Subverted Heroes

The cover of Bowie's new album, The Next Day, features the 1977 "Heroes" cover obscured by a white square citing the albumname. The subversion of such an iconic photograph has been the cause of muchdiscussion since its release yesterday. Designer Jonathan Barnbrook explained his creation in anonline blog, available to read in full here.

'If you are going to subvert an album by David Bowie thereare many to choose from but this is one of his most revered, it had to be animage that would really jar if it were subverted in some way and we thought "Heroes" worked best on all counts. Also the new album is verycontemplative and the "Heroes" cover matched this mood. The song 'Where Are We Now?' is acomparison between Berlin when the wall fell and Berlin today, and we wantpeople to think about the time when the original album was produced and now.' - JonathanBarnbrook

The original photograph was taken by Sukita, who discusseshis ideas behind the shoot in his Genesis limited edition, SPEED OF LIFE.

'The photos were meant to have a 'punk' feel. David-san hadasked Yacco to get as many leather jackets as possible and instead of shootingon a straight white background, I included the door edge to break the image upand give a rougher feel.' - Masayoshi Sukita, SPEED OF LIFE.

Sukita and Bowie chose 12 of their favourite prints fromtheir now sold-out book to form the CHANGES collection. Two of these selected photographs have some copiesremaining: LET'S DANCE, and SPEEDOF LIFE, the latter of which was takenduring the "Heroes" photoshoot.

Above: Outtakes from Bowie and Sukita's photoshoot, takenfrom the CHANGES collection.