Jesus Is My Homeboy Official Original

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The covers of LaChapelle’s new books, Lost + Found Part I and Good News Part II. Photograph: Taschen I remembered when I was a boy, me and my brothers and a couple of my friends in Texas would go hunting with our fathers. They’d build a fire, and we’d sit around and the old men would tell stories. Around one of those campfires, my dad once told me, “Never let a man tie you up, ‘cause he can do anything to you once he ties you up. And if he got a gun on you, make him kill you before he ties you up.” I was freaked out. All I could see was blood forming underneath his head on the concrete. I immediately left the scene, aware that my out-of-state plates that read “VAN ZAN” were an easy tell if anyone had seen what had happened. He responded, “This is detective so-and-so. I need to talk to you. We got an anonymous phone call that said you were involved in a robbery a few years ago.”

Someone wrote a comment online when I moved to Maui, like: ‘The person who gave us Paris Hilton and destroyed our culture is now gonna go live in the jungle.’ Did I really bring culture down?!” Well, didn’t he fetishise some of the dumber aspects of it?LaChapelle decided to minimize his participation in commercial photography, and return to his roots by focusing on fine art photography. Since then, he has been the subject of exhibitions in both commercial galleries and leading public institutions around the world. jesusismyhomeboy worn by icon #pamelaanderson , just because your a celebrity doesn't mean you dont have good taste.

For an artist who regularly turns convention upside down, I find it interesting that LaChapelle chose to represent Jesus in such a traditional way—open-armed, stoic, and glowing like a nightlight (and unmistakably white). The choice was intentional, no doubt; I’m just trying to figure out what purpose it serves, because I feel that that sort of Jesus doesn’t fit comfortably into a modern-day context—he’s too rigid and inapproachable. In the photos, Jesus isn’t really hanging with his boys (or with his homegirl, Mary M.). Instead, it looks as if he dropped in from another planet. Any thoughts? Like many of the great masters, LaChapelle has been inspired by the classic nativity scene. While the artwork of Western religious narratives often glorified the church and portrayed Jesus in a more European mien, LaChapelle reimagines that tradition in this image, set in Africa. The apostles were not the aristocracy, they were not the well-to-do, they weren’t the popular people; they were sort of the dreamers and the misfits,” LaChapelle said in a 2008 interview for The Art Newspaper TV. If Jesus were here today, he said, he would be hanging out with the street people and the marginalized: the poor, the homeless, prostitutes, drug dealers, gangsters, and so on. And more than that, these people would have been his closest and most faithful band of followers.Once everything had calmed down, I just kept thinking, ‘Jesus is my homeboy’ saved my life. I gotta do something with that. In 1992, the streets of LA were flooded with angry looters furious at the treatment of Rodney King, a victim of police brutality. They broke windows, stole from shops, and brutalized anyone who got in their way. The only printed silk screen for the “Jesus is My Homeboy” T-shirt was at the printers, and it vanished in the path of destruction left by the looters.It was seemingly gone forever, so Van Zan got on with his life, accepting his misfortune as simply the end of an era. All good things must come to an end, he thought. Jesus is My Homeboy” is way more than just an image.It is an epiphany. A revelation. It was not developed by a big fashion entity focused solely on making money. It was not created to cash in on a trend. “Jesus is My Homeboy” was born from a challenge that led to salvation; an inspiration fueled by a real life situation. When we did, my lawyer said, “Van Zan, tell them your story,” which I proceeded to do. Then my wife went off. She was like, “How dare y’all take his stuff and make it your own? He has nightmares about this.” When she finally got out of breath and couldn’t talk anymore, I said, “I wanna thank you for what you’ve done, ‘cause it doesn’t matter to me how Jesus’ name gets out. What matters is that it got out, and you guys took it to places I couldn’t. So you guys are the messengers — just like everybody who wears the T-shirt — but it saved my life.” Soon after, we signed a deal. I had a friend named Vondell Jones who was a journalist. We would sit around smoking weed and see more and more innocent victims of gang violence on the nightly news. I was like, “We should put ‘Jesus is my homeboy’ on a T-shirt, sell it and use some of the money to help innocent victims of gang violence.” He agreed.

At age 17, LaChapelle moved to New York City. Following his first photography show at Gallery 303, he was hired by Andy Warhol to work at Interview Magazine. A few years later an aspiring fashion designer was poking through a second hand shop, looking for gems, when he came across a silk screen that he was very taken with. He began to produce and sell t-shirts featuring the image on the silk screen, and was very successful. The shirts became an international phenomenon, appearing on consumers from all walks of life. One day Van Zan opened a tattered copy of People magazine he found while waiting in line at the DMV, and he saw it. He saw his shirt.A grinning celebrity held out his chest proudly and pointed with both index fingers at the words, “Jesus is My Homeboy”. Then he saw his shirt on TV. Then, on the streets. Then he knew his message was being heard, and he was overjoyed. Eventually, I got to my sisters’ house. My date had called them and told them I may have gotten jumped, so they were relieved to see me. I guess my date had spotted the scene of the second robbery while driving around looking for me, but she couldn’t see who was going into the ambulance. My sisters had already started calling trauma centers. He got with another friend of his, named Chris, and they started working together making new shirts. Chris was dating a woman who was a wardrobe stylist for movies at the time, so I think she maybe gave the Jesus Is My Homeboy shirt to some people. By portraying them as a group of young men who are often stereotyped and even stigmatized by the clothes they wear, the work shares the sentiment that the apostles were perhaps a group of misfits, joined together with common beliefs and a sense of brotherhood.One moment in a man’s life. One connection made between two men. One message heard around the world. If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help! Essay Writing Service It is, in part, a consequence of having to fine-tune his mental health constantly, and the death of his mother (who, he used to say, first taught him photography) a couple of years ago; LaChapelle is bipolar, but antidepressants do not work for him and he needs to monitor his exercise and sleep to stop himself from slipping into an episode. “You want to ride the part that feels so good because your brain is working fast and ideas come more easily. You have more energy and everything flows, and you’re seeing things from a higher perspective,” he explains. A heavy “but” follows.