New Work: The Second Coming
The Second Coming: A Contemporary Vision
by John Byrne
Each summer, David LaChapelle dedicates a period of concentrated work to the creation of a major large-format photographic project. In recent years, these projects have included Gated Community, made possible with the support of Brescia Museum; Three Graces, made possible by Bryn Owen; The Divine Comedy, made possible by Universal; and Spree, made possible by Geuer & Geuer. These works have continued to circulate internationally through exhibitions and have subsequently entered important private and institutional collections.
In 2025, LaChapelle Studio approached Deodato Arte with the idea of supporting David’s next major work. The collaboration felt particularly meaningful given the Studio’s longstanding relationship with the gallery and the profound influence that Italian Renaissance art has had on David’s visual language throughout his career.
The project would ultimately become The Second Coming.
The collaboration felt particularly meaningful given the Studio’s longstanding relationship with the gallery and the profound influence that Italian Renaissance art has had on David’s visual language throughout his career.
Isolated figues from Michelangelo's "The Last Judgement", 1536-1541
The origins of the photograph can be traced in part to David’s first encounter with Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. Its monumental arrangement of the human body, figures ascending, falling, reaching and twisting across a seemingly limitless celestial space left a lasting impression on him.
Another important reference came through William Blake and his visionary illustrations for John Milton’s Paradise Lost, in which biblical imagery becomes a vehicle for exploring spiritual transformation and heightened consciousness.
Rather than approaching the Rapture solely as a literal religious event, David became interested in the idea of a sudden moment of transcendence: a passage from one state of consciousness into another. Drawing upon these historical influences as well as his own personal experiences and spiritual inquiry, he sought to contain that moment within a single photographic image.
With the support of Deodato Arte, the ambitious production was realized in Los Angeles.
To construct the image, David returned to a photographic technique he developed through earlier large-scale compositions: photographing an elaborate physical tableau from above.
To construct the image, David returned to a photographic technique he developed through earlier large-scale compositions: photographing an elaborate physical tableau from above.
The perspective transforms three-dimensional space into something approaching a painting, compressing depth and allowing the figures to exist across the picture plane.
Process video, the making of The Second Coming, filmed at David LaChapelle Studio, Los Angeles.
Footage by Luca Pizzaroni, edited by John Byrne.
The central figures of Mary and Jesus were physically positioned on an elevated platform, bringing them closer to the camera and causing them to appear larger in relation to the surrounding figures. This manipulation of actual space and perspective creates a hierarchy within the composition without relying on digital enlargement.
Working with choreographer Kevin Stea, the performers were carefully posed so that their bodies would read from above with an almost two-dimensional clarity. Limbs, torsos and gestures were arranged to flatten against the picture plane while retaining the anatomical strength and physicality associated with Michelangelo’s figures. The resulting composition exists somewhere between photography, choreography, sculpture and Renaissance painting.
Importantly, David chose not to conceal the mechanics of its creation. Elements of the Los Angeles studio remain visible along the outer edges of the photograph. These glimpses beyond the constructed scene deliberately reveal the physical reality of the set and remind the viewer that what they are seeing was staged and photographed in camera—not generated as a digital fantasy.
Gallerist Deodato Salafia during the unveiling of the work in Rome.
What began as a confidential proposal supported by Deodato Arte has since entered its public life. The Second Coming premiered at the Orlando Museum of Art and is currently presented as part of David LaChapelle’s Electric Paradise exhibition in Vichy, France. The work has also been exhibited through Deodato Arte in Milan and Rome.
From Michelangelo and Blake to a studio floor in Los Angeles, The Second Coming continues a tradition central to David LaChapelle’s practice: using the constructed photograph to make the impossible physical, transforming art-historical imagery into a contemporary meditation on humanity, spirituality and transcendence.
Press coverage of The Second Coming in Italian press, La Repubblica.
The Second Coming is available exclusivly through Deodato Arte in Italy.
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