‘SMITH IS AMANUENSIS TO THE MUSES'
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Self Portrait 2001
Amused amanuensis
Alex Kennedy caught the opening of The Work of Patti Smith at the Mitchell library and discovered the artist in the gaps between the icons.
uestion: ‘Did Patti Smith go to art school‘."
Answer: ‘No. she worked in a Piss Factory.’
The poet. the visionary. the artist. the rock and roll star. turned and smiled on the apocryphal badinage at the opening of an exhibition of her work at the Mitchell Library. Glasgow. The work on show spanned almost forty years in the life of one of the most charismatic. respected and consistent artists to rise from the hotbed of self-annihilating talent from New York‘s proto-punk scene in the early to mid 70s.
Patti Smith‘s uncompromising belief in art‘s expressive and cathartic power is seemingly out of time. at odds with our contemporary paranoia and abysmal concern with phoney affect and how to spot it. For Smith. intention and action walk hand in hand. with art acting as an eternal and unbreakable bond that binds the twins together. Like her hero and metaphysical brother. William Blake. art and life are inseparable. their lyrics. poems and drawings the illuminated ravings of holy fools.
This exhibition brought together prints. drawings and photographs smeared with the traces of Smith‘s existence. The passing of Robert Mapplethorpe. Allen Ginsberg. Jim Morrison and her husband Fred ‘Sonic‘
Smith were also recorded here. as was the atrocity of
9/! l. where public and private mounting spectacularly met. For Smith. as witness and war artist. the twin towers became the Tower of Babel. the mythological fount of language: the place where we all stopped listening.
As amanuensis to the muses. her line flickers back and forth between confessional writing and drawing
so that words. meaning and forms become one. A scribble of a face appears out of ‘Manifesto' 2()()l (graphite on handmade paper). for example. where she also writes ‘Creatc a body of work without a discernablc equation‘. So. what we are presented with is a jaggy bouquet of influences. brought together by one agitated hand. Cy Twombly‘s interest in writing and schematic marks can be found in many of these works (‘Panel 3‘. for instance). alongside his early fascination with cartoon-like cocks and balls — ‘Handyman Strike'. 1968. in 'Seeding‘ (graphite and coloured pencil on paper). this is taken to a more hand-painted Pop extreme. where the menstruating female figure stands in a Hockneyesque landscape. amongst ornamental cabbages. dropping her seed hither and thither.
Unexpectedly. Smith depicted herself in a sexualised manner in some of her transubstantiated self-portraits. where her modest cleavage was exaggerated and accentuated with the rouge of a red-coloured pencil. and where her black hair became a bronze nimbus. encircling the delicate face of a Klimt-like manifestation of herself. Beside these pretty posers lurked woman as de Kooning saw her. a hulk of a thing. slathered in pink and yellow ('Great Mississippi Sunburn~ I968). Elsewhere a recent portrait stared you in the eye like a Byzantine saint. And Smith. as elusive and present as ever. was here amongst the relics. walking back and forth between the faithful.
The Work of Patti Smith, The Mitchell Library, Glasgow. Exhibition closed 0000.
Visual Art
* Divided Selves A new exhibition of old and new self- portraits by some of Scotland's most famous artists. The work on show includes painting, photography and installation, ranging from canvases by the Scottish Colourist artist SJ Peploe and a refrigerated installation by contemporary double act Beagles and Ramsay. Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, until Sat 3 June. See revlevv, page 93.
* Material World This exhibition brings together work by some of Britain's leading contemporary sculptors. The 17 works on show have been selected from over 7,000 pieces owned by the Arts Council Collection, Hayward Gallery, South Bank Centre in London. Artists involved in the show includes Sarah Lucas. David Batchelor, Grayson Perry, Rachel Whiteread and Damien Hirst. Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, until Mon 25 Sep. See review, page 93.
* Karla Black As the inaugural show at Mary Mary's new gallery space, Glasgow- based Black's sculptural installation hits the right note. This confident new show subtly employs anti-art concerns and non-monumental materials to examine what sculpture can be, without moving too far away from a traditional, object-based solution. Mary Mary, Glasgow, until Fri 79 May.
* Allen Ruppersberg A multicoloured, celebratory installation by the American artist. This exhibition is created in the usually murky space between installation and conceptual art concerns, examining the influences of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, Beat writer William Burroughs and the Abstract Expressionist (read Beat) painter Willem de Kooning on the artist's work and life. Dundee Contemporary Art, Dundee, until Sun 28 May.
11—25 May 2006 me LIST 91