Tyler Shields is an American photographer, screenwriter, director, and former professional inline skater known for provocative photography. Shields gained additional notoriety in June 2017 for a photo of comedian Kathy Griffin holding a prop that looked like Donald Trump's severed head.
Shields competed professionally as a vert inline skater. He participated in the 1999 and 2000 X Games and toured with Tony Hawk in 2003.
Photography
Shields has exhibited several series of photographs. In January 2016, Vanity Fair featured some of Shields' photographs of Colton Haynes and Emily Bett. Shields' series "Historical Fiction" featured a black man hanging a KKK member. The series covered events as the deaths of James Dean, John F Kennedy, Dr Martin Luther King, and Marilyn Monroe; the first men on the moon; and the break-up of The Beatles. In his 2014 series Provocateur, he had an alligator biting a crocodile bag. Another photograph from this series, "Three Witches," was included as part of the Sotheby's auction in London. His photograph "Bunny" was featured in the Phillip's London auction. Tyler Shields is well known for taking other artists concepts and passing them off as his own Tyler Shields has written two books of photography. His first photography book, "The Dirty Side of Glamour," was released in November 2013 and published by Harper Collins' subsidiary Dey Street Books. His second book, "Provocateur," was published in January 2017. Shields' work often involves images of violence and danger. He collected blood from 20 celebrities to make a piece of art for his Life Is Not a Fairytale exhibit in Los Angeles and also photographed Lindsay Lohan as a vampire for that exhibit. In 2010, Shields photographed Lohan in studio portraits brandishing a gun. Shields was criticized for a photoshoot with Glee star Heather Morris with a bruised eye as making light of abusive treatment of women. His oeuvre has been criticized as copying other photographers' work. In 2017, Shields' photograph of Kathy Griffin holding a "bloody head resembling" U.S. President Donald Trump's face caused an uproar, causing both Donald Trump Jr. and Chelsea Clinton to denounce the act. Griffin later criticized Shields for refusing to grant her the photograph's copyright, as well as the comparatively minor amount of public criticism experienced by Shields compared to herself, which Griffin attributed to sexism.
