Patti Smith Rocks at Art Basel Miami Beach
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Previews
- Published on Tuesday, 24 November 2009 21:14
- Written by FFTraveler Staff
An artist, poet, performer and cultural icon, Smith’s passionate engagement with the world has led her to diverse forms of expression. Whether in images, words, or music, her works remain intricately connected, despite the diversity of forms. Her subjects and themes are simultaneously, or by turns, political, spiritual and metaphysical. Smith’s oeuvre encompasses irreverence and solemnity, defiance and tenderness, the elegiac and the celebratory, constantly returning to homage to her creative heroes. This booth seeks to engage with this important theme in her work and will include a large selection of Smith’s drawings and photographs.
In 2008, Smith was the subject of Patti Smith Land 250 at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporaine, Paris, and Written Portrait - Patti Smith at Artium Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. Strange Messenger: The Work of Patti Smith, a 300-work retrospective, was organized by The Andy Warhol Museum in 2005 and traveled to numerous venues including the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, and the Museum Boijsman Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
Her work has also been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum Eki, Kyoto; Haus der Kunst, Munich; the Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels and the Pompidou Center in Paris.
Smith’s latest book, Just Kids, a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel in the late sixties and seventies, is scheduled to be released in January 2010 by Harper Collins.
Her 1975 album Horses, established Smith as one of most original and important musical artists of her generation and was followed by nine releases, including Radio Ethiopia; Easter; Dream of Life; Gone Again; and Trampin'.
Patti Smith: Dream of Life, a documentary film by fashion photographer and filmmaker Steven Sebring, was released by Palm Pictures in September of 2008 and will receive its television premiere on the PBS series P.O.V. on December 30, 2009. A collaborative project with Steven Sebring entitled Objects of Life will open at Robert Miller Gallery on January 6, 2010 soon after the film airs.
Also on view will be an important early painting by Jackson Pollock, Naked Man (ca, 1938-41), photographs by the poet and artist Victor Hugo, pastels by Joan Mitchell, photographs by Brâncuşi, two important paintings by Lee Krasner, and a set of Cy Twombly’s iconic Roman Notes (1970). Two double portraits by Diane Arbus, another influence, are of figures that Smith has referenced in her art and are taken in Arbus’ classic style. Finally, the booth will also include a selection of important early works and later portraits by Robert Mapplethorpe, Smith’s longtime friend and collaborator.
Patti Smith: Homage
a thematic exhibition of poet/rocker Patti Smith
Robert Miller Gallery
Art Basel Miami Beach 2009
December 3 – 6, 2009
Booth BO3