His new show is the London debut of LaChapelle as the ‘artist’, but his pictures still maintain the kitsch and gaudy, yet delectably captivating, visual style. Scenes of exploitation are meant to satirise the powerful – from the Pope sitting atop a mound of jewels and naked men (Thy Kingdom Come), to the titular The Rape of Africa featuring Naomi Campbell dressed as Venus, surrounded by a trio of black cherubs sporting ‘bling’ arms and armour (in a homage to Botticelli’s Venus and Mars, in the National Gallery only a few streets away). The preparatory sketches, also on show, serve to reinforce his working process and the more message-driven direction his work is apparently taking.

However, anyone familiar with LaChapelle's Rolling Stone covers and celebrity portraits, and his documentary film Rize (2005), about ‘krumping’, a street dance craze keeping many of South LA’s youth alive and out of gun crime, would not begin to question his capacity as an artist. In 2008, LaChapelle also exhibited a premature but momentous retrospective at the Monnaie de Paris that also included several epic prints referencing history painting and represented the damming effects of Western consumerism on third world cultures – he has long been aware of the inherent contradictions at play in his industry, but uses them to his advantage in communicating his critique. The question is, therefore, whether British critics can accept a wider definition of ‘art’? Perhaps this explains why Robilant+Voena show so little of his work, though the selection is a good one.

My favourite is the triptych of Michael Jackson portrayed as a saint, shot in Hawaii just before the musician’s death. American Jesus: Hold me, carry me boldly (pictured), is an uncomfortable reminder of his death and his antagonistic relationship with the media. It also reminds the UK viewer of an incident at the Brit Awards in 1996 – when fellow musician Jarvis Cocker voiced his criticism, culminating in Cocker’s stage invasion, that Jackson was attempting to project a Christ-like image in his performance.

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