The first thing that attracts your attention on entering the hall of the Patti Smith exhibition entitled Written Portrait is the series of three windows drilled into the wall connecting the two spaces and welcoming visitors. These three holes, and the others that can be found throughout the different exhibition areas, have not been placed there in an arbitrary manner. On the contrary, they have an essential meaning, because they serve as the link uniting and metaphorically marking out the relationship between what is on display: the visual arts (the basis of the exhibition), poetry and music. Three creative expressions that, in the case of Patti Smith, have found a uniting link through word.

Written Portrait is the first Patti Smith retrospective in Spain and begins its itinerary with her earliest drawings from the 1960s, when she began to take her first creative steps. Her drawings, which are at times expressionistic and at other times delicate and intimate, pay tribute to artists like Willem de Kooning, her friend Robert Mapplethorpe, or poets she admires like Arthur Rimbaud. Other examples express a feeling of spirituality through the religious matters being dealt with and that, in some way, are intensified by the presence of a subtle calligraphy that, in some cases, fills the entire sheet of paper. Words for Patti Smith are a vehicle of communication, but they are also an aesthetic expression.

For the last few years, Patti Smith has dedicated herself to photography, with the use of a Polaroid Land 250, a simple technology camera that allows her to capture whatever attracts her gaze immediately. The photos are always in black and white and illustrate her world, her artistic and literary passions and her journeys. They are evocative images that at times display apparently anecdotic objects, but with a special meaning. Domestic interiors, beds, tombs, brushes or typewriters, they all serve Patti Smith to evoke the art or the written word of people like Virginia Woolf, Susan Sontag, William Blake or Arthur Rimbaud. Her photos taken during her trips uncover her interest in monumental European architecture, the everyday pulse of the streets or the awesome immensity of the most virgin natural spaces. The photos that Patti Smith specifically took for this exhibition in the streets of Vitoria and other places in Euskadi take on special relevance here.

The section dedicated to the series about the events of 11 September, a series created after the attacks on the Twin Towers, reveal her most committed side. The series does not allude to Islamic terrorism; but rather it is a sensitive and thoughtful expression on the human inability to communicate and its most tangible consequence: war and violence. The series comprises subtle and poetic calligraphic and serigraphic drawings whose leitmotif is one of the destroyed towers. The reference to the Tower of Babel painting by Brueghel the Elder in the 16th century is inevitable. Language is what differentiates and unites us as human beings, but it also separates us when there is no possibility for understanding. The universal backdrop contained in this intense series makes us think about the similarities it shares with the bombing of Guernica and Picasso's subsequent painting, a historical event and work of art that, as can be seen in some of the photographs on display, have always interested Patti Smith.

The documentation area presents her poetry publications throughout her career against a symbolic background. You can access a complete file of the artist on the computers, with the possibility of hearing her complete discography. There are also various covers of her LPs and singles released in Spain and the USA belonging to a private collector.

Finally, there will be a screening of Steven Sebring's film Dream of Life, a complete portrait of Patti Smith as seen from different perspectives. The series entitled Dream of Objects completes the director's view of the artist, via a series of photographs of her personal objects and various portraits.

Written Portrait is a production of ARTIUM (Vitoria-Gasteiz), Tenerife Espacio de las Artes and Bancaja

Written Portrait. Patti Smith
North Gallery, from 2008 December 5 to 2009 February 22

Curator: Laura Fernández Orgaz
Written Portrait. Patti Smith Catalogue, with text by Pablo Llorca and a curator diary by Laura Fernández Orgaz.
Patti Smith. Poetry. ARTIUM Notes on Aesthetics Collection. Poems selection by Benjamín Prado.

Activities: Presentation and projection of Dream of Life, with Steven Sebring, director, and Patti Smith (December 5); poetry reading, with Patti Smith (December 6).