Patti Smith
Photo by Jean Baptiste Mondino
The Fondation Cartier is hosting a major solo exhibition of the visual work of American artist and performer Patti Smith. Drawn from pieces created between 1967 and 2007, it strives to provide an insight into her lyrical, spiritual and poetic universe. Her expressive voice serves to magnify the installations created specifically for the exhibition: a synthesis of photographs, drawings and films.
While the name Patti Smith evokes an image of a founder of the New York punk-rock scene, she has explored the visual arts and poetry since the late 1960s. The exhibition at the Fondation Cartier embraces the various facets of her creative process. Patti Smith began to take photographs in 1967 for use in collages. In 1995, she returned to photography using a vintage Polaroid Land 250: "The immediacy of the process was a relief from the long involved process of drawing, recording, or writing a poem." Many of Smith's photographs embody significant personal meaning: Robert Mapplethorpe's slippers, Virginia Woolf's bed, Hermann Hesse's typewriter and Arthur Rimbaud's utensils. Others serve as a visual record of her well-traveled life. The exhibition also features a selection of the artist's drawings, several of which are borrowed from prestigious institutions such as the MoMA and the Centre Pompidou or from private collections.
Land 250
The powerful yet subtle drawings have been executed with a calligraphic sense of line entwined with poetry and text. They represent her solitary side. Her collaborative side is represented in films directed by Robert Frank, Robert Mapplethorpe and Jem Cohen and the audio performance of The Coral Sea with Kevin Shields. She will shoot a short film, specially commissioned for the exhibition. The exhibit also includes cherished belongings taken from her personal archives. Among them original manuscripts, a photograph taken by Constantin Brancusi and a stone from the river in which Virginia Woolf committed suicide.
Inspirations
The source of much of her inspiration has been key figures of French culture, including Arthur Rimbaud, Nicole Stéphane, Jean Genet, Antonin Artaud and René Daumal. Paris echoes throughout, from drawings executed in the Montparnasse district, where she lived during her first Parisian sojourn in 1969, to recent photographs taken in the garden of the Fondation Cartier, situated nearby.
A Comprehensive Project
To reflect the multitude of fields explored by Patti Smith, the exhibition is intended to be a comprehensive project that expands beyond the exhibition space. The Fondation Cartier is giving free rein to Patti Smith to oversee the programming for the Nomadic Nights as well as performing herself, offering solo and band performances as well as informal poetry readings. The Fondation Cartier's bookshop will, for a time, become the artist's personal library. Her choice of books, CDs, films and objects will enable visitors to further penetrate the rich universe of this iconic artist.
BIOGRAPHY
Patti Smith was born in Chicago and grew up in New Jersey. A maverick teenager with a passion for Rimbaud, she moved to New York in 1967, where she met Robert Mapplethorpe. In 1969, the pair moved into the Chelsea Hotel and befriended such artists and writers as Sam Shepard, Brice Marden, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs. Absorbing herself in performance and poetry, she was inspired to create a fusion of improvisation, politics and rock'n'roll. She released her first single "Hey Joe/Piss Factory" in 1974, and along with the group Television helped create a strong protopunk movement at the legendary CBGB. In 1975, her first album Horses, graced with the iconic portrait by Robert Mapplethorpe, received international recognition, including the Grand Prix du disque Charles Cros (1975).
In 1977, a serious accident forced her into a long convalescence, during which she immersed herself in poetry and published Babel. The following year, her drawings were shown for the first time in New York at the Robert Miller Gallery. She also released the album Easter, which featured the single "Because the Night," co-written with Bruce Springsteen.
In 1979, she left New York City and career behind, and moved to Detroit, Michigan to marry musician Fred Sonic Smith from the group MC5. They had two children and recorded Dream of Life, which included the anthem "People Have the Power." In 1995, after the untimely death of her husband, she returned with her children to New York City and resumed her public life. In 2005, Patti Smith was awarded the Insignes de Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Republic. In 2007, she was inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame, the highest accolade awarded to contemporary musicians.
Patti Smith
Until 22 June
FONDATION CARTIER pour l'art contemporain
261, boulevard Raspail 75014 Paris
T +30 (1) 42 18 56 50
www.fondation.cartier.com
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