Patti Smith: Camera Solo
An exhibition of photographs by Patti Smith at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, CT, from October 21st 2011 - February 19th 2012.
A new publication of Woolgathering Publisher information: "In this small, luminous memoir, the National Book Award–winner Patti Smith revisits the most sacred experiences of her early years, with truths so vivid they border on the surreal. The author entwines her childhood self—and its "clear, unspeakable joy"—with memories both real and envisioned from her twenties on New York's MacDougal Street, the street of cafés. Woolgathering was completed, in Michigan, on Patti Smith's 45th birthday and originally published in a slim volume from Raymond Foye's Hanuman Books. Twenty years later, New Directions is proud to present it in an augmented edition, featuring writing that was omitted from the book's first printing, along with new photographs and illustrations."
Outside Society - a compilation album out now
Release information: "Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee, Patti Smith's first career-spanning single CD collection, OUTSIDE SOCIETY, contains 18 signature songs, remastered from all ten of Smith's studio albums. The chronologically arranged tracks move from her 1975 debut album, Horses ("Gloria", "Free Money"), through her last release in 2007, Twelve ("Smells Like Teen Spirit"). The liner notes features brief recollections of each song written by Patti, who personally supervised the song choices."
Patti Smith and Kronos Quartet win Polar Music Prize
BBC News (May 3rd 2011): "King Carl XVI Gustaf will present each act with their one million kronor (£100,000) prize at a gala ceremony in Stockholm on 30 August. Previous winners include Sir Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder and composer Ennio Morricone.The Royal Swedish Academy of Music praised musician and poet Smith, 64, for "devoting her life to art in all its forms". "Patti Smith has demonstrated how much rock'n'roll there is in poetry and how much poetry there is in rock'n'roll. "She has transformed the way an entire generation looks, thinks and dreams," the academy added.
Rundgren Radio with Lenny Kaye on April 26th 2011
"Lenny Kaye is an American guitarist, composer and writer who is best known as a member of the Patti Smith Group. He will be a camp counselor at Todd Rundgren's upcoming "TR's Musical Survival Camp" this June."
Patti Smith at Archives of American Art on May 17th 2011
"In a special evening benefiting the Archives of American Art, artist, poet, and musician Patti Smith will give a performance featuring artists’ love letters from the Archives’ collections."
Yoko Ono and Friends. To Japan with Love. Benefit for Japan March 29th 2011
Michael Stipe & Patti Smith’s “walk-in performance” at MoMA
Consequence of Sound: "While you were watching the Giants’ 4th quarter collapse to the Eagles, Patti Smith and R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe made a trip to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, where they honored the 100th birthday of French writer/political activist Jean Genet with a “walk-in” performance in the middle of the museum. Stipe opened with a cover of David Bowie’s song about Genet, “The Jean Genie”, before Smith dropped a 20-minute improvisation of Genet’s biography. "
Patti Smith's Just Kids is the 2010 National Book Award Winner for nonfiction
National Book Foundation has awarded Patti Smith's Just Kids with the 2010 National Book Award. "In Just Kids, Patti Smith’s first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers 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. An honest and moving story of youth and friendship, Smith brings the same unique, lyrical quality to Just Kids as she has to the rest of her formidable body of work—from her influential 1975 album Horses to her visual art and poetry. "
The New York Times about the award: "Accepting the award to applause and cheers, Ms. Smith — clearly the favorite of the night — choked up as she recalled her days as a clerk in the Scribner’s bookstore in Manhattan. “I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf,” she said. “Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don’t abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.”
New album due out in 2011
Spinner: "Between promotional duties for her memoir 'Just Kids,' rock icon Patti Smith found time to record her 11th studio album, which is due out in 2011. Sessions took place in Italy and France, with a bulk of the recordings done at New York's famed Electric Lady Studio. (--) The new batch of material does have a title, but Smith's mum on that. "It's a secret," she says. "I'm old fashioned. Everyone says people don't do that anymore, but for me, that's still part of the excitement: to keep some things secret and wait for when it's time."
Just Kids, a 2010 National Book Award Finalist
"In Just Kids, Patti Smith’s first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers 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. An honest and moving story of youth and friendship, Smith brings the same unique, lyrical quality to Just Kids as she has to the rest of her formidable body of work—from her influential 1975 album Horses to her visual art and poetry."
John Lennon 70th tribute concert to be held in NYC
Reuters (September 14th 2010): "Among the musicians slated to pay tribute to the former Beatle at the November 12 concert at New York's Beacon Theater are Jackson Browne, Patti Smith, Cyndi Lauper, Aimee Mann and Shelby Lynne. The concert is one of several events and parties being held in New York and around the world to honor what would have been Lennon's 70th birthday on October 9."
Art exhibition: Patti Smith & Christoph Schlingensief
"Like Christoph Schlingensief in his expressionistic and experimental photographs, Patti Smith consciously employs the out-of-focus effect and suggestive details. The lyrical photographs of Patti Smith and Christoph Schlingensief complement each other, their work is about the archaeology of seeing." Until September 18th 2010 at Galerie Sonja Junkers in Munich, Germany.
Miami Book Fair
Patti Smith will be appearing at the Miami Book Fair on November 19th 2010.
Steven Sebring's documentary Patti Smith: Dream of Life up for primetime Emmy
Tonic: "Smith is an important fixture in American culture. She is a singer, poet, activist and mother. Yet Sebring felt documenting her life, as the woman who encompasses all of these aspects, was important enough to spend years creating. "Life is an adventure of our own design intersected by fate in a series of lucky and unlucky accidents," Smith says in the film. "I had in mind to become an artist, poet, and through that pursuit I found the root of my voice."
Patti Smith confesses love of Lorca's poetry
ThinkSpain: “I have always enjoyed reading him and I've learnt a lot about improvisation and on-scene presence, thanks to him.” Patti Smith, who currently works as 'advisor' to Johnny Depp in his production of a film about Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, has been performing tracks from her most recent studio album, Twelve, released in 2007."
Letter From Paris: Patti Smith and Just Kids
Huffington Post: "It's important for them to read this record of your and Robert's life as artists growing up together and of this transforming crack of time in New York when young women and men came to our greatest American city and soared like eagles in the sky before flying too close to the sun, burning their wings, and falling to the earth dying or dead. A generation of genius lost...not forgotten."
Documentary: "Patti Smith: Long for the City"
"Patti Smith and her poetry wind their way through the streets of New York City, as she voices her thoughts on her neighbourhood and her life." Duration nine minutes. Included in the programme of Melbourne International Film Festival in July 22nd - August 8th 2010.
Patti Smith by Joseph O'Connor: "My hero"
The Guardian: "She has been a poet, an acclaimed photographer, a memoirist, a mother, perhaps the last truly uncompromised artist in rock music"
"How Peter Pan inspired Patti Smith to write a children's classic"
Evening Standard: "Her thoughts have turned to writing her own story for posterity after the success of her memoir, Just Kids. "It has inspired me to keep writing," she said. She has a sequel planned and a book of travels but her ambition is to write a children’s classic. "I want to write a book like Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland or Pinocchio, a classic like the books I loved. That’s my life goal.""
Anniversary of accident marked at rock festival
New York Times: "The annual Roskilde music festival began in Denmark on Thursday with a memorial to mark the 10th anniversary of an accident in which nine people were killed during a concert performance, The Associated Press reported. Patti Smith threw nine roses to the crowd as Lenny Kaye, her longtime bandmate, read the names of the concertgoers who were killed."
"Patti Smith’s Punk Screams Shatter Peace in Hyde Park"
Bloomberg: "It was meant to be a lazy evening of thoughtful folk music in a London park. That was until Patti Smith and her band delivered 90 electric minutes of taut punk rock, incisive anger and guitar- driven beat poetry."
"Patti Smith knows how to walk into a room"
Mike Hoolboom / Ryeberg Curated Video about Patti Smith on “Kids are People Too” (circa 1979): "Patti makes her way to the piano massacre without missing a beat. The keyboard player is in one time signature, while Patti is in another. I want to say that she’s singing from her heart, but she’s not. She’s singing from her whole body. The whole body at once is the teacher. Still that little girl from New Jersey playing in the patch. She forgets the words, she skips a verse. She holds the lines too long, she can’t hit the notes, and in her mistakes, in her necessary fragility and failures, she makes the song human again. She makes me human again."
Oscilloscope to lunch with “Burroughs” this fall
IndieWire: "Oscilloscope has picked up North American rights to Yony Leyser’s doc “William S. Burroughs: A Man Within.” The 2010 Slamdance Film Festival debut is a portrait of the Beat figure featuring never-before-seen archival footage of the author of Naked Lunch. Oscilloscope will release the film theatrically in the Autumn of 2010 followed by a DVD and digital release."
"Featuring interviews with colleagues and confidants including John Waters, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Gus Van Sant, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Sonic Youth, Laurie Anderson, Amiri Baraka, Jello Biafra, and David Cronenberg, the feature is described as a “probing, yet loving look at the man whose works at once savaged conservative ideals, spawned countercultural movements, and reconfigured 20th century culture.” Peter Weller narrates the film, with a soundtrack by Patti Smith & Sonic Youth."
