The Orlando Museum of Art is presenting David LaChapelle: As The World Turns from late January through early May 2026. The show, the largest U.S. museum retrospective of the photographer and director, features more than one hundred works created over four decades, ranging from early religious and editorial images to later celebrity portraits and allegorical pieces that explore spirituality, environmental fragility and transcendence. The exhibition includes hand‑painted negatives, film‑based media and behind‑the‑scenes footage that illustrate how LaChapelle’s staged actions become finished prints, allowing visitors to view both full tableaux and close‑up details.
Among the works on view are Doja Cat: Gone with the Wind, which shows the singer in an orange dress on a constructed set with a wheeled horse sculpture, and a portrait of Charli XCX for New York Magazine that features the performer on a rooftop amid bright props. The exhibition highlights LaChapelle’s practice of treating the studio as a stage, scripting scenes, building sets, choreographing movement and using music to set tempo, so that the final photographs capture a moment that feels both rhythmic and dynamic. The chief curator noted that the contrast between intimate early portraits and vivid celebrity photographs is intentional, encouraging visitors to move between detailed and dramatic works.
Press release issued by Orlando Museum of Art:
https://omart.org/news/photograph-or-performance/
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