David LaChapelle is one of my favorite photographers. His style is grotesque, shocking and ironic. The inspiration behind his work springs from elements of art history and street culture, projecting a record of various facets of popular culture today. In ‘The Morning After’, LaChapelle addresses a topic that is a quotidian prevalence in modern society: destruction. In a world of technological innovations, global warming, artificial insemination, and recession, one is constantly bombarded with the juxtapositions of security/ instability, creation/ damage.
The photograph in question depicts two sides of the world combined together. The room in the picture seems cozy and neatly domestic, while simultaneously portraying the overly plastic and tacky décor, highlighting the artificial set-up of the scene. On the wall above the bed we see a representation of Manhattan in all its splendid beauty, where the American Dream reigns supreme and seems within reach. However, the disaster and ruin in the background of the photograph displays, in a starkly literate and confronting manner, the ease with which the idyllic world can crash into a dystopian, apocalyptic nightmare.
An alternative interpretation of the photograph carries sexual connotations, as intimated its title – ‘The Morning After’. The half naked woman on the bed appears threatened and exposed by the catastrophe unraveling around her room. This suggests the awakening following one night stand sexual relationships, or possibly the horror of rape, and the difference between the states of mind the night before and the morning after the encounter. The title also suggests that it can take the space of just one night for drastic changes to occur. The element of surprise in the picture and unexpected dichotomies lend an aura of surrealism to LaChapelle’s work.
The photograph combines two images, which separately do not seem frightening and do not make the viewer feel awkward. It is relatively common to observe the interior of a room with a half-naked beautiful lady on the bed. Observing the chaos and destruction of buildings is unpleasant, but does not habitually inspire immediate shock and distress in the viewer. However, when we see these two opposites combined and interlinked in such a graphic fashion, it is the resulting sense of the uncanny that overwhelms us with strange and uncomfortable emotions. We are confronted with a number of direct opposites that serve to disturb us: the perfect Manhattan skyline clashing with the falling buildings, the coziness and security of the familiar opposite complete and uncontrollable destruction. Terror is the outcome of the alien force intruding upon the sphere of the habitual. Furthermore, the uncanny is intensified by the uncovering of a taboo, in that the private sexual world of the woman is exposed, and shown alongside the outside world. LaChapelle often portrays women as doll-like, vulnerable and greatly objectified. Her state of partial undress is symbolic of the revelation of her secrets and her innermost thoughts are reflected by her exterior surroundings. Both the layers of her clothing, akin to the walls of her bedroom, have unraveled, and she is presented as a victim figure.
Personally, I am hesitant to call this picture ‘beautiful’ however I’m instantly drawn to it as it brings out a number of contradicting feelings, which make me overwhelmed and uneasy, but simultaneously make it increasingly challenging to look away due to the growing fascination and attraction that the image commands.
-Anny Baranova (from ‘The Journal’)
