For Notre-Dame
An exhibition at Gagosian, Paris, is raising funds to aid in the reconstruction of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris following the devastating fire of April 2019. Gagosian directors Serena Cattaneo Adorno and Jean-Olivier Després spoke to Jennifer Knox White about the generous response of artists and others, and what the restoration of this iconic structure means across the world.
Devotion
Patti Smith takes us on a journey to visit the grave of French writer and activist Simone Weil.
Fairs, Events & Announcements
Honor
Patti Smith
Légion d’honneur
Patti Smith was named Officier de l’Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur by the French ambassador to the United States, Philippe Étienne, on May 21, 2022. Reflecting the multifaceted contours of French society, the Légion d’honneur is the country’s highest order of merit. For two centuries, it has been presented on behalf of the Head of State to reward the most deserving citizens in all fields of activity.
Patti Smith receiving the Officier de l’Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur, New York, May 21, 2022. Photo: Lynn Goldsmith
Public Installation
c.20:21
Patti Smith
January 1–31, 2021, 8:21pm daily
Piccadilly Lights, London
circa.art
Patti Smith will take over the Piccadilly Lights advertising screen in London’s Piccadilly Circus for two and half minutes every day at 20:21 gmt (8:21pm), transforming the 4k screen into a digital canvas. Her monthlong presentation A New Year will combine musical performance and poetry, and feature two live prerecorded events at midnight on New Year’s Eve and January 20, the date of the US presidential inauguration. The project is presented by Circa, a new platform presenting digital art in the public space established in 2020. Circa commissions a different artist each month to present new ideas that consider our present-day world. To watch the events online, visit circa.art.
Patti Smith, A New Year, 2021, Piccadilly Lights, London
Award
Patti Smith
2020 WSJ Magazine Innovator Award
Patti Smith was named the Literature Innovator at the 2020 WSJ Magazine Innovator Awards on November 11, 2020. This year marked the tenth anniversary of the awards, which recognize inspiring talents from a variety of cultural pursuits. The poet, artist, and award-winning memoirist and musician was honored for the indelible mark she has made on American letters and for her decades of revelatory work. Actor Ethan Hawke presented the award during the ceremony, which was filmed this year due to covid-19 restrictions. To watch the ceremony, visit the WSJ Magazine’s YouTube channel.
Patti Smith. Photo: Steven Sebring for WSJ Magazine
Museum Exhibitions
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Patti Smith in
Module of Temporality
February 17–May 14, 2023
Module of Temporality, Kyiv
moduleoftemporality.com
Highlighting artistic perseverance in times of uncertainty, Module of Temporality includes paintings, sculptures, installations, and audiovisual works by twenty-eight artists from ten countries. Soundwalk Collective and Patti Smith present a film installation titled Chornobyl, which was recorded in Chernobyl’s Red Forest—a ten-square-kilometer area surrounding the nuclear power plant—and in the abandoned urban environment left after the 1986 disaster. The project, which incorporates recordings of voices of Ukrainian children from Chernobyl, is a warning about the dangers of nuclear power.
Soundwalk Collective with Patti Smith, Chornobyl, 2022 (still) © Soundwalk Collective with Patti Smith
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Evidence
Soundwalk Collective & Patti Smith
October 20, 2022–March 6, 2023
Centre Pompidou, Paris
www.centrepompidou.fr
Evidence is a poetic, immersive journey through the physical, sound, and visual voyages of Soundwalk Collective as it enters into dialogue with the poetic trajectories of Patti Smith. Between audio, films, abstract images, objects, and creations collected throughout the collective’s travels, this exhibition guides the public through a vast exploratory installation that juxtaposes photos, texts, and original works by Smith.
Installation view, Evidence: Soundwalk Collective & Patti Smith, Centre Pompidou, Paris, October 20, 2022–March 6, 2023. Artwork © Soundwalk Collective and Patti Smith. Photo: Bertrand Prevost
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Mondo Reale
23a Esposizione Internazionale
July 15, 2022–January 8, 2023
Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy
triennale.org
Mondo Reale—organized by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, as part of the 23rd International Exhibition at the Triennale di Milano—includes films, paintings, photography, installations, and sculptures by seventeen international artists. The exhibition aims to explore reality as a reverie, proposing an aesthetic experience around knowledge and its erasure, and a direct, emotional encounter with multiple visions of the unknown through the lenses of art and science. Work by Patti Smith and Sarah Sze is included.
Sarah Sze, Tracing Fallen Sky, 2020 (detail) © Sarah Sze. Photo: Thibaul Voisin
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Patti Smith in
Souvenirs de voyage: La collection d’Antoine de Galbert
April 27–July 28, 2019
Musée de Grenoble, France
www.museedegrenoble.fr
Souvenirs de voyage explores Antoine de Galbert’s passion for contemporary art. The exhibition includes paintings, drawings, photographs, installations, primitive art, and religious and popular objects from the unique collection. Work by Patti Smith is included.
Patti Smith, Susan Sontag’s Grave, Paris, Montparnasse Cemetery, 2005 © Patti Smith