Hello, Patti Smith. You’ve curated a selection of your own work alongside that of other photographers for the Gagosian Gallery stand at Paris Photo. How would you define your work, for anyone not familiar with it?
In one sense I would say they are similar to 19th amateur photographs, but if I wanted to say it more personally, I would say they are like a visual diary of my travels. Technically my photographs are all polaroids taken on a Land 250, intentionally printed as gelatin silver prints without gloss, to give a sense of having been done with graphite.
How would you describe their mood? Are they dark?
No, I’m relatively a happy person. When I take a picture I love, there is a certain amount of joy in that, but there are also many hours of frustration and failure. My camera is a Land 250, a lot more limited than a cell phone, but its idiosyncrasies and the polaroid film create a certain atmosphere.
Are they a visual reflection of your music?
No, quite the opposite, in some ways, it’s me getting away from music. When I’m touring, sometimes I’ll tour 35 or 40 countries in 55 days and when I’m performing, I have to collaborate with my musicians, my technicians, it’s a very public, extroverted way to express oneself, more of a collaboration. I like to take an hour or two by myself and steal away with my camera, to have a moment of respite from that responsibility and just take pictures on my own. I would say my pictures are more literary, they are more from a writer’s mind than a musician’s mind.
Are there any photographs in the exhibition that have particular importance for you?
I like the picture of Robert Bolaño’s chair, it’s the chair in which he sat to write his masterpiece, 2666; and also the picture of the river Ouse in North Yorkshire, England, where Virginia Wolf took her own life. I don’t consider myself a great photographer, but I like my polaroids. When I spend a lot of time domestic or parental tasks, one good photograph can make me feel like “yes, I did good work today”.
How did you choose the pieces from the other artists to present in dialog with your own, here?
I curated this as the writer in me, not as a musician or an artist or performer, I tried to find an inner narrative in a visual way. I chose some because there was an atmosphere that I aspire to, or because of the subject, like the pictures of powerful men like Ezra Pound and William Burroughs, by Richard Avedon. There is also a theme of flowers running through the exhibition, in the pictures by Balthus, Sally Mann and a very powerful photograph by Taryn Simon.
There is only one photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe in the show, a portrait that he took of you.
He’s really here just to say hello, and to be part of it. I’m sure if he were still here, he’d want to be here today. There’s photograph I took of his slippers that speaks of him and he took this one of me, of course, in this way we’re both here, as I always loved collaborating with Robert.
What did you learn from Robert Mapplethorpe?
He taught me to have confidence in myself, to believe in myself. We met at 20, I wanted to be an artist, but wasn’t sure if I was good enough. Robert knew he was an artist, he never doubted he was an artist. He never said he wanted to be an artist, he only said he was an artist and he would not rest until I found the withal to not doubt myself. That was the gift he gave me, even now, if I doubt myself or wonder if I’m on the right track, I think of him and I get my courage and my self-esteem back.
What makes a good picture?
I might see many magnificent photos then one very simple, humble picture that touches me. It could be the composition, or the subject. In one of the other booths today for example, they had a photo of a young girl by Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice in Wonderland, I was deeply touched to see this picture, I loved it. There are also beautiful photographs taken by NASA of the moon, there are so many wonderful pictures here. Sally Mann took a beautiful picture of Cy Twombly’s studio, so you can see all the mess, the energy and the distilled chaos of the painter as he’s working.
Who do you admire as a photographer?
Currently I like Michael Ackerman, Jem Cohen, I love Brancusi’s photographs, I’ve seen the photographs Picasso would take and do paintings from them; Balthus, Irving Penn, Robert Mapplethorpe and Judy Linn... There is lovely work by Deborah Turberville in this exhibition, also wonderful Avedons and Man Rays - I just love photography.
Finally, what is your definition of beauty?
Beauty should never be defined, it’s everywhere. A street urchin might be beautiful, but also the wife of Irving Penn in his fashion photographs of the 1950s, I love her. Robert Frank showed us beauty in the streets, in the subway, Diane Arbus showed us beauty in the mental ward. You find it sometimes in a gesture of kindness, that’s so beautiful. Genius mathematicians, when they do a theorem that none of us can understand, what do they say? “It was a beautiful equation”, they see their mathematical equations as a thing of beauty. It really is wherever you want to see it.
