaChapelle’s photography.
“David exists in this new territory, in the collapse between vanguard and pop culture, and it’s a very interesting space,” he added. “Look at the pictures of Lil’ Kim or Christina Aguilera or the pictures he did of Amanda Lepore as Andy Warhol’s ‘Liz’ and you see that he’s really an important part of image making in our time.”

-New York Times