'Vanishing Act' at VISU Art Basel 25
- Johnny Byrne
- Nov 6
- 3 min read
VISU Contemporary announces its new exhibition for 2025 featuring works by internationally acclaimed photographer David LaChapelle. The expansive presentation, titled “Vanishing Act,” curated by VISU Contemporary gallery owner Bruce Halpryn, will be on display from November 29, 2025 through January 31, 2026, and will feature over 30 significant photographs from the artist’s career, including the world premiere of 9 new works.
LaChapelle, whose career spans over four decades, continues to confront the paradoxes of beauty and decay, artifice and authenticity, with a unique visual language that merges theatricality, spirituality and social critique. “Vanishing Act” gathers landmark works from across his career alongside new and never-before-seen pieces that reflect the deepening urgency of his practice today.
Highlights of the exhibition include the world premiere of the following works:
● Will the World End in Fire, Will the World End in Ice (2025)
Over the past three decades, LaChapelle has explored the tension between nature and civilization through meticulously staged still-life photography. In series like Seismic Shift (2012) and Aristocracy (2014), he depicted symbols of wealth, flooded museums and deserted private jets, undone by environmental or societal collapse. This narrative evolved in Gas (2014), where overgrown forests reclaim abandoned fuel stations, and deepened with Spree (2020), a haunting image of a cruise ship frozen in an arctic seascape. Inspired by Shackleton’s doomed expedition and the unchecked growth of the cruise industry, Spree eerily mirrored the onset of the global pandemic, completed just days before lockdowns and no-sail orders took effect. In 2025, LaChapelle revisits this world in Will the World End in Fire, Will the World End in Ice, capturing the same vessel now illuminated by a haunting sun.
● Negative Currency (1990-2025)
In this ongoing series, LaChapelle transforms global banknotes into glowing, negative icons that appear more like precious gems than instruments of commerce. Originally inspired by Andy Warhol’s One Dollar Bill (1962), The newest additions feature currencies from Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea. These luminous new works highlight the tension between value and image, reminding us that societies, like individuals, must continually adapt in order to survive and to reimagine value beyond the purely economic.
“Vanishing Act” arrives at a moment of global uncertainty and cultural introspection. With his singular ability to create narratives that blend theatricality and intimacy, LaChapelle presents a visual archive of a world in flux, where beauty meets crisis, and spirituality finds space within the chaos. The exhibition reflects on what we’ve built, what has disappeared, and what remains sacred.
“For a young gallery in Miami Beach to be presenting new, world-premiere works by David LaChapelle is nothing short of extraordinary,” said Bruce Halpryn, owner and curator of VISU Contemporary. “Our
mission has always been to showcase cutting-edge, thought-provoking art that resonates with today’s cultural pulse. To be one of two galleries representing LaChapelle’s work in the Americas is a tremendous honor, and speaks to Miami’s growing stature as an art world capital.”
LaChapelle will be available for select press interviews in person at the gallery from Wednesday, December 3, through Saturday, December 6, with virtual opportunities available before, during and post Miami Art Week.
The free and public grand opening with David LaChapelle will be held on Friday, December 5, 2025, from 6-9 p.m., with additional press preview opportunities available earlier in the week.