John Colao

John Colao
Robert Mapplethorpe, Patti Smith, 1976

I recently read “Just Kids” by Patti Smith and revisited this 1976 portrait of Patti by Robert Mapplethorpe. I’m not a huge fan of Mapplethorpe but I find this image compelling. This image is solid, an insistent, raw composition. If a photograph can be considered a work of art, this portrait truly is. Patti Smith was Mapplethorpe’s first subject, other than his self-portraits, and I think this portrait of her is very revealing. Here is an innocence lost. There is intensity. An androgynous Patti Smith as an emerging force, no longer vulnerable. She gives the camera a confident dead on look. The sensuous severity of her body image is presented as if it was taken without thought, yet one from which an elegy could be written. After Robert’s death, Patti wrote in a poem “paths that cross, will cross again.” The relationship between Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe was shrouded in ambiguity. This image captures that. As a lover she became Mapplethorpe’s muse. Earlier, Mapplethorpe often portrayed her as a romantic icon, influenced by 19th century painters. His later portraits of her played an important part of shaping her, a prelude to fame as an emerging poet/performer on the punk scene in New York in the 1970’s, a time when art, music and sex were exploding. This portrait reveals Mapplethorpe’s merging with a more sensuous, provocative style that he later took to the extremes and became famously known for. I was living in New York in the late 60’s and 70’s. I started taking pictures at that time. This image speaks volumes and continues to inspire. Allen Ginsburg composed a poem about inspiration. The opening line states “I write poetry because the English word inspiration comes from the Latin, spiritus, breath. I want to breathe freely.” I feel the compelling part of the creative process is just that, the desire to breathe freely.