Patti Smith
Institute of Contemporary Art
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Strange Messenger: The Work of Patti Smith (Institute of Contemporary Art, September 4 - December 7, 2003) is a 30-year survey of Smith’s visual explorations. Composed of a selection of early drawings, several vitrines of miscellany, a series inspired by 9/11, and a tidy grouping of recent photographs — the show offers additional insight into the creative output of the woman many call the “Mother of Punk.” Smith’s drawings, made in her early twenties (the late-’60s), are competent though predictably immature; they slightly echo Picasso, Dali, and a host of less recognizable, but equally over-exposed aesthetic attitudes. Moving through her career, a more mature vision and style emerges though the changes are not the rapid, accelerated revelations of a totally engaged visual artist – instead, they represent a gradual stripping of influences and a slow integration of Smith’s fascination with the look and meaning of words.

One of the earliest works, Mary had three sons (1967), is an art-schoolish brew of Saul Steinberg, R. Crumb, and Botero. Built on diagrammatic elevation and axiomatic views, the drawing is bound by the restraint of someone consciously “making art.” Similarly After de Kooning (1968) refers to Willem’s iconic works like Woman I, but while Smith’s piece is an interesting homage, it is certainly not revelatory. Considering these early works in the context of New York City (Smith’s home) during this era, one is struck by the works’ rather naive and predictable quality. Conceptualism and minimalism predominated the visual scene at that time and these works would have seemed hopelessly incongruous (early establishing Smith’s reputation as a romantically removed “outsider”). As her musical originality gained cultural traction after the release of her proto-punk masterpiece Horses (1975), she nevertheless continued to pursue her visual work.

Her ‘70s work demonstrates an increased interest in text. All the hipsters go to Heaven (1973) features a large written passage centered on the sheet with another, slightly larger smudged and lightly erased textual area on its right. In both passages, reading is difficult; the letter forms are compressed and idiosyncratic but some words and phrases do emerge alluding to religion and surreal images: “warning prince of angel, angel of death ... (indecipherable) ... and deathless wings ... (indecipherable) ... shaved wings and crystal entrails.” Intentional or not, the handwriting is hard to decode and the readable text offers only glimpses into Smith’s total stream of consciousness.

As it did for many, September 11th, 2001 significantly altered Smith’s work. She made a series of pieces based on the well-known fragment of the South Tower’s skeletal grid that remained after the building’s collapse. In some works, Smith uses this form as a matrix for intricate textual applications taken from a variety of sources including Christian and Buddhist texts and the Koran. In the largest, South Tower I (2001-02), the building fragment is entirely composed of words appropriated from the Gospel of Peace of the Essenes, a text by an ancient Jewish sect of mystics and ascetics. Smith’s anti-war politics, critique of U.S. foreign policies, and humanistic concern for the Iraqi people are the impetus for the text selections, although often, because of the writing style, the words are essentially illegible.

The most recent pieces in the exhibition are textless silver gelatin prints produced from Polaroid originals: an isolated landscape, self-portraits, and still-lifes of small objects — likely things laying around Smith’s studio. These simple images have a diaristic quality presenting intimate, highly personal, and quietly stated views. Completely absent text, many of them say more about Smith and her world than do the more developed and labored textual drawings.