The Remake: Sean & John and the inverted symmetry

When we saw the pictures of the too-hip-it-hurts couple du jour by Terry Richardson for the last edition of the biannual cultural bible, we were simply blown away by the excellence of the intrinsic photographic qualities. Composition, lighting, framing and even the subtle colour palette all worked together to create a great moment in the art of image making. The portfolio in itself is a tour de force, but when we stumbled across the remake of the famous foetus-like picture of John & Yoko by Annie Leibovitz we just fell once again for the genius of both Purple and Richardson. Re-enactment is a common strategy in contemporary photography. Richard Avedon did it’s own version of Munkacsi. Melvin Sokolsky fashioned it’s own interpretation of Velasquez’s legendary Las Meninas. But this time, ramifications are complex, plural and multidisciplinary in scope. Questions emerge from the choices made by the photographer and the creative direction. The iconography of the picture connects the figure of Sean to the one of his mother. Is there a connection between the mother and son that goes further than the composition? Why is he playing the role of his mother? Is it personality and spirit related?

Our guess? Pictures might be symmetrically inverted in composition, but the ins and outs remain unchanged. The figure of the woman stays the dominant one regardless of the positioning of the bodies. John Lennon looks emotionally fragile and reliant to his wife Yoko, placed higher in the composition and tenderly «looking after» her soul mate. In the re-enactment, Charlotte Kemp is now the woman perched higher and looking at Sean Lennon who’s waiting for the expected kiss. Kemp might be reproducing the positioning of the father, but she looks nothing like him in essence. She’s the femme fatale, the dominant persona of the picture. 

Purple re-enacts a picture, inverts the bodies’ position and keeps the gender-related roles intact. A three steps reconstruction-deconstruction process that reaffirms why Purple Fashion and Terry Richardson are the vanguards of contemporary photography, publishing and fashion.             

Sean Lennon & Charlotte Kemp, portrait by Terry Richardson, Purple Fashion FW09, p.106
Sean wears a shirt by Hermes and pants and bowtie Turnbull and Asser
All rights reserved
- © -
John Lennon & Yoko Ono, portrait by Annie Leibovitz, Rolling Stone magazine
All rights reserved

- © -