Yesterday, Patti Smith’s first major photography exhibition, Camera Solo, opened at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. Smith opened the show, which boasts 70-odd intimate black and white photographs shot with either a vintage Land 100 or a Land 250 Polaroid camera, a multi-media installation, and a video work, with an hour-long performance that doubled as a birthday salute to Rimbaud, her ultimate muse. Fitting, because many of the gorgeous, misty photographs are inspired by artifacts from some of Smith’s favorite artists, from museums she has visited around the world, and many are from her personal life, making the show as a whole feel like a complex view of her world and the things that inspire her. For those that can’t make it to Hartford, or who just can’t get enough, an accompanying book, Patti Smith: Camera Solo , is also slated to come out at the end of the month. Click through to see a few images from the exhibition, and let us know what you think in the comments.
Roberto Bolaño’s chair (left), Arthur Rimbaud’s spoon and fork (right). [Photo via New York Times Magazine ]
“Jesse with Flower” (left), “Fender Duo-Sonic Pickguard” (right). [Photos via BBC]
Constantin Brancusi’s grave in Montparnasse (left), Robert Mapplethorpe’s slippers (right). [Photo via New York Times Magazine ]
Palais Royale, Paris, 2006 [Photo via Vogue ]
Virginia Woolf’s bed (left), Susan Sontag’s grave in Montparnasse Cemetery (right). [Photo via New York Times Magazine ]
Pope Benedict XV’s slippers (left), a replica of William Blake’s life mask (right). [Photo via New York Times Magazine ]
Virginia Woolf’s cane (left), Workspace in NYC 2002 (right). [Photos via Vogue ]
Cherub, San Severino (left), “Jackson and Jesse” (right). [Photos via Vogue ]
“Scripture, Glasgow Cathedral” [Photo via Courant]
“Walt Whitman’s Tomb, Camden, NJ” [Photo via Courant]
Virginia Woolf’s bed, writing desk, and gravestone. [Photos via BBC]
“Jackson Smith” (left), “My Father’s Cup” (right). [Photos via BBC]
“Cross with Mirror” (left), “Paintbrushes, Duncan Grant’s Studio” (right). [Photos via Courant]
“Jesse in Bed.” [Photo via Vogue ]
“My Son Jackson Sleeping,” NYC 2007. [Photo via Vogue ]
Self-Portrait, N.Y.C., 2003. [Photo via Vogue ]