Though its music, and use of Mapplethorpe’s photographs and texts by Essex Hemphill and Patti Smith were impressive in their own rights, the performance Triptych (Eyes of One on Another) ultimately appeared cheap, forced, and self-congratulatory.
Patti Smith
Posted inArt
Why Patti Smith Writes
In her latest book, the iconic writer and musician examines belief, friendship, mentorship, and what drives her to make art.
Posted inBooks
Hopscotching Through Patti Smith’s Mind
Smith’s new memoir “records time backwards and forwards” as she skips from moment to moment across the past forty years of her life.
Posted inArt
At 40, Punk Goes to (Richard) Hell
Punk is 40 years old, believe it or not. Now that it’s middle-aged, has punk become passé? Have the few protagonists who survived from the excesses of the era become flabby and bland? No, not necessarily — judging by punk icon Richard Hell, once known as the king of the Lower East Side.
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The Pursuit of Art, 2012
Tomorrow, Patti Smith will turn 66. The day before yesterday, on the 27th, her longtime guitarist Lenny Kaye reached the same age. “We’re three days apart,” Smith announced last week in the atrium of the Museum of Modern Art at her “walk-in” concert celebrating the birthday of the French writer Jean Genet.
Posted inMusic
Fagen’s Critical Catalogue (August 2012)
This month, reviews of Curumin, Tyga, Rye Rye, Waka Flocka Flame, Clams Casino, Patti Smith, The Gaslight Anthem and A Place To Bury Strangers.
Posted inArt
The Dirty Scene of Downtown New York
From artist David Wojnarowicz’s glasses to advertisements for the Pyramid Club in the zine the East Village Eye, signs from Bronx nonprofit Fashion Moda to flyers advertising performances by punk and No Wave legends Richard Hell, Lydia Lunch and Patti Smith, the Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University is no ordinary library. Fales holds the Downtown Collection, an archive of art, books, photographs, videos, objects, journals and other materials from the New York City downtown scene’s iconic figures and art spaces.
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Patti Smith Turns 65
The last time I wrote about the artist, poet, musician and performance artist (i.e. woman of many trades) Patti Smith was to complain about the fact that I’d never heard of her. My rant had something to do with the fact that I spent five years at two different art schools and her name never came up — not once.
Posted inArt
Patti Smith, MoMA and a Revolutionary Year
On December 19th of last year, Patti Smith and Michael Stipe gave a “walk-in performance” in the atrium of the Museum of Modern Art to celebrate the centennial of Jean Genet — poet, playwright, novelist, radical leftist, hustler and thief.
It was also the final day of the uprising in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, which started three days earlier when Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor, set himself on fire and burned to death to protest the confiscation of his merchandize by the police. The timing of the performance and the Tunisia riots were, of course, purely a coincidence.
On December 19th of this year, alone with her guitar, Patti Smith returned to the same place — now occupied by an enormous obelisk holding aloft Sanja Iveković’s golden, hugely pregnant “Lady Rosa of Luxembourg” — to mark Genet’s 101st birthday.
Posted inNews
OWS Library Not OK, Books Destroyed, NYPD Hampers Rebuilding Efforts
After the New York Mayor’s office assured the world via Twitter that the Occupy Wall Street library was “safely stored,” it has become apparent that the statement was a half-truth at best.
Posted inArt
Hey Ho Let’s Go! DIY Culture Takes Over 23rd Street
Thirty-five years after the release of The Ramones’ debut album, a punk attitude has erupted on 23rd Street in the heart of Chelsea during the normally bleak and deserted summer gallery months with the Steven Kasher Gallery’s “Rude and Reckless: Punk/Post-Punk Graphics, 1976-1982” and the I-20 Gallery’s “MAKE Skateboards.”
Posted inNews
Wojnarowicz Update: Catholics United Fights Back, AA Bronson Still Rebuffed, Patti Smith Talks
Fighting the perception that all Catholics are as conservative as those espoused in William Donohue’s Catholic League call for the Smithsonian to remove David Wojnarowicz’s “A Fire in My Belly” from Hide/Seek, Catholics United has begun a petition calling for closer scrutiny Donohue’s organization. Specifically, they target his high salary and his claim to represent the wishes of all Catholics. In the meantime, artist AA Bronson has repeatedly been denied his request to have his “Felix, June 5, 1994” removed from the exhibition, and Patti Smith spoke at the Smithsonian despite controversy.