In 1967, Patti Smith moved to New York City from South Jersey, and the rest is epic history. There are the photographs, the iconic made-for-record-cover black-and-whites shot by Smith’s lover, soul mate, and co-conspirator in survival, Robert Mapplethorpe. Then there are the photographs taken of them together, both with wild hair and cloaked in homemade amulets, hanging out in the glamorous poverty of the Chelsea Hotel.
BOLLEN: I think it’s almost part of the romance of creating. As an artist, you kind of have to buy into your own romance a bit when you are making work. BOLLEN: That’s what I like about the book. Even with all of the youthful idealism and craziness, so many of the chapters deal with struggling to survive. You basically showed up in New York with no money and had to get a job so you could eat.
Robert and I were always ourselves—’til the day he died, we were just exactly as we were when we met. And we loved each other. Everybody wants to define everything. Is it necessary to define love?BOLLEN: Do you know why Mapplethorpe wanted you to make that promise? Did he think remembering those early days was important to his work or that people wouldn’t otherwise understand him?
BOLLEN: Did you think those years of struggling—not being able to find places to sleep, crashing in bad hotels—were necessary to become an artist? BOLLEN: There is a certain amount of magic in the memoir. You write about your work and events that involve magic. And I think that fits into this rather magical time of the late ’60s and ’70s in New York.
BOLLEN: What’s very moving throughout the book is how you and Robert took care of each other. And it’s rare that in a relationship between two young people, you both became so successful. Usually the support system eventually becomes unbalanced, and one rises while the other holds on. Would either of you have made the work you did without each other?
BOLLEN: You also say that he wasn’t the kind of person who would shoot voyeuristically. He would get personally involved. BOLLEN: You mention at one point in the book, when you are sitting around the back room at Max’s Kansas City, that none of the people at the table would die in the Vietnam War, but most of them would die in the plagues of the coming decades. It obviously must have been hard when writing this book to look back at all of the people that once were here but now are gone.
fendi
Superb book, brilliant writer ✨
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.